Guild Wars 2

Gentlemen,

My computer is old -four years old- and I’m in desperate need of an upgrade.
I average 25-45 FPS in GW2 on low graphical settings. This is not good enough.
Unfortunately, I’m a poor college student, and therefore don’t have much money to spend on new upgrade parts. I’ve got a strict budget of $400.
How should I upgrade my system to play GW2 better? I’d very much appreciate it if someone could help me out.

My current specs,

Radeon HD 4870 512MB
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor
GIGABYTE LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
1080×1050 monitor
4GB DDR2 RAM

Respectfully,
Names are for noobs

- i3-3220 ($130)
- Random H77 -or- B75 mATX motherboard ($70~)
- 8GB DDR3 1333 RAM ($40~)
- AMD HD 6870 ($160~)

That’s pretty much the absolute best you can do with that budget and should run the game quite well at high-max settings.

If you go over your budget with those parts, instead get the i3-2120 and a H61 motherboard instead. Performance will be extremely close.

Well instead of going with i3 id go for An AMD platform (Fx6xxx or higher /Phenom II T1055 or higher) or keep the 4870 for a later upgrade and choose an i5 2500 or 3500 series… Believe me as it is the game doesnt even know what a gpu is ^_ so with mid settings having a good cpu will enable you to play w/o a problem…

muslumgurseks.4951:

Well instead of going with i3 id go for An AMD platform (Fx6xxx or higher /Phenom II T1055 or higher) or keep the 4870 for a later upgrade and choose an i5 2500 or 3500 series… Believe me as it is the game doesnt even know what a gpu is ^_ so with mid settings having a good cpu will enable you to play w/o a problem…

The Ivy Bridge i3 line out performs absolutely any AMD processor in gaming (many times by a very large margin). Since most games are only dual threaded, and Intel’s per core performance is miles ahead of AMD, that leaves you with the very obvious choice of Intel.

Glow, what you’ve listed seems to exactly what I’m looking for. Thanks!

Glow.4159:

muslumgurseks.4951:

Well instead of going with i3 id go for An AMD platform (Fx6xxx or higher /Phenom II T1055 or higher) or keep the 4870 for a later upgrade and choose an i5 2500 or 3500 series… Believe me as it is the game doesnt even know what a gpu is ^_ so with mid settings having a good cpu will enable you to play w/o a problem…

The Ivy Bridge i3 line out performs absolutely any AMD processor in gaming (many times by a very large margin). Since most games are only dual threaded, and Intel’s per core performance is miles ahead of AMD, that leaves you with the very obvious choice of Intel.

Yeah that is true for only gaming i3 might be a better choice but I cant stress this enough for only gaming(Dual threaded)… But you should not forget this, a PC isnt only meant for gaming and not all of the games are dual threaded So yeah I’d still go for more cores and Overclock them as much as I could.

I dont think OP should go with overclocking because of his low budget, for OC you would need a decent heatsink and good airflow and a better PSU. IMO, OP should go for a i5 because this game is CPU intensive and i3’s arent THAT strong.

I’d love to go with an i5, but unfortunately that’s out of my price range when combined with evreything else I need. I suppose an option is to keep my video card and buy a i5…but I’m not so sure that would work out either.

I would utterly recommend you get an i5 instead of i3 and keep your current graphics card, though it’s an old generation it is a higher performance one from that series and guild wars is very badly optimised at the moment. Not only is it very CPU bound but many people have issues with it only using small percentages of the graphics card capabilities, so you’re better off keeping that and waiting for optimisation as in terms of graphics the game is very un-demanding. Good luck

Names are for noobs.1806:

Gentlemen,

My computer is old -four years old- and I’m in desperate need of an upgrade.
I average 25-45 FPS in GW2 on low graphical settings. This is not good enough.
Unfortunately, I’m a poor college student, and therefore don’t have much money to spend on new upgrade parts. I’ve got a strict budget of $400.
How should I upgrade my system to play GW2 better? I’d very much appreciate it if someone could help me out.

My current specs,

Radeon HD 4870 512MB
Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz Dual-Core Processor
GIGABYTE LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX Intel Motherboard
1080×1050 monitor
4GB DDR2 RAM

Respectfully,
Names are for noobs

How about this with you being a poor student….I have just upgraded my GPU to a HD 7970

I’ll give you my old card…HD6970

Then you can put the money you saved to something else.

The catch…you have to be a UK resident!

GodParticle, thanks for the offer, but I’m not a UK resident. Bummer.