Guild Wars 2

I currently have a ATI Radeon HD4650

PC is HP Pavilion with AMD Phenom 2 Quad Core, 8GB mem. Win 7, 64 Bit

I am using it to power a 30" Apple Cinema Monitor which requires dual-link DVI output to run the 2560×1600 res display, and I run GW2 at fullscreen 1080p res.

It runs ok with GW2 on low setting, but recently I’ve been getting shutdowns which appear to be coming from overheating. I’m guessing something changed with Oct 15 patch to increase GPU load because that was when the problems started. GPU runs at 99%, CPU around 50%. (not overclocked)

Anyway I figured this would be a good time to see if there was a decent upgrade card available that would up the perf of GW2 at an affordable price.

Requirements:
One Dual-Link Dvi output (so I can drive the Apple Cinema Monitor at 2560×1600)
Under $100
At least 50% graphics performance boost (or it won’t be worth upgrading)

There are so many cards out there and some don’t work well with GW2 so I was hoping for some recommendations from the Techies out there.

Whatever’s on sale. HD7770, 550Ti, 650Ti… sub-$100 will not get far at all.

deltaconnected.4058:

Whatever’s on sale. HD7770, 550Ti, 650Ti… sub-$100 will not get far at all.

Ok can you at least point me to a website that lists Card Performance Benchmarks that are GW2 friendly. I have seen threads where it is discussed that a card good for other games does not perform as well for GW2.

This game is all about the cpu so a video card wont make a huge difference.

But a gtx 560 ti should be fine and its not to expensive.

alphacentari.7692:

This game is all about the cpu so a video card wont make a huge difference.

But a gtx 560 ti should be fine and its not to expensive.

Hmm, well according to my Gadget and other utils,the CPU doesn’t go much past 50% load during play so I think the bottleneck is definitely the GPU.

Are you sure you don’t mean 550ti? The 550ti is around $100 the 560ti is around $250US.

No I meant 560ti because im not sure the 550ti will give you the performance boost your looking for.

If you are having poor fps when you are in events or WvW then its for sure the Cpu for pve a graphic upgrade should do well.

I can concur that a 560ti is ‘enough’ for GW2. You can max/ultra the settings at 1080p (aside from super sampling)if you so chose to get a solid 40 to 60 fps in all pve environments.

it will however be running full pelt the entire time at those settings so make sure its a quiet 560ti :P

You other choice is get any 560ti and just go down on the settings.

For Nvidia anything under a X60 is not ‘really’ a gaming gpu. So your options are 460, 560ti, 660ti.

But i beleve the 560ti may be slighly outside your budget .. dont know how much they cost in America. But its deffinatly one of the best bang for buck cards still around.

alphacentari.7692:

No I meant 560ti because im not sure the 550ti will give you the performance boost your looking for.

If you are having poor fps when you are in events or WvW then its for sure the Cpu for pve a graphic upgrade should do well.

Actually, I have no problems at all visually in PvE or WvW even when there is a ton of stuff going on. (but of course my settings are on low).

My big issue right now is that for some reason it is overheating, so i figured, upgrade the card without breaking the budget.

Oh BTW I meant dual-link DVI required which is necessary for the Apple 2560×1600 res display. I would guess most newer cards have that standard.