Guild Wars 2

Hello!

I just built a new gaming rig literally last night. I always build on a budget and shoot for best performance per dollar type parts. As is the story for many PC builders I’m sure. That said I don’t mind spending a few extra bucks where it matters most to get the most performance out of my machine. So here Are the specs of the build I just put together.

AMD FX-6350 6-core 3.9 Ghz OC’d to 4.226 (With a beefy aftermarket coolermaster cooler. I’m sure I could get more I’ve only messed around with it a little so far)
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+
HIS Radeon R9 270x 2gig GDDR5 OC’d core clock to 1150
8 Gigs G.Skill DDR3, PC3-12800, 1600 MHz?
WD 250g 10,000 rpm velociraptor hd
Raidmax 730W crossfire rdy modular psu

I packed it all in a nice case with more than adequate cooling for my OC’ing needs. I also thought about future expansion so I got a roomy case so I can easily install another graphics card and cross-fire them. I also got a psu to support this.

So basically I got it all together and was hoping I’d be able to throw ultra settings on everything and never dip below 60 fps XD. My last machine held up very well for 4 something years and played gw2 reasonably well at mid-high settings needing to be turned down quite low for temple runs and really packed world bosses. My new machine was a huge improvement to be sure. The game auto-detected to basically max settings (just no super sampling) and looks way better than it did on my old machine. It’s very pretty.My frame rate varies from good to great in most places (40-60 fps) however it still dips during huge world bosses where lots of people show up and lots of particle effects are going on. It will go down to about 30 fps when a lot of people are just on screen and then when spells and skills start to fly I still saw it dip to 15-20.

Now I’m not in say I’m unhappy with these results but I kept a pretty good budget with this build and wouldn’t mind throwing a few more bucks at a couple parts to eek out a little bit more performance. I was hoping some members of the community that have PCs powerful enough to run this beautiful game in it’s full glory could offer some helpful advice on the best area I could improve upon. Personally I was thinking of 2 main options. Either replacing the video card with something more powerful like a 280×. Or buying another 270x and running a cross-fire set up. Also thought about possibly some more ram like another 4 gigs or maybe go the whole way and toss in 8 more for a total of 16. I really think my cpu is solid and not bottle necking me here especially if I can OC it some more. It wouldn’t be a big deal to order a better video card right now and then return my 270x when the new one gets here for a refund.

Any advice is super appreciated!
Cheers!

-TLDR Skim rig specs at the top. Should I get a slightly better gpu?

Your GPU is fine. You should have gotten an i5 processor like a 3570K or 4670K instead of the AMD FX processor. Your visual performance is going to suffer a huge hit in Guild Wars 2.

I run with an i7 4770K sometimes clocked to 4.4 GHz for giggles and with two R9 290X (Asus DirectCU II with factory overclocks) in crossfire and the game makes it grind to a halt. This is what an MMO does. It requires the absolute raw processing power. When you want to demonstrate the differences between an AMD processor and an Intel processor, running an MMO will show the huge differences very clearly like night and day. AMD FX CPU is decent in any other kind of game except this kind. Even an i3 is going to smack the AMD FX-8350 around. I was using one and just hated it for this game.

A better way to state it is the game was optimized back when 2 cores were standard a 4 cores were high end. Combine that with a lower per core performance of AMD FX cpus when compared to an Intel i5 core and that the game scales poorly around large groups of players results in performance that will be markedly different than games built upon optimized, established, commercially available engines.

Fairly good setup for most games, so-so to alright setup for GW2. Overclocking the CPU will help a great deal. And I think the R9 270x is enough with this game.

An i5 or i7 would probably be a better choice if you plan on running gw2 primarily, and while a better GPU can help a little, you wont really notice much compared to the difference in CPU’s

assuming 1080p that gpu is more than sufficient for ultra if you plan on getting a high res monitor then upgrading could be necessary, or you could just use another 270x in CF.

As the others have said, the problem is that due to the current technical limitations of the gw2 engine, a intel cpu has a significant advantage over the equivalent amd fx.

Eziekiel.1067:

and was hoping I’d be able to throw ultra settings on everything and never dip below 60 fps XD.

The system you have quoted will perform well and play the game smoothly. This goal however, is not realistic from any gaming machine that currently exists.

You could pack the most powerful i7 into a box with dual titans and you will not get this performance on GW2. The game engine is simply not capable of those numbers on any configuration. I think you’ll be happy with the system you quoted, you should play smoothly on Ultra but establishing 60fps as a minimum is not realistic on this game.

Well I decided to update this thread because I did some of my own research and it seemed pretty inline with what most people have said in regard to intel chips handling this game better than amd. Also given how poorly optimized and demanding this game is I have somewhat lowered my expectations of what I can achieve. That said I did go ahead and order a new cpu and motherboard because I do expect better results than I’m currently getting.

Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s

I plan going for as high of a stable overclock as I can get and have seen some pretty promising reports from others who have overclocked this chip. I’ll update you guys with details when the parts get here and I install them in place of my current amd set up.

Cheers!

Good choice of CPU. Might be less expensive now compared to 4670K