Guild Wars 2

Did 46 last night after that last round of patches. Came up a little short (0.83 per) but did have 2s and 3s.

The Gold to Gems was meant to be a convenient way for those who earn lots of gold to be able to buy items off the CASH shop. They didn’t need to do that.

Since these items are on the CASH shop, they are of course attractive so players will be willing to pay CASH for them through the proxy currency of Gems. That is how the game earns money rather than by subscription. And these sales are how the parent company NCSOFT rates how well a game is doing compared to it’s others. And if they decide it’s not doing well enough, they shut the game down.

Sorry I thought the Civ 5 graph made it obvious since the i5-2500K beat the FX-8350.

The i5 doesn’t use hyper threading like the i7. Therefore the cores can only running one thread at a time. When you are running one thread at a time on an Intel core, it’s performance is far superior to an FX module running one thread on one of it’s cores. So as long as the total CPU load is less than four cores worth, the Intel i5 will outperform an 4 module/8 core FX CPU.

Also baring someone being creative with the rendering loop (as in multthreading it which is difficult for a Dx9 targeted app), the rendering code plus the graphics driver can’t exceed one core’s performance. That becomes the limiting factor. Doesn’t matter how many cores you have or how multithreaded your app may be. Your most time consuming thread can’t ever exceed one core’s performance and that will limit the entire app. And because the rendering code is so tightly coupled to the graphics driver then it’s that pair can’t exceed one core’s performance.

Ricky.4706:

other things to consider is how practical is that speed – you’d need liquid nitrogen cooling for those speeds – and most recent benchmarks are holding off giving the 4770k the crown till they benchmark the newer amd fx cpu – interesting fact …Amd Fx holds the Guiness book of world records for fastest cpu – which was clocked at 8.4 – but the above cpu-z chart shows 8.7 – and the chinese have recently unveiled a super computer that blows all the records away – so I expect a revolution soon in cpu speeds if they decide to make that info public – but reports show that they are trying to make it from all authentic chinese parts – so intel will eventually have nothing to do with it. Quantum computing is very close to being a reality as well – so intel and amd both may be nearing the end of their reign soon! – of course we are talking military grade computers – but in about 5 years – amd and intel may not be top contenders – especially if the chinese start issuing consumer versions of their new technology without intel or amd.

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2013/06/chinas-supercomputer-regains-no-.html

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2278586/dwave-quantum-computer-passes-tests-ahead-of-google-deployment

with all the spy wars going on lately, you can expect computing speeds to change dramatically in the next few years. Our current cpu speeds are but beepers to the near future smartphones lol!

Not the fastest, the fastest clocked. And clock speed isn’t performance.

Let’s go to hbot which ranks OC CPUs running CPU benchmarks at competitions. Since I’ve been using Cinebench lets compare those results.

FX-8350, 12.52 at 7251MHz.

I7-3770K, 13.02 at 6385MHz.

So the FX-8350 is 3.8% slower than an i7-3770K but with an 13.6% faster clock.

Sure someone got an FX-8350 to boot and run CPU-Z long enough to grab a screenshot of it at 8670MHz. That doesn’t do any good if it can’t run anything else without crashing.

Clock speed isn’t performance across CPU lines.

The prime example of this was back in 2006 (which might be before your time Ricky) when the first Core 2 Duos came out. The slowest Core 2 Duo at the introduction was the 1.86GHz E6300. It consistently tied or beat the 3.6GHz Pentium D 960 and was a touch slower than the 2.2GHz Athon X2 4200+.

hoegarden.4287:

Behellagh.1468:

Yes but every CPU series has a different instruction per cycle value so you can’t simply compare clock speeds of different CPUs to know which is fastest.

So we must start comparing cpu’s with the same price too then.
A i5-3570K costs 200€, an amd fx-8530 is 180€…
So what we must do is take a 180€ intel cpu and then compare… I not so sure that a Intel Core i5 4570 is better than the AMD…

That’s true to a degree. In cases when running an app that will use the maximum number of cores seen by the OS the FX-8350 will hold it’s own against the i5-3570K. But if the two CPUs are running an app that doesn’t use all the cores the OS sees then the i5-3570K will kick the FX-8350 up and down the block and this includes games.

