Guild Wars 2

I’m looking into buying a new PC. I’ve had someone from a store recommending this when I said I wanted to play MMORPGS like Guild Wars 2:

AMD Game PC € 767,00

600 Watt Cooler Master power supply
AMD Vishera FX-8320, Eight-Core
Standard cooling
MSI 760GA-P43FX
7.1 Soundcard
8GB DDR3 working memory Corsair
500 GB SataIII Hardeschijf
DVD burner
Nvidia GTX660 2GB
1Gbit network card

How high could I put the settings and at what FPS with this system? I’d like to play at the highest settings possible but I have no idea if that’s possible with my budget.

I understand that for WvW zergs at the highest settings you need a beast of a PC, but I’d already be happy with 20 FPS as then I can see what I’m doing instead of watching a slide show. xD

I had to translate some terms of the specs to English so I’m not sure if I got it right (like network card/power supply and working memory and whatnot, I don’t know the English terms for those).

If u upgrade the standard CPU cooler to a moderate aftermarket one, maybe a Coolermaster Evo 212 (~£/$25), u can OC that CPU to around 4.3 to 4.5ghz which will help out alot in WvW. With that u should see WvW FPS in the 20’s so long as u keep the Culling settings set to : Character limit ‘Highest’, and: Texture Detail ‘Low’. This wil allwo u to see al lthe people but will render ‘most’ of them except those very close to you, as the bog standard green models.
You ‘might’ need to cull some on the character limit if u drop below 20 FPS (go from highest to High).

The 660GPU is OK (the 660ti would have been better), it wont run absolute MAX, but u can get high settings. You wont be running supersampling for instance.

That mobo I wouldnt recommend to my arch enemy anything 970a-g46(including this) are basically kitten for 8cores FX processors due to low quality VRMs some basically explode check the VRM thingy in the link http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboards-vrm-info-database so pick up a board with good vrm and low price according to this list if the price is your concern.

I had one of them and thing would go 100c with basic overclock(4ghz) so I learned from the hard way and had to upgrade to Fatality 990fx Pro and everything is fine now even with 4.8ghz (Fx-8120)

Ps: if you really are on a tight budged I’d suggest to go with 6300 to spare some money for a better board.

muslumgurseks.4951:

That mobo I wouldnt recommend to my arch enemy anything 970a-g46(including this) are basically kitten for 8cores FX processors due to low quality VRMs some basically explode check the VRM thingy in the link http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboards-vrm-info-database so pick up a board with good vrm and low price according to this list if the price is your concern.

I had one of them and thing would go 100c with basic overclock(4ghz) so I learned from the hard way and had to upgrade to Fatality 990fx Pro and everything is fine now even with 4.8ghz (Fx-8120)

Ps: if you really are on a tight budged I’d suggest to go with 6300 to spare some money for a better board.

Ah I see, thanks a lot for the input. I have options to choose

Asus Motherboard P8H77-V LE [+ € 43,00]
Asus 1155 Sabertooth Z77 [+ € 196,00]
Asus 1155 Maximus V Extreme [+ € 356,00]

instead. My budget is around 800 euros, so I don’t mind spending more for a better motherboard. Would the Asus Motherboard P8H77-V LE work?

@ SolarNova ah thank you. I’ll go with a better cooler then. ^^

Forgot to mention also that MSi for the moment atleats ..should be avoided with their Motherboards, like muslumgurseks.4951 said, their VRM’s and other components just cant handle OCs very well.

Those 3 motherboards are all for Intel Ivybridge CPU’s ..not AMD AM3+ CPU’s.

You want to look at

Asus:
SABERTOOTH 990FX R2.0 (~$180)
M5A99FX PRO R2.0 (~$130)

Gigabyte:
GA-990FXA-UD5 (~$135)
GA-990FXA-UD3 (~$125)

Both brands are top notch and both the boards on each are of a good level with plenty of Sata ports and SLI capability, aswell as being fit for OC’ing.

if after ur al lset and rdy to buy, u find urself sit lhaving $100-$200 short of ur top end budget, it might be an idea to look at goign with a Intel build instead, more costly but better performance. And/or going up on ur GPU.

