Guild Wars 2

If you’re going to spring for a 3770k you might as well throw in a few more bucks on a better cooler than a 212 Evo. It’s a good piece of hardware for the price but there are better coolers and Ivy Bridge chips run very hot when overclocked. For a few more bucks you can get a Thermalright True Spirit 140, but I’d recommend the Thermalright Silver Arrow series, the Noctua NH-D14, or the Phanteks PH-TC14PE if you want to push the chip.

I’ve also recently switched over from Arctic Silver 5 to Tuniq X2, it performs slightly better and is not electrically conductive.

Do not get Windows 8, it’s terrible for non-touch screen computers and has been an utter failure for Microsoft. Windows 7 is much better for normal laptops and desktops.

Otherwise the system you are looking at is good for a laptop but you will still get frame-rate drops in busy areas and events.

Sorry to hear that.

You might also look into the Biostar TA990FXE board. I really like Biostar (though not everyone does) and they have been around a long time and carved out a nice niche building inexpensive but reliable boards. I’ve also seen the ASRock 990FX Extreme board cheap in the past and they’ve gotten a pretty good rep as enthusiast boards, though I’ve never personally used an ASRock. In any event do your research, find a good board, and then match it with a good power supply. A good mobo/psu combo can last you through several processor generations with AMD, since they actually support their socket designs.

Cooling wise you’ve already made a good choice for the price with the 212 Evo so I’d stick with that.

In order to stay within your budget you might think about going with a 6 core FX6300 for right now. They have the same L3 cache as the 8 cores do, will run pretty similar in most applications, and OC at least as well. This might allow you to get a good mobo and PSU and you can then upgrade to a Steamroller chip when they come out as they should be a good improvement on the current Piledriver gen chips.

Your CPU, RAM, and video card could all stand to be upgraded for GW2 purposes (the game is not well-optimized) but I would think you’d be doing better than 8 fps in the open world. It will be bad in all of the major cities and crowded areas though regardless without a major hardware upgrade Have you tried moving out into a less-populated region?

A few comments and possible options for you:

1. After many builds over the years for myself, others, and various businesses, I base my systems around the best motherboard fit for my purpose so seeing that you’re interested in OCing, a new motherboard would personally be my first concern. If you can find a good 990FX motherboard on sale get it.

2. A GOOD (high efficiency) 500w power supply is all you really need. If you can find a good 600w+ unit on sale, great, but it’s not necessary. Rosewill and PC Power & Cooling are other brands worth looking at besides those already mentioned. Take your time and shop around. Check Newegg, Tigerdirect, Superbiiz, Microcenter, Provantage, Directron, and Amazon for sales and go with whatever quality unit you find the best deal on. Newegg currently has the Rosewill Capstone 650W on sale for $90 plus an additional $15 rebate. This is an extremely high quality 80 Plus Gold PSU at a phenomenal price.

3. Water cooling is not worth it unless you’re going all out. CM 212 Evo will do nicely or for $10-20 more you can get a Thermalright True Spirit 140 which dollar per dollar is probably the best CPU cooler out there and is only matched or beaten by high dollar units.

4. If you’re planning on OCing anyway and definitely want the 8 core chip an FX 8320 is more cost effective than an 8350 as it will probably hit similar numbers. They can be had as low as $140 whereas the $8350 is gonna run you at least $170.

5. If you live near a Microcenter they’ve got some great deals going on right now. You can get $40 off most AM3+ motherboards with the purchase of a processor. They carry the ASUS M5A99FX Pro R2.0 mobo which is an extremely high quality mobo with beastly OCing options and power delivery (they have plenty of other good mobos but IMO that one is the best for the money). You can get the FX6300/M5A99FX combo with a CM 212 Evo for $255 plus tax, the FX8320 for $20 more, and the FX8350 for $60 more. Personally that is what I would do with the budget you’ve indicated as that ASUS board is a gem and will likely need only a BIOS update to accept a next-gen Steamroller processor when they come out. That would allow you to sell your current processor/mobo combo or keep it as a backup or basis for another system. This setup along with the Rosewill PSU I mentioned would total $365 for the FX8320 before taxes and shipping and give you some serious firepower and plenty of room to upgrade in the future. I think you’d be hard pressed to find more performance and quality for the money.