I’ll keep repeating this until I’m blue in the face. AMD designed their FX “Module”, which contains two cores, to compete head to head with an Intel core with hyper threading only when both are running two threads simultaneously. That was their design goal. Unfortunately when each is only running one thread at a time, the Intel core wins hands down. 30-40% faster running one thread if the two cores had similar performance when running 2 threads.

Right now the FX-8350 does a fair job keeping up with the i7-2600 in heavily multithreaded tasks but now it’s 15-20% slower than the i7-4770 and 10% slower than the i7-3770. But in every case those Intel CPUs will beat it handily when running a game when CPU performance makes a difference, meaning it’s not being limited by video card performance.

Sure if you crank a video card intensive game like Metro 2033 up to it’s max, it really doesn’t matter which CPU you use, you will be within a percent or two in frame rate. But in a game like Civ 5, it will be a noticeable difference.

And if you aren’t cranking the video and resolution settings to 11, the gap will simply grow.

Yes but every CPU series has a different instruction per cycle value so you can’t simply compare clock speeds of different CPUs to know which is fastest.

Honestly, if you are going with an A10-6800K and a video card then you would be better off getting a 4.2GHz FX-4350 with an Asus M5A97 R2. The FX-4350 has 8MB of L3 cache that the A10 doesn’t have.

In terms of the TP they are. They’re the items players are willing to part with and have already transferred to the market for holding. Yes there may be lots more sitting in players personal inventory or bank but since they aren’t for sale, it’s not really supply.

It’s like De Beers and diamonds. Sure diamonds aren’t as rare as they are made out to be, it’s just the supply for sale is tightly controlled.

DingoVad.1945:

I´ve heard that the i3 wasn´t good enough? is it?

Compared to a AMD A10 it’s good enough. Take a look at this chart from Tom’s Hardware’s hardware review of GW2.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html

Look at the performance of an FX-4000 running at 4 GHz on the first graph to a 3 GHz i3 on the second graph. They are the same. Now an AMD A10 is like the FX-4000 as it has 2 modules/4 cores except the A10 lacks the L3 cache that the FX has so it should be a tad slower at the same clock speed. But the A10-5700 in those HPs I linked to are only running at 3.4 GHz. So looking back at the first chart you see how much the FX-4000 scales between 3 and 4 GHz. At 3.4 GHz, assuming it scales linearly, would put it at 3/4rds the frame rate of the 3GHz i3 and the system with the i3 I linked to is running at 3.2 GHz.

Quad cores (or modules in the case of AMD FX CPUs) will beat dual cores (or modules) but only when you compare Intel to Intel and AMD to AMD.

You can compare a dual core Intel i3 to a dual module AMD FX-4xxx but performance will only match when both are running four threads each and are similarly priced, since AMD prices their FX-4xxx parts to match an i3 with similar performance. So a 4.2GHz FX-4350 should be equivalent to a 3.3GHz i3-3220 at $130.

According to nVidia’s own slides they aren’t planning on releasing any other new cards through the fall of 2013. Next card bellow the GTX 760 in terms of available performance will be the GTX 660 for the next few months.

And yes sadly there are DIY gamers who believe if you aren’t spending at least $200 on your video card then you aren’t serious about building a gaming system.

There are few computers that are “good enough” for WvW.

The two systems you list are both “compact” systems, small and narrow. Do you have a space problem that you can’t fix a mid size tower? The problem with these compact towers is they severely limit your upgrade options.

The best PC they have for gaming would likely be this one, an i3-3210 with an HD 7750 video card but no operating system which is another 850-900 Krones.

Of the systems that include an OS, then the best remaining one for gaming would by the 4499 HP with the GT 640 graphics.

http://www.wupti.com/Produkter/Computer-og-IT/Computere/1047074/HP-Pavilion-p62431eo.html

If that price is too high then the 4189 Krone version without the GT 640 is still better than the two you picked as the HD 7660D is faster than either the HD 8470 or the GT 620.

http://www.wupti.com/Produkter/Computer-og-IT/Computere/1047073/HP-Pavilion-p62430eo.html

The goal of AMD when they designed the FX was one FX Module under two threads should be equivalent to one Intel Core iX core running two threads with Hyper Threading turned on. Don’t forget they started to design the FX soon after the socket 1366 Core i7s just came out.