Do remember though, Intel has new CPU’s coming out in June, and Nvida has their new 700 series GPU ‘suposedly’ coming out this month. Might be worth waiting.

Melanie.1240:

muslumgurseks.4951:

That mobo I wouldnt recommend to my arch enemy anything 970a-g46(including this) are basically kitten for 8cores FX processors due to low quality VRMs some basically explode check the VRM thingy in the link http://www.overclock.net/t/946407/amd-motherboards-vrm-info-database so pick up a board with good vrm and low price according to this list if the price is your concern.

I had one of them and thing would go 100c with basic overclock(4ghz) so I learned from the hard way and had to upgrade to Fatality 990fx Pro and everything is fine now even with 4.8ghz (Fx-8120)

Ps: if you really are on a tight budged I’d suggest to go with 6300 to spare some money for a better board.

Ah I see, thanks a lot for the input. I have options to choose

Asus Motherboard P8H77-V LE [+ € 43,00]
Asus 1155 Sabertooth Z77 [+ € 196,00]
Asus 1155 Maximus V Extreme [+ € 356,00]

instead. My budget is around 800 euros, so I don’t mind spending more for a better motherboard. Would the Asus Motherboard P8H77-V LE work?

@ SolarNova ah thank you. I’ll go with a better cooler then. ^^

Those motherboards you mention are all intel compatible not AMD the ones Solarnova wrote are quite good choices.

It should run reasonably well. Just remember that GW2 isn’t set to run on multiple cores so eight cores will do very little, if anything.

Melanie.1240:

I’m looking into buying a new PC. I’ve had someone from a store recommending this when I said I wanted to play MMORPGS like Guild Wars 2:

AMD Game PC € 767,00

600 Watt Cooler Master power supply
AMD Vishera FX-8320, Eight-Core
Standard cooling
MSI 760GA-P43FX
7.1 Soundcard
8GB DDR3 working memory Corsair
500 GB SataIII Hardeschijf
DVD burner
Nvidia GTX660 2GB
1Gbit network card

How high could I put the settings and at what FPS with this system? I’d like to play at the highest settings possible but I have no idea if that’s possible with my budget.

I understand that for WvW zergs at the highest settings you need a beast of a PC, but I’d already be happy with 20 FPS as then I can see what I’m doing instead of watching a slide show. xD

I had to translate some terms of the specs to English so I’m not sure if I got it right (like network card/power supply and working memory and whatnot, I don’t know the English terms for those).

Are they suggesting parts for you to build or are they building this system for you? What are your goals with this system, do you only care about GW2? What is your budget?

600 Watt Cooler Master power supply
What model is this? brand and wattage mean little without knowing the model.

AMD Vishera FX-8320, Eight-Core
Ditch this and get an Intel CPU, AMD has fallen behind in this regard and Intel is the better choice for a gaming CPU. That is not to say AMD CPU’s can’t be used for this, however AMD has nothing that matches Intel for top end, better looking at an i5.

Standard cooling
Did you have any plans on OCing? If not the stock cooler is more than enough.

7.1 Soundcard
Why do you need a sound card? Is the onboard not good enough for you or something? This is just added cost with little to no benefit.

8GB DDR3 working memory Corsair
Just about any RAM that is within voltage spec and from one of the big names will be good enough, 8GB is also more than enough for the game.

Nvidia GTX660 2GB
I would have to check prices for the EU, but is this the 660 or the 660 Ti? There is a large performance gap in the two.

1Gbit network card
What do you need a network card for? Is the on board one not good enough? On board NIC’s are often well more than anyone needs and buying an extra one is a waste of money best spent else where.

mellondog.2973:

It should run reasonably well. Just remember that GW2 isn’t set to run on multiple cores so eight cores will do very little, if anything.

If there was an * at the end of your post with more detailed information about your statement, I probably would have been OK with what you said. Guild Wars 2 actually does use multiple cores, its just that a couple threads that the game relies on are extremely ‘heavy’ and are the ones that bog down the entire system. If one of these threads is held up because it is trying to do too much, it holds the rest of the threads up, thus holding the game up, this lowering your FPS/performance. Basically its the domino effect.

