Guild Wars 2

I’m ordering parts for a friends new system of which he is on a very small budget to build. I’ve built systems with Intel i7 (mine) and AMD Phenon IIx4 Black (for two friends) and love them both. Considering his budget we’ve decided to go with the AMD for now.

So…which of these would be best? I have good experiences with the Phenon and heard that the FX isn’t a true Quad-Core…any insight is highly appreciated.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103727

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103996

I may have some more comparison questions when it comes to the MB and GPU but I need to get this decision made first. Thanks in advance.

If you could add an extra $20 this processor would really be good for your mate http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819106009&Tpk=fx%204170
also proforms pretty good http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/fx-4170-core-i3-3220-benchmarks,3314-6.html

Thank you for the info. I’ve added that one to the list and I’ll do some more research before he comes over tonight expecting to order everything.

Hell no don’t listen to that guy.

DOn’t get 4170 fx.

It’s bullkitten CPU.

If you want seriously to go for AMD aim only :
FX 4300/6300/8320/8350.

Others are just waste of your cash and time.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113287&Tpk=4300

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113286&Tpk=6300

Or
Go for Intel i3-3240 which in single core performance will beat any AMD at this point and is relatively cheap. Im having i3-3220 and it works wonders for GW2 =]
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116775

Thanks again for the response. I just checked all the cpus mentioned here on http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ and it appears that they are all so close to each other. I’m going to try to figure out his overall cost and see if he has any wiggle room in the budget while I continue to research these chips.

Thanks again.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zWD3
Hard to beat for $550
With a i5 3470 (stomps on any AMD processor for gaming) and 7770 GPU
Gaming processor chart.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106-kittenml

Thanks Zerk.

I’ve bookmarked all of the links provided to me so far and I’m not excluding anything from consideration at this point. I really do appreciate the insights.

That’s a decent system with the i5…if I could just get him to commit to a case at that price point. He fell in love with a $90 case and I haven’t been able to talk him out of it…yet. Also, is 450w enough power. I have 850w for my i7 and I know that’s a bit overkill but I was thinking either 650 or 750?

Make sure u get a good single thread performaing CPU ..means u NEED Intel.

Get a flexable socket type (LGA1155) and go for a cheap chip.. then u can upgrade in the future with a OC’able chip.

AMD r great budget CPU’s for ‘efficient’ multi threaded apps/games. BUT GW2 is not efficent ..it mainly runs from single thread performance ..therefor Intel is the way to go.

For a non OC’d system 450w is enough. You would want 600-750w for a OC’d system depending on the CPU and GPU used. Note that i have a OC’ed 6core 12 thread sandybridge CPU and a OC’d 560ti and im running a 750W and still have watts to spare. A Ivybridge CPU uses substantialy less wattage, so do the newer GPU’s.

BioFringe.7945:

Thanks Zerk.

I’ve bookmarked all of the links provided to me so far and I’m not excluding anything from consideration at this point. I really do appreciate the insights.

That’s a decent system with the i5…if I could just get him to commit to a case at that price point. He fell in love with a $90 case and I haven’t been able to talk him out of it…yet. Also, is 450w enough power. I have 850w for my i7 and I know that’s a bit overkill but I was thinking either 650 or 750?

The one I listed will draw about 250 watts during a stress test so about mabey 200 during operation so yes. Thats a quality PSU made by seasonic it’s not overated.
Just to list my specs i5 2500K @ 4.4 H100 CPU cooler with 110CFM fans in push/pull
16GB 2133 ram
6970@ 950/1425
2x SSD’s
1 HHD
TX 850 PSU
during game play it draws a whopping 326 Watts from the Wall as per my Kill-A-Watt meter. So yes 450 Watts is pleanty for that PC
Here are the picks while running GW2 showing the meter.
http://s1274.photobucket.com/albums/y423/Zerk2012/

Very nice. Now I can consider shaving some money off via the power supply since there’s a good price difference between 450 and 750w.

I would love to get him an Intel and I’m trying my best to fit it in..I’m putting together an AMD and an Intel system on paper so he can decide for himself if the price difference versus his budget is small enough for him to fork over some extra cash. I have an Intel i7 and an AMD Phenon II x4 955 Black system…both run GW2 on max without any problems but I love the Intel for the upgradability path and well, everything else that’s great about Intel chips.