And in some cases a FX-8350 is very close to a i7-2600 when doing mulithreaded apps like CineBench or POV-Ray.

But that’s fully loaded. Games in general aren’t loading the CPU down and when an Intel core doesn’t need to run two threads at the same time it spanks an FX module running only one core. And since in WvW and player packed events and zones (LA) appear to be more CPU bound than GPU, it only makes sense that choosing Intel over AMD makes sense.

As for FPU perfomance, AMD has never matched Intel’s FPU performance even on the Phenom II platform. As for the sharing in an FX module, you just have to remember that the goal was to match FX module to Intel HT core in which case it’s still one FPU for every two threads. And FPU/MMX/SEEx aren’t used very much in games, as oppose to engineering/science applications, so that impacts very little.

========

The problem comes from the muddling of the concept of cores. Yes the i7-4770 has four cores but due to HT the OS sees 8, allowing 8 threads to run at the same time. But the performance gain going from 4 threads running to 8 threads running on the i7 isn’t going to be a lot, 10-20% because running two threads at the same time in one core simply improves the overall efficiency of the core which means that each thread is now running at 55-60% of single thread per core performance instead of just 50%. And that’s the performance AMD decided to target with their core design in an FX module and NOT the single thread performance of an Intel core but just 55-60%. So in situations when the CPU isn’t fully loaded, like a lot of games, and if those games are CPU bound and not GPU bound, then lntel will always come out on top.

Your thread just happen to be the one I went off in, sorry.

I see you’ve already found your answer. Not necessarily the best chart since the FX series has a worst ipc (instruction per cycle) than the Intel’s Core iX series so it needs to be clocked faster to achieve the same performance. Add on top of that the difference between the performance of a Intel core running a single thread Vs and FX module running a single thread, we would be looking at well over 5.0 GHz on the FX-6300 simply to match the i5-4430 at 3 Ghz.

Which is why AMD prices relative to general performance so looking at NewEgg the FX-6300 is $120 vs the i5-4430 at $190.

Not really a fight. I’ll still say that going Intel is the only way for gaming where the CPU is a factor and not the GPU (like Metro). It’s just I understand where AMD was going with there FX module architecture and it has merit, just not great for gaming. Plus it’s not like Intel has an inexpensive quad core like AMD. And really it’s been that way for years now. If you can afford it go Intel, if you can’t go AMD.

This is an OT aside/rant.

Not everyone is willing to build their own rig. If they are asking what’s better A or B, don’t simply ignore them and provide a parts list that’s 20% higher than the price of A or B.

Not everyone has a spare copy/licence of Windows laying about so you can ignore it’s cost in terms of the budget an OP. At some point somebody will take a list published here, buy the parts, put it together and then realize that it doesn’t have Windows on it already, that there isn’t a way to install it because they left out a DVD drive (it’s the new floppy drive, who needs one).

Not everyone will be willing to overclock and then properly test their system to make sure the system is stable at that speed.

If an OP lists a budget, don’t pull the old “but for $X more you can get …” car salesman line. All those “but for $X” can add up quickly and now they are way outside their budget and you sold them on a system they can’t get and anything they now get would feel inferior, even if it’s still loads better than what they currently have.

People who enjoy building systems always have an inch to scratch when they aren’t and threads like the ones that popped up here over the last week or so on “building a rig” can partially fulfill that need. But listen to what the OP is asking for first. Try to stay within the limits they’ve set forth and if they have unrealistic goals for their budget just tell them so.

People who don’t have the passion for building computers are usually quite ignorant in what parts are important and what aren’t. They aren’t familiar with the last 3 generations of CPU and GPUs. I imagine some still believe in the MHz, now GHz myth. Or that 16GB of memory over 8GB would make the one app at a time they run somehow faster. Please just realize this and take the time to explain why what they believe isn’t true.

