Guild Wars 2

So I currently play guild wars on a decently old laptop, and being part of a Wvw focused guild, I decided I need to upgrade to something better. I’d like to be able to see other people’s characters on pretty high resolution. It also needs to deal with rather large scale zerg fights. A friend and I did some thinking and came up with this (budget about 1000)

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2kcWA

Here’s my reasoning. We chose a high end i5 because guild wars is cpu intensive and we don’t want the cpu to not be able to handle the load, therefore not making use of the gpu. We didn’t go with an i7 because many places I read said that guild wars doesn’t use multiple threads and cores very well, so the “upgraded performance” of the i7 would be wasted.

We went with an ssd with no hdd because I read (in several places) that mmo’s read and write a lot from the client, so kitten will improve loading times drastically. Plus I have a terabyte external hard drive I can use to store other things.

We went with a 760 because I would like to be able to set the graphics to higher settings, and anything more than that was getting rather expensive.

So that’s what we came up with, I have no idea if those ideas are good or bad. Thoughts and ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Looks like an ideal GW2 setup for that price range. If you later want another boost to performance, watch a Youtube video on how to OC the processor to 4.x Ghz.

IMO when ur budget is limited, kitten is a bad choice. YES its a very handy addition, and those of us who use them would hate to be without one… BUT they are expensive for what they are and the dont actually increase FPS, they just make things more convieniant.
If i were u, i would ditch the SSD or at the very least lower it to a 128gb one and put more money into the CPU cooler and/or GPU.
If u keep the SSD then note also that, unless u have space issues inside ur case, u would be better of spending that same amount of money u currently have in the H60, for a aircooler instead. A $65 aircooler will perform better than the H60 and be quieter, i.e the Noctua NH-U12S.

I agree. Drop the SSD for a better cooler and a better GPU. Dropping such a large amount on a QoL increase when your budget isn’t that high in the first place isn’t the wisest course of action. Once you have enough gaming power, then get an SSD.

For starters, drop the H60, those all in one coolers from Corsair are crap and unreliable. If the H60 was your choice, grab a CM Hyper 212 Evo that will get about the same cooling I believe.

Drop the ram to 1600… unless you are doing memory intensive tasks that target your memory speed or pushing benchmarks(which you arent since an h60 was your cooler choice).

Mobo and SSD are fine, though I would look at MSI boards or even an Asrock Extreme 4, I also say stick with the 256Gb, if you want to drop to a 128 I say get a standard 840 or 830 for cheaper since they lack the writes of the 256Gb and higher drives.

SolarNova.1052:

IMO when ur budget is limited, kitten is a bad choice. YES its a very handy addition, and those of us who use them would hate to be without one… BUT they are expensive for what they are and the dont actually increase FPS, they just make things more convieniant.
If i were u, i would ditch the SSD or at the very least lower it to a 128gb one and put more money into the CPU cooler and/or GPU.
If u keep the SSD then note also that, unless u have space issues inside ur case, u would be better of spending that same amount of money u currently have in the H60, for a aircooler instead. A $65 aircooler will perform better than the H60 and be quieter, i.e the Noctua NH-U12S.

This, everytime.

I love my solid state, don’t get me wrong. But unlike other games, GW2 and other MMO’s do not have many loading screens, you can travel allot without ever hitting one, and in WvW, unless you are map swaping for some reason, you never run into them, so the impact of kitten is even less.

The H60 is a good cooler, however, vs higher end air coolers it does not stack up, 10 bucks more can get you top of the top air cooling, not only will it cool better, but will produce less noise while it does it, you also have less points of failure and if the 1 or 2 fans on it do fail, it’s a easy and cheap fix, while with a AIO water cooler, it’s trash.

You can also get far cheaper RAM, as it has little impact on performance, and get another PSU, stay away from OCZ, as number one, they are probably going to go under soon (filed bankruptcy) and so any warranty might not be up held and OCZ is not known for making the best PSU’s to start with.

I was wrong, the h60 does more for cooling than the 212, but I still highly advise against it and get a quality air cooler be it BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2, Noctua D14, Phanteks TC14, or something like those if you want to spend in that range.

I also agree on the OCZ, get a Corsair or Seasonic unit, you cant go wrong with either.

sobe.4157:

I was wrong, the h60 does more for cooling than the 212, but I still highly advise against it and get a quality air cooler be it BeQuiet! Dark Rock Pro 2, Noctua D14, Phanteks TC14, or something like those if you want to spend in that range.

I also agree on the OCZ, get a Corsair or Seasonic unit, you cant go wrong with either.

Watch out for the reviews that show the H60 vs 212+, the reviews are often with them both maxed out and the fan on the H60 is REALLY loud (I have one that I use to use on my GPU) so the max cooling might be the same, but not in the same class, as the noise level of the H60, for me at least when max, is not acceptable. I right now have an old TRUE, with a single AP-13 fan, and it cools my i5 better than the H60 does with a AP-15.

Now othat others have pointedo ut the PSU, yes dffiantly change brands, OCZ is indeed likely to go under soon. Corsair and Seasonic are the best but they come at a premium so u may have to go down on the wattage, which is fine, u dont need alot with a haswell based rig. You could even get away with a 400W PSU, though i would sugest a 500W.

If u do want to save more money then indeed go down on the RAM, get some G.Skill 1866mhz RAM at the most.