BTW: Is it safe to assume that you can still put an Nvidia card into an AMD build MB/CPU system or do I need to stick with an AMD/ATI card? I’m considering the Nvidia GTX650 or the Radeon HD 6770. When I built my current systems I stuck with Nvidia for the i7 and went with the HD 5770 for the AMD so I’m not quite clear as to whether or not you can mix-n-match.

u can mix and match cards with the CPU. Just remember that although u may e running fine with X CPU ..if u havnt been in intense BIG WvW fights. .u wont know how hard GW2 can push a cpu. If ur friend gets into or is into WvW ..u will most deffinatly need a beafy CPU (Intel + OC) ..if he will mainly PvE u can get away with a top end AMD or Stock Intel.

Cool. We’re not big into PvP / WvW so that shouldn’t be an issue for him. I might venture into that area of the game at some point but my system can handle it so that shouldn’t be an issue. He will most likely casually PvE for a couple hours a week at most.

Another question that has come to mind…what is up with all these motherboards now a-days having built in graphics? A year or two ago that was considered something to stay away from but it seems that the number of such MBs have flooded the market. Should I still stay away from them all together, skip a dedicated GPU, or don’t worry about it and disable the onboard if the MB he chooses happens to come with one?

I don’t want him wasting money out of his tiny budget if an onbaord is acceptable at this point and I certainly don’t want to get an onboard graphics MB if it’s going to cause conflicts with a dedicated card.

FX processors are true cuad core processors… get the 4300 tho, it cost about the same and is way better CPU, it will outperform any i3 probably locked low end i5 aswell since FX can be overclocked to 5ghz, and saddly low end intels cannot be overclocked. U will have more money left to go for a decent videocard using AMD cuz, mobo and CPUs are cheaper, notice any AMD mobos are way cheaper then intels, and cheap intel Mobos are a joke since they don’t include any of the good stuff for budget products, so for gaming i think AMD offers a much better platform for low budget u will get more bang for the buck and better performance overall. Any mobo intels offer for lower than 120$ is a joke, same with the CPUs anything below 200$ is just not recomendable for gaming at all.
Remember something when first i3, i5, i7 came out some ppl on the budget got their i3s for gaming, 2 years later those i3s are totally worthless for gaming, u cannot upgrade to the new gen cuz intel change sockets every year so ppl who cannot play games like battlefield on those poor performing CPU have to buy a whole new mobo+CPU combo in order to play a game like battlefield3, in the other hand ppl who bought low budget athlon 2 CPUs can actually still play games cuz those were overclokable, true 3 or 4 core processors. So in 2 years when Dx11 games go mainstream actual i3s processors will be worthless, u won’t be able to cheap upgrade cuz intell will force u to buy a new mobo, while FX cuads will still play those games, and in case u need more cores u just go and buy a new gen CPU which will most likelly still work on the same motherboard.
So yeah for everybody who says intel is competitive at the budget u don’t know what u are talking about, and thanks to AMD and their wonderfull processors u guys can actually build gaming systems atm, cuz during early 90s intel CPUs cost over 3000$ due no competition, without AMD a entry lvl gaming rig would probably cost over 5000$. If u guys want to buy intel stuff it is allright i have a 2600k myself and is a wondefull CPU, just don’t recomend stuff u don’t know nothing about, recomending i3s or locked i5s is a total bullkitten they are useless for budget gaming compared to AMD, and that is not my opinion is a straight fact based on 20+ years of experience building computers and playing games on them.

Rampage.7145:

FX processors are true cuad core processors… get the 4300 tho, it cost about the same and is way better CPU, it will outperform any i3 probably locked low end i5 aswell since FX can be overclocked to 5ghz, and saddly low end intels cannot be overclocked. U will have more money left to go for a decent videocard using AMD cuz, mobo and CPUs are cheaper, notice any AMD mobos are way cheaper then intels, and cheap intel Mobos are a joke since they don’t include any of the good stuff for budget products, so for gaming i think AMD offers a much better platform for low budget u will get more bang for the buck and better performance overall. Any mobo intels offer for lower than 120$ is a joke, same with the CPUs anything below 200$ is just not recomendable for gaming at all.
Remember something when first i3, i5, i7 came out some ppl on the budget got their i3s for gaming, 2 years later those i3s are totally worthless for gaming, u cannot upgrade to the new gen cuz intel change sockets every year so ppl who cannot play games like battlefield on those poor performing CPU have to buy a whole new mobo+CPU combo in order to play a game like battlefield3, in the other hand ppl who bought low budget athlon 2 CPUs can actually still play games cuz those were overclokable, true 3 or 4 core processors. So in 2 years when Dx11 games go mainstream actual i3s processors will be worthless, u won’t be able to cheap upgrade cuz intell will force u to buy a new mobo, while FX cuads will still play those games, and in case u need more cores u just go and buy a new gen CPU which will most likelly still work on the same motherboard.
So yeah for everybody who says intel is competitive at the budget u don’t know what u are talking about, and thanks to AMD and their wonderfull processors u guys can actually build gaming systems atm, cuz during early 90s intel CPUs cost over 3000$ due no competition, without AMD a entry lvl gaming rig would probably cost over 5000$. If u guys want to buy intel stuff it is allright i have a 2600k myself and is a wondefull CPU, just don’t recomend stuff u don’t know nothing about, recomending i3s or locked i5s is a total bullkitten they are useless for budget gaming compared to AMD, and that is not my opinion is a straight fact based on 20+ years of experience building computers and playing games on them.