/rant

Sorry, I thought you were bashing AMD by implying that Intel’s offerings was a “real” CPU with a joke GPU (iGPU as you called it) simply tacked on while AMD’s APU is a gimmick. After all Intel’s GPUs have been embarrassingly weak since the original i740 and the original inclusion in the Clarkdale series was to drive nVidia and AMD out of Intel motherboard chipset market.

Other than a marketing term, what’s the difference between AMD’s APUs and what Intel offers? I find it odd that you defined Intel’s offerings as “CPU+iGPU” when that’s exactly what AMD’s been offering under their APU banner.

AMD’s sin was designing a CPU family under the assumption that in the future all software will be written to be multithreaded, CPUs will be under a lot of thread load and that if heavy math was needed then that code would be running on the GPU under OpenCL or some equivalent. Sadly for AMD the future they saw isn’t here yet and may not be for some time to come. Oops, toss it in with personal robot man servants and flying cars.

Agreed. 750W is oversized. It’s just one of these cases where a nice quality 650 watt isn’t much cheaper.

I’ve found with very large batches you can achieve 1.7 to 2.1 dust /ecto. But in small batches, like converting under 25, even under 50, a run of bad rolls, few if any 3 to 5 dust/ecto, can push the conversion rate average well bellow 1.5 dust/ecto which including the cost of the master kits means you lost value converting.

The one thing I dislike the most about this is the video card. This GTX 650Ti is only $110 after rebate and will destroy the 550Ti you’ve linked to.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133473

Minor quible, the PSU doesn’t have any true 8 pin (or 6+2) PCIe power connectors. In includes a 6 to 8 pin converter which isn’t quite the same thing.

I did say it wasn’t much. But there’s something about picking Cas 11 memory for DDR3-1600 that bothers me like an itch on that spot on your back you can’t quite reach. It’s like nails on a black board.

Upgrading to Cas 9, DDR3-1600 is less than $4.

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/crucial-memory-bls2kit4g3d1609ds1s00

So you want a 1200 and 2000 gem option?

You are saving $11 for slower memory with slower timings (DDR3-1600 Cas 11 Vs DDR3-1866 Cas 9).

Cas is a delay needed to prepare the memory can be read or written to. Taking the speed of the two memory types into consideration as well, the delay is reduced by 30% and then memory is transferred 16% faster.

True, in the end we are talking less than a few percentage points of improvement in gaming, maybe 3-4%.

Wealth on the sidelines doesn’t affect inflation unless it comes back into the economy, at which time it’s taxed.

How would you implement a “wealth tax”? Impose it once a week? And if you are going to go for wealth what about players with their wealth tied up in items for sale or bids or just sitting in inventory? What about the player who left for a month and comes back and find his bank account had been raided, think he’ll stay?

If your argument is the ultra wealthy are screwing with the markets then isn’t taxing them there the solution?

APUs can game a kitten sight better than Intel’s and when push comes to shove and you are on a really tight budget.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7032/amds-richland-vs-intels-haswell-gpu-on-the-desktop-radeon-hd-8670d-hd-4600/2

So where is all that CPU horsepower gets you in games while using your integrated GPU Haswell?

Yes, it’s relative. How many people try to run a game on an Intel HD 2000/2500/3000 and come to the conclusion that PC gaming sucks. APUs changed that by putting a “real” GPU on chip and for the last few Intel generations stomped Intel.

Sure we are talking around HD 5550 performance levels but for someone on a very tight budget who can’t build their own rig, it’s not a bad compromise. I think of it as a way to get a PC that can play games OK under your parent’s nose if they are getting you a new PC to start college.

I was thinking about swapping the A10/FM2 for a FX/AM3+ (L3 cache in the FX will help some). Not sure how much more performance this would buy (also upped the memory to -1866).

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1aWUx

Danno.5269:

What about this ? http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1aTmr

Where do I start.