First of all: thanks so much for all the info guys! ^^ I don’t know anyone in my surroundings who knows about computers (I don’t know anything about them either) so I could use all the tips I can get.

muslumgurseks.4951:

Those motherboards you mention are all intel compatible not AMD the ones Solarnova wrote are quite good choices.

Oh I see, woopsie. ^^" Thanks for the input! I think I’ll go for Intel anyway as TinkTinkPOOF says they’re better.

600 Watt Cooler Master power supply
What model is this? brand and wattage mean little without knowing the model.

It says RS-600-ASAB. And alrighty, I’ll go with an Intel then. I hadn’t looked into Intels before because my sis got a really bad experience with a laptop with Intel but I heard before that Intel is the best for higher end cards (she had a low end card).

How is this one: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40 GHz?

Standard cooling
Did you have any plans on OCing? If not the stock cooler is more than enough.

I think I want to get it overclocked and tuned yes (by the store, I can’t do it myself. :P).

7.1 Soundcard
Why do you need a sound card? Is the onboard not good enough for you or something? This is just added cost with little to no benefit.

I don’t know, it didn’t give me an option not to select a sound card. Could I go completely without sound card if I’m putting my own speakers on it (which I will be doing anyway)?

Nvidia GTX660 2GB
I would have to check prices for the EU, but is this the 660 or the 660 Ti? There is a large performance gap in the two.

No idea, I guess the 660 because it says ti nowhere. o-o This is all information on it:

Brand and type:
Club 3D

Videochip GeForce
GTX 660

Nominal speed videochip
1033 Mhz

Maximale turbo frequentie
1,098GHz

Math cores (I had to translate this..Does it make sense? o-o)
960

Memory
2GB GDDR5 6,008GHz 192 bit

Card Interface
PCI-e 3.x 16x

1Gbit network card
What do you need a network card for? Is the on board one not good enough? On board NIC’s are often well more than anyone needs and buying an extra one is a waste of money best spent else where.

No idea..Can you use wifi without it? I have 60 GB wifi network, my current laptop only wants to use 10 MB of it so I thought a better one would make sure it’d use everything of the 60 GB. Sorry, I’m very not-IT savvy, this is what the worker from the shop I wanted to order from recommended to me. ^^"

Its pritty much garunteed that the soundcard and network adapter are onboard unless specificaly noted otherwise. Al lthe specs mean is that the onboard sound chip is 7.1 capable and the network is 60gb wifi capable, i wouldnt worry about it tbh, all good motherboards have perfectly acceptable onboard network and sound capabilities.

If u want a Intel rig then…

Ether a 3570k (4 core 4 thread) or a 3770k (4 core 8 thread) will be ur best choices.

Motherboard wise u can get one of the ones you stated b4 hand. The Asus P8Z77 V LK is a good choice.

HOWEVER.
Since ur now looking at intel, your best course of action is to wait, hold off buying for a month or 2. Intel ,as i said b4, has new CPU’s coming out in June, and Nvida has the new 700 series GPUs coming out this month (suposedly) therefor if u wait, u can get a much more up to date rig built

The release of the new Haswell architecture and the updated Kepler architecture all within one month of now, its like anticipating Christmas! =D

When building a new rig it’s always Christmas, in just a month or two.

And from I hear most of the “new” nVidia cards will be rebadged 6xx series with just a speed bump.

Its not always Christmas, There’s generaly a 6 to 12 month gap between major releases.

Think of how long ago the 600 series came out, and how long ago Ivybridge came out. The good thing this time around is that both CPU and GPU are coming out within a month of each other.

That said, u dont want to fall into the waiting game, a general rule of thumb i use is that if somthing new is coming out in within 3 or 4 months, Wait. If its gunna come out more than 4 months later, dont bother waiting.
I originaly statrted putting together my current rig in Oct/Nov last year, with the generaly accepted opinion that Nvidia would have new GPU’s out in jan or feb, march at the latest…ofc that turned out to be wrong, only the GTX Titan was released (and since it was sooo overpriced I decided even though i could afford it, that i wouldnt let myself get ripped of) and so my plans were unfortunatly skuttled. Even so, since i had waited so long i then had to do the “is somthing new coming out within the next 3 months” again, from what was now March.
So im STILL waiting on the 700 series lol (gunna get a 780..or 2). Atleast this time the news and expected release dates are much more solid although still not official(on the Nvidia side). I’ve waited this long, i might aswell keep waiting bassicaly lol.