My i3-3220 would Like to tell You hes outpreforming FX 4300 oc’d to 4.9ghz in Gw2 by huge margin ^.^

It would be cool if so but, just not gonna happen if an i5 3570k cannot outperform a fx8350 at stock speeds by a huge margin, most likelly the non overclokeable poor dual core can’t outperform the Fx4300 at 4.9ghz dude. It is simple the i3 is not meant for gaming it is most likelly a office processor. And as i said in 2 years it will be as obsolete as first i3s are now game wise. Try run GW2 in an old i3 and do it on a cheap overclocked athlonII x3 or x4 and see which one performs better.
I mean the i3 3220 is a great CPU i have built systems using that and is very very fast, but feature wise intel just cripple their chips so much it is a shame.
I do agree the i3 could be a little bit faster for GW2 atm, but is not even noticeable tbh, the i3 is running at very high load compared to the FX, the game is maxing out both cores, but what would happen if the fix the game? (is very unlikelly they do it) What would happen if the next month some company release a great MMO optimized for 4 cores? The point is, the Fx4300 has more muscle than the i3 3220 in terms of raw processing potential+ it can be overclocked+a decent AMD mobo is at least 80$ cheaper than a compareble intel one.
There are just too many reassons why the Fx4300 is a better choice and just 1 reasson why the intel could be a good choice (GW2, cuz in other games the FX outperforms the i3).

Thanks again to everyone that has responded. Very helpful indeed and much appreciated.

We ordered his parts today. I explained everything to him the best I could but ultimately the final decisions were his to make. I believe that he did rather well considering his budget and personal needs/expectations in mind. He’ll probably end up needing to upgrade a few components within the next year or so but nothing too major I would suspect.

Here’s what he ordered in case anyone’s interested:

AMD Phenon II x4 965 Black 3.4ghz
Gigabyte Ga-970A-D3 AM3+ Motherboard
G.Skill Ripjaw 8gb (2×4gb) DDR3 1600 RAM
Seagate Barracuda 1tb 7200rpm SATA 6.0 HD
HIS iCooler Radeon HD 7770 1gb 128-bit GDDR5 GPU
Cooler Master HAF 922 case
Corsair CX750 PSU
Lite-On 24x DVD Writer
Microsoft Keyboard (cheap)…will be replacing with a Logitech G510 soon
Gigabyte GM-M6880 Laser Gaming Mouse
Windows 7 64bit

He ended saving over $150 via Newegg sales and $20 via an online promo code + free shipping on everything. Not sure if it’s a bonus or not but he was also given McAfee AntiVirus Plus 2013 & Sleeping Dogs at no charge as well as some cheap RAM that he’ll probably donate to the trash bin.

Thanks again for all the assistance. Game on!

Keep the ram it’s nice to have some for trouble-shooting
Corsair CX750 PSU Not what I would use for that PC the motherboard is not made for Xfire so only single cards and this would run anything you could build for alot cheaper.
$30 after rebate. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371031

I showed him that exact same PSU and I even championed for it just to save him some money. Part of the problem was that he wanted a better system than the one I built for a friend last year so since the friend had 650w he “needed” a 750w. I agree with you though, it would have been better to have saved the money instead of wasting it on something that he’ll never fully appreciate.

BioFringe.7945:

I showed him that exact same PSU and I even championed for it just to save him some money. Part of the problem was that he wanted a better system than the one I built for a friend last year so since the friend had 650w he “needed” a 750w. I agree with you though, it would have been better to have saved the money instead of wasting it on something that he’ll never fully appreciate.

Minimum PSU Wattage: 305 W
Recommended 355W
From here http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp