Guild Wars 2

Hello there,

Christmas is coming (brace yourself), so I’m planning to treat myself with a PC upgrade this year. Any advice/input about what I plan to buy is very welcomed !

(nb : I’m only changing the highlighted components)

My current rig :
MB : GA-MA770-UD3
CPU : AMD Athlon X3 440 @ 3.01ghz
RAM : 4gb DDR2 PC2-8900
GC : GeForce GTX 560 Ti
HDD : 500gb Western Digital Caviar Black.
PSU @ 700W

Planned upgrade :
MB : Gigabyte Z77X-D3H
CPU : Intel core i7 3770K w/ Cooler Master Hyper 412S
RAM : G.Skill Extreme 3 PC12800 Sniper (who comes up with these names ?)
GC : GeForce GTX 560 Ti
HDD : 500gb Western Digital Caviar Black.
PSU @ 700W

This upgrade is part of an upgrade kit from this website (sorry, it’s in french) : http://www.materiel.net/pack-composants-de-mise-a-jour-pc/materiel-net-psycho-kit-7804kittenml

So, will I be able to run GW2 smoothly ? At least more than 10 FPS in LA and WvW …

I’m also wondering if I shouldn’t just take an i5 3570K, because it’s less expensive and I have no idea if the performance gain between the i5 3570K and the i7 3770K will be that noticeable.

Thanks for any feedback !

Looks good. You can save some money if you don’t plan on using hyperthread and get the i5-3570K instead or get a SSD along with it. You won’t see a difference between 3570K and 3770K with GW2.

You should be able to get way more than 10fps in LA

you should think about getting 660 at least in Poland you can get it for almost the same price as 560ti

But he already has the 560ti from the previous build. He could get a 660, but would cost more.

Would the difference between the 560 ti and 660 ti that noticeable ?
It doesn’t seem like GW2 is using 100% of my current GPU (560ti) at any time.
I know there are other games out there that are GPU heavy, and new ones coming, but right now I’m trying to fit everything in my xmas budget :p

Anyway thanks for the feedbacks. I think I’ll go for the i5 3570K … other forums also recommended me the i5 over the i7 for video games.

560ti and 660 you won’t notice much difference in GW2

kirito.4138:

560ti and 660 you won’t notice much difference in GW2

Thanks for clearing that up !

The non ti 660 would more likely be a downgrade imo. Specialy if your current 560ti is a OC’d version. a 560ti is enough for GW2 tbh, the only meaningfull upgrade form the 560ti would be a 670 or even 680. I persoanly am watiting on the 700 series or amd 8000 series before upgrading becouse i wont find the jump in performance worth the price tag if i do it now with the current generation of GPU’s.

You 560ti WILL be runing at 100% usuage in areas once you upgrade your CPU so bare that in mind. I run one myself ..granted is heavily OC’d ..but even that maxes out..but i still manage to keep fps in ALL areas of GW above 30 with next to max graphcis settings (no supersampling)

The differnece between the 3570k and 3770k is the hyperthreading, it will show very little if any impact on GW2, what matters most is the OC, u wanna try get it as close to or above 4.5ghz to be able to stay above 30 fps in populated areas of GW2.

If your budget is tight i recommened getting the 3570k , spending the saved money on a 120gb SSD and getting the top of the line air Cooler (Notcua NH-D14) or if u so wish ..go water cooling and get the Corsair H100. That will allow you to OC higher, or have the same OC as on the Coolmaster 412s but with lower temperatures.

Thanks SolarNova for the feedback.

I will indeed hang onto my 560 ti for now, and upgrade for the 3570k (already bought online this afternoon… eagerly waiting for its delivery now ). I’m not really used to overclocking CPUs but I heard the “k” version of the intel CPUs are overclocking friendly… so if I notice that there’s room for improvement, I’ll probably invest the extra 100€ in an cooling system and do some computer wizardry.

Gaming i5+660TI
Streaming (cpu capture) and other demanding stuff= i7.

wvwvw is realy demanding on large renders ~20-30FPs,
optimizations and gpu drivers will get better overtime. (dont expect miracles)

K version you need a good cooler if its ivy bridge !
(hyper 412S @4.5 ~65-70Degrees, hyperbole heat/mVolt for more OC)

Would recommend a 120GB SSD for windows partition and main game.

Once you get your rig going, run it in first , then start OC’ing.
Just go as far as your cooler will allow. 4.5ghz should be the target for 30+fps all the time in GW2.. but if u cant reach it dont worry, what ever OC u get will help, and u can always invest in a better cooler later ..as u said.

The ‘k’ just means the CPU is unlocked and designed for OC’ing. What makes OC’ing easy nowerdays is that Intel ‘i’ series (1st, 2nd and 3rd gen) and their matching mothboards all come with great bios’s that have many options open and allow full control of the cpu. Not to mention the 2nd and 3rd gen ‘i’ processors do have alot of potential left untaped to begin with
So even a mild OCs can be in the region of 200-500 mhz higher than intel turbo clock. Then mid level OC’s go from 500 to 800 mhz, and top level OCs are around 800mhz +

Almost any1 with a mid range air cooler can manage a mild OC with ease ..its usualy just a Multiplier tweek.
Mid level OC’s r the most common and they requir slightly better cooling and voltage tweeks.
Top end OC’s are bassicaly for those who use Top of the range air cooling and mid/top end water cooling and tweek everything within the bios to get core clocks as high as, and higher, than 5ghz.

Alright, got my i5 3570k and 8gb of DDR2 PC12800

The computer is now a beast (compared to what I previously had).

Just tried some WvW, I get 40 fps during big battles which is kitten awesome ! And I get well over 60 fps everywhere else.

However. The game speed seems to “fluctuate”, it seems to slown down every once in a while (when I turn the camera for instance), and it’s more noticeable when the shadows are on ultra/high.

Is there any known reason for that ? Like idk, some “power saving” system from the latest motherboards that would make my CPU go wonky ? (I have an msi z77a-g441).

no that fluctuation is normal.

Turn reflections to terrai and sky.
And shadows to high.

That helps reduce the fluctuation. But it will always be there.

One way to help get around it ..specialy in LA .. is when u loadu p ..spin ur camera around onceo r twice ..it wil lthen load everything up and u shouldnt see it fluctuate again in that area.

its got somthing to do with the way GW2 loads stuff up, anything out of view (behind the camera) isnt loaded till u want to see it (turn the camera) ..then it stays loaded untill ur way out of sight of it.

Alright thanks a lot for that information

Glad it’s not coming from some faulty hardware.

Man, I’m enjoying GW2 like if it was a new game now :p

Glad to hear it.
Once u get into a truly massive WvW battle u may still see sub 30 fps if ur CPU is not OC’d .. if its OC’d u should be fine.
But tbh even without an OC u would still be running faster than ur old rig ..so enjoy