Melanie.1240:

Oh I see, woopsie. ^^" Thanks for the input! I think I’ll go for Intel anyway as TinkTinkPOOF says they’re better.

It’s not that they are better, but that AMD does not have anything that can stand its ground with the higher end Intel. And games like GW see better gains with more powerful, but less threads. You can see this in the benchmarks for the game that have both Intel and AMD tested. However in some countries the price of AMD compared to Intel does not make it worth it.

It says RS-600-ASAB. And alrighty, I’ll go with an Intel then. I hadn’t looked into Intels before because my sis got a really bad experience with a laptop with Intel but I heard before that Intel is the best for higher end cards (she had a low end card).

That PSU is pretty poor and I don’t think even has dedicated voltage regulation, I would stay away from it and a less powerful PSU but of better quality would be a better choice.

How is this one: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40 GHz?

The i5’s are great, the “k” line being the only ones that can really be OCed.

I think I want to get it overclocked and tuned yes (by the store, I can’t do it myself. :P).

You can do it yourself, OCing the SB and newer line of CPU’s is child’s play to what it use to be. Also, most of the time getting a CPU OCed from a builder is not worth it, they tend to charge a good amount for a very, very low OC making the money better spent on the more powerful chip inline from it, OCing is worth it because its in most cases a $15-20 premium for the “k” line is not much for the boost you can get, but when you get into paying a shop to do it along with installing a better cooler and the cost of the “k” line it becomes less and less worth it, you are better off getting the faster chip from the start.

I don’t know, it didn’t give me an option not to select a sound card. Could I go completely without sound card if I’m putting my own speakers on it (which I will be doing anyway)?

I see, yeah, those are on board, I thought you were giving a list of parts from a shop and not going off a drop down spec list. Speakers do not process sound, they produce sound for hearing from processed data by a sound card.

No idea, I guess the 660 because it says ti nowhere. o-o This is all information on it:

Yeah, its not a Ti, what is your budget for the GPU and what are the options they give?

No idea..Can you use wifi without it? I have 60 GB wifi network, my current laptop only wants to use 10 MB of it so I thought a better one would make sure it’d use everything of the 60 GB. Sorry, I’m very not-IT savvy, this is what the worker from the shop I wanted to order from recommended to me. ^^"

The rating of network speed is local only, that is moving a file from one PC (your desktop) to another (your laptop) on the same network inside of your house, not connection speed to the outside world and internet or the game, also, 10MB is pretty fast for most wifi setups. File transfers are done in MB (megabyte) and networks use Mb (megabit), I would be willing to bet the laptop or whatever you are using is running off of n mode and as such you are probably not going to see any more speed on file transfers. Also, your home wifi network is not a 60GB network, no one on earth has a home network like that.

That PSU is pretty poor and I don’t think even has dedicated voltage regulation, I would stay away from it and a less powerful PSU but of better quality would be a better choice.

Allrighty, I’ll go with a more expensive one.

You can do it yourself, OCing the SB and newer line of CPU’s is child’s play to what it use to be. Also, most of the time getting a CPU OCed from a builder is not worth it, they tend to charge a good amount for a very, very low OC making the money better spent on the more powerful chip inline from it, OCing is worth it because its in most cases a $15-20 premium for the “k” line is not much for the boost you can get, but when you get into paying a shop to do it along with installing a better cooler and the cost of the “k” line it becomes less and less worth it, you are better off getting the faster chip from the start.

It is? I’m so affraid I may set someting too high or something. The store was asking only 20 euros (25ish dollars) for it though.

I see, yeah, those are on board, I thought you were giving a list of parts from a shop and not going off a drop down spec list. Speakers do not process sound, they produce sound for hearing from processed data by a sound card.

Ooooh I get it now, and the list is what the guy gave me.

Yeah, its not a Ti, what is your budget for the GPU and what are the options they give?

My total budget is around 800 euros (1000 dollars according to Google? :S I’d guess it’d be more like 900 dollars). These are all the options they give:

Onboard
AMD Radeon 7770 1GB [+ € 120,00]
AMD Radeon HD7790 1GB [+ € 150,00]
Nvidia GTX660 2GB [+ € 210,00]
AMD Radeon HD 7870 XT jokerCard 2GB [+ € 250,00]
ASUS GTX660 TI-DC2-2GD5 [+ € 330,00]
AMD Radeon 7950 3GB [+ € 335,00]
AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB [+ € 415,00]
nVidia GTX680 2GB [+ € 545,00]
AMD Radeon HD 7990 V2 6GB Dual GPU [+ € 1100,00]
nVidia GTX690 4GB [+ € 1125,00]

The rating of network speed is local only, that is moving a file from one PC (your desktop) to another (your laptop) on the same network inside of your house, not connection speed to the outside world and internet or the game, also, 10MB is pretty fast for most wifi setups. File transfers are done in MB (megabyte) and networks use Mb (megabit), I would be willing to bet the laptop or whatever you are using is running off of n mode and as such you are probably not going to see any more speed on file transfers. Also, your home wifi network is not a 60GB network, no one on earth has a home network like that.

Oh yeah I think I said that wrong. My laptop will only take 10 mbps while we have internet for 60mbps. XD And I understand now.

Will the new parts will be more expensive than the ones already out or will they have the same price?

Melanie.1240:

Allrighty, I’ll go with a more expensive one.

Price does not matter, there are some really well made PSU’s that are cheap, with PSU’s it depends on who the real mfg is, coolermaster, silverstone, antec etc etc only market items, they don’t make them, others make them and they slap a sticker on it. Research the PSU’s they offer or post a list of what they have and I can give you a yes no on them.

It is? I’m so affraid I may set someting too high or something. The store was asking only 20 euros (25ish dollars) for it though.

With new CPU’s you have the multi and voltage, those are the only two things you really change for most common OC’s, there are lots and lots of setting on the higher end OCing boards, but those are only needed the closer you get to the edge for that given chip. Most current Intel chips have a upper vCore of 1.4v, set the multi to 40 and the vCore to manual and set it to what stock VID (default voltage) is for the chip and see if its stable, if its not you up the voltage until it is. remember you will need a better cooler for most OC’s, so if you get them to do it ask how much of a OC they are giving and if it includes another HS, by the fact they are only charging 25 bucks for it, I would be willing to bet its a 100mhz or so OC on the stock HS, in which case I would say put the money elsewhere, like the better PSU.

My total budget is around 800 euros (1000 dollars according to Google? :S I’d guess it’d be more like 900 dollars). These are all the options they give:

Onboard
AMD Radeon 7770 1GB [+ € 120,00]
AMD Radeon HD7790 1GB [+ € 150,00]
Nvidia GTX660 2GB [+ € 210,00]
AMD Radeon HD 7870 XT jokerCard 2GB [+ € 250,00]
ASUS GTX660 TI-DC2-2GD5 [+ € 330,00]
AMD Radeon 7950 3GB [+ € 335,00]
AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB [+ € 415,00]
nVidia GTX680 2GB [+ € 545,00]
AMD Radeon HD 7990 V2 6GB Dual GPU [+ € 1100,00]
nVidia GTX690 4GB [+ € 1125,00]

Have them build the computer without a GPU and buy one and install it on your own later, or better yet build the computer on your own, from the looks of it on the EU Amazon website for the price of the upgrade to the 660 from the onboard you could get the 7950 for almost the same price or very very little more and that’s not even looking/waiting for sales or MIR’s.

Oh yeah I think I said that wrong. My laptop will only take 10 mbps while we have internet for 60mbps. XD And I understand now.

Will the new parts will be more expensive than the ones already out or will they have the same price?

Yeah, so that is already well past what your internet connection is, 10MB is about 80mbps.

Out of those GPU’s the 7870 Joker Xt is the best choie. Though im pritty sure u could find it for less than 250 euro’s. Ether way the 7870 Joker XT is as good as a 660ti and fomr that list its 80 euros cheaper.