Guild Wars 2

First post
Anyway i want to upgrade my pc so i can maybe max out the settings
I have an amd phenom x4 9500
3gb of whatever ddr2 ram
And a gtx 260 :/ no oc’ed
Budget is very flexible
And i am okay with buying a new intel mobo and cpu
I am thinking a i5-2500k and a new kepler gpu
I ran tests and my game uses about 70% on all cpu’s
And almost always 95% of gpu
And reflections destroy performance

Just need some help deciding

Thanks in advance

AMD CPU, GTX260 and 32bit OS has to go…

i5-2500k (overclock me!)
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
Radeon 7870 or better
8+gb ddr3 ram
Win7 64bit
600+w bronze certified or better psu
Compatible motherboard

What do you think has the biggest impact im gonna piece it together with each paycheck
Bein most important first
I will get the cpu mobo and ram all at once and prolly the cooler

Well if you want to notice a huge difference right away, then getting a new graphics card and PSU will have the biggest impact, however chances are that your motherboard doesn’t have a PCI-express 3.0 slot. If so, then you best get a new mobo 1st.

I’m building a new PC (1st time builder) and have learnt so much these past 3 weeks, whilst planning how I want to go about building it. Got a Asus P8Z77-V LX. It’s cheap and seems to lack some things its big brothers have (like 6 channel audio), but if you don’t care much for just little features and extreme overclocking, get it with the Intel i5 3570k. If you want to overclock like crazy then get the better Asus P8Z77 mobo (Pro, Deluxe, whatever), with an Intel i5 2500k. Also you might as well get fan+heatsink. If you want one for the performance then get a Noctua NH-D14. If you want one for the looks and performs fairly well (one I just got today) then get the Zalman CNPS 9900 Max.

Oh and get two low-profile 4gb RAM sticks. They are cheap. I got the Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB kit (2 × 4GB), DDR3 1600MHz RAM, in blue.

Next up a graphics card & PSU. You need both cause the graphics card uses the most power in the average gaming system (about 100-400watts on full load) and your current one may not be upto par. I got myself a MSI Geforce GTX 660 and a OCZ ZS 650W 80+ PSU.

Keep in mind that I’ve yet to build the PC (waiting on the 1tb HD), so I’m not sure how the standard 660 fairs with GW2. But I know the slightly better 660Ti plays the game near max (people tend to lower shadows & reflections). If you have the extra cash then just get the 660Ti. If you have more then get the 670.

Here’s a great resource for video cards http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html

And CPUs: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html

Every month Toms Hardware does this, it’s pretty nice resource.
What you want really comes down to budget and resolution you want to run at.

What Alxa.6527 said.

Also, every 2 months Tom’s Hardware does a System Builder Marathon, with PCs built for the $500, $1000 and $2000 price points:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/How-To,4/Tweaking-Tuning,17/

SGTxKracckher.9526:

What do you think has the biggest impact im gonna piece it together with each paycheck
Bein most important first
I will get the cpu mobo and ram all at once and prolly the cooler

The GTX 260 is about on par with your CPU, so… I’d recommend piecing it all together into one new system.

New CPU requires new Motherboard. New Motherboard requires new DDR3 memory. New GPU requires new Power supply (what model is your current PSU?). So you can kinda see how everything ties together.

Things like harddrive and optical drive can be maintained, perhaps your computer case if it has reasonable airflow and space.

The most impact for GW2 will be the MB+CPU+RAM upgrade first.

Ok thanks all.
Btw I have a 650w psu so i think I’m good there.
I’m getting that I should do a mobo +CPU + ram upgrade first
Then video card on my next check.

Sounds good… Include Win7 64bit OS in your plan… 32bit does not support 4GB. Also, recommend a cpu cooler, it’s not expensive and will make overclocking a breeze.

32 bit should support 4 GB (except for some starter edition). For more I think your need 64 bit windows. Sadly we are now stuck with 64 bit windows I think – I would never consider 32 bit anymore, unless you had compelling reasons.

I seem to recall if you had a certain version of Win 7 you could run XP in some emulation mode which supported old games, but not 100% sure on this (mention it only because 64 bit windows seems to have compatibility issues with old games.)

I struggle with gtx 680 and i5 2500k 4.2. I think you need a really good computer.

Define struggle? I can play at 60fps or better (most of the time) with dual GTX 670 cards and an i7 on best appearance with lowered reflections.