Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

I’m not completely happy with how my computer runs GW2 and as its nearly my birthday i was thinking about upgrading.

i have:
GA-870a-ud3
Athlon II x4 640 3.0ghz
Radeon 5850
4gb ram

Ive been told that the bottleneck is most likely my cpu.

I have approx £150-£200 to spend and for that money i can afford to upgrade my cpu to a AMD Phenom II x4 975 black edition, with the intention of a modest overclock.

Alternatively i could try to sell my 5850 and buy a 7870 iceq graphics card.

What would you suggest?

Thanks

If you have £200 maybe save it a little while, And get an intel MOBO and I5 2500k. Should give you a good boost in FPS. Maybe worth looking in to my friend.

OP will also have to buy new RAM as well. Still, saving up is definitely preferable to trying to band-aid your current system OP.

I’m not sure how prices are in the UK but here an i5 upgrade is going to be $450-$550 iirc- that would be for processor, mobo and RAM.

Upgrading your videocard won’t help you much, if at all. Upgrading your CPU will definitely be the longest-lasting upgrade you’ll make.

Thanks for the suggestion. I5 plus mobo plus ram is likely to be in the region of £300. I’m not really able to sit on the money for too long as the upgrade is supposed to be a gift from a family member and i dont want to seem ungrateful by saying im not upgrading til i get more cash.

If i get more cash i would go with your recommendation but for now i think i need to look at alternatives at £200 and below.

Your graphics card – if you hunt around for a second hand XFX 6870, it will hands down blitz the majority of the 7XXX HD series at about 1/2 the price.

Also, If you want a good bundle (Im assuming youre in the UK) try this one :
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-188-OK&tool=3

Jenksie.3409:

Thanks for the suggestion. I5 plus mobo plus ram is likely to be in the region of £300. I’m not really able to sit on the money for too long as the upgrade is supposed to be a gift from a family member and i dont want to seem ungrateful by saying im not upgrading til i get more cash.

If i get more cash i would go with your recommendation but for now i think i need to look at alternatives at £200 and below.

http://www.ebuyer.com/390923-sapphire-hd-7850-2gb-dual-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-card-11200-07-20g

and

http://www.ebuyer.com/288855-coolermaster-hyper-212-evo-rr-212e-16pk-r1

Overclock the cpu.

starblessed.4786:

Your graphics card – if you hunt around for a second hand XFX 6870, it will hands down blitz the majority of the 7XXX HD series at about 1/2 the price.

Also, If you want a good bundle (Im assuming youre in the UK) try this one :
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-188-OK&tool=3

That’s a bad suggestion.
His ram is fine and the bulldozer cpu’s suck.
Even phenom II X4 beats it and thats their own previous gen.

That’s a bad suggestion.
His ram is fine and the bulldozer cpu’s suck.
Even phenom II X4 beats it and thats their own previous gen.

True, but he has a budget of 200 pounds. The Bulldozer CPU has a high clock speed, which works well for gaming, and combined with a 6870, would be a decent gaming machine on a budget.

You cant disregard the fact that its cheap. We all want bigger and faster, but not all of us can afford it. I would rather give him something that would do the job, than try and blow out his budget because I think he needs more than would actually be sufficient.

Any true technician (myself included), will never condone Over Clocking, unless it is a last resort. Over Clocking shortens the lifespan of your hardware, and could potentially destroy your system. ie. money down the drain.

Balance your specifications first. Even out the CPU; Motherboard; RAM and Graphics, then tweak your system accordingly.

Never just jump straight to a CPU Over Clock.

Star

Thanks for all of the suggestions so far. Is the 6870 a huge step up from the 5850? I looked at the comparison on the bench utility at anandtech and it is barely ahead of the 5850. At the moment i’m still leaning towards just swapping out my cpu and getting a phenom, though thats mostly because i dont want the hassle of swapping out the MB.

Is my CPU (the 3.0ghz 640) really all that slow or do you think its the 5850 holding me back. Or is my pc just out of date?

Thanks again

BTW i forgot to mention im running the game at 1680×1050. I have things like shadows, refelctions and AA turned off and most settings to medium. I get around about 30-50fps out in the wilderness and WvWvW is not far off being a slide show.