1st the power supply that comes with that case is ancient crap. It’s also lying ancient crap as the maximum usable wattage for 3.3, 5 and 12 volts is only 330 watts. Reputable PSU manufacturers would call that a 350 watt power supply (20 watts for standby 5 volt rail and the -5, -12 rails). It also only provides about 190 watts or so at 12 volts which is pretty low. The PSU will support the CPU, just not a CPU AND a 60-70 watt video card like the one you picked.

A 32GB SSD, unless being used as a hybrid cache to a regular hard drive, is simply to small for even Windows 7/8. For that price you can get a 250-320GB 7200RPM conventional hard drive.

Unclear how much better that CPU cooler is over the stock one AMD ships with the CPU.

Monitor only has an analog VGA input, no DVI or HDMI inputs. The next three 20", 1600×900, $90 monitors the Acer, the Hannspree and the Dell at pcpartpicker all come with both VGA and DVI inputs. DVI is so much clearer.

Now assuming you did have the power for a HD 6670, you will want one that uses GDDR5 memory, not DDR3. If price is an issue always choose the 1GB GDDR5 over the 2GB DDR3. Slow video memory is like attaching ankle weights to a sprinter. Sure 2GB sounds like an upgrade over 1GB but any performance you may gain by having more video memory is overwhelmingly wiped out by having less than half of the memory bandwidth.

Memory you picked while fast had slow timings, Cas 11. Cas 9 or lower is better.

So here are my tweaks to your pcpartpicker.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1aVTo

Changed out the case/crappy PSU combo for a case and good PSU.
Picked a Cas 9 memory instead of a Cas 11.
Swapped from a 2GB DDR3 to a 1GB GDDR5 video card.
Swapped the monitor for one with a DVI connector.
Swapped out the too tiny SSD for an 10x larger conventional HD.

Get a defrag utility like Auslogics Disk Defrag and see how badly the gw2.dat file is fragged. If it is then the utility can also only defrag a specific file or folder as well as the entire HD, including squeezing out all the empty space into larger blocks. Remember don’t ever defrag SSDs.

If you have a rather cluttered HD the additional seeks caused by fragmentation can really add up. However if the file is not fragmented, then I have no idea why it would be taking so long.

And that’s why threads are merged by the mods, to keep the discussion in one place rather than numerous threads that rabidly fall off the first few pages.

Let’s make the Mod’s life easier and look before you create topic.

The most important thing Danno you need to build an affordable gaming PC is having reasonable expectations.

Of course you didn’t define what’s “affordable” to you. Also you didn’t mention resolution you wish to play at. I’m sure we could come up with a very affordable gaming PC that plays at 1280×720@60fps at the performance setting.

Ah, the old “sales tax is regressive” argument. We aren’t siphoning off money to run the government here, we are siphoning off money to keep the active money supply in check.

Wealth idling on the sidelines does no immediate harm. It’s the amount of money actively circulating that needs to remain in check and a fairly sizable chunk of that money cycles through the TP which is why that’s where you siphon some off.

Not all armor pieces are “constructed” out of the same material. Leather interacts with light differently than cloth or metal. Not all metal reflects like as if chromed and the application of a dye isn’t like the paint job on a car with a nice glossy clear coat.

So beyond how light interacts with the material it’s “made” of, armors are also “tinted” in the grey scale to simulate fine texture. So when dye is applied, it can appear darker on the piece as a whole or just localized areas, than if the armor had no tint at all.

CPU wise you are a lot closer to minimum than you might think with that CPU. You have a slowish Core 2 based dual core that had a slight memory bandwidth lobotomy (lower speed memory plus smaller L2 cache). Game really gets a kick out of 3 to 4 cores but must have at least 2.

In today’s terms, assuming your HD 4800 series card is an HD 4870, that’s pretty equivalent to and HD 7750, a $90, $65 after rebate, video card. Which nowadays would also be in the shallow end of the requirements pool.

In crowded player areas CPU performance has a greater impact than graphics.

Couldn’t add that to the “List of Things We Want in the Gemstore” thread could you.

Look at me! Look at me! I’m a unique snowflake! I need my own topic!

Looks good. One of the cheapest GTX 660 they have. As long as you have the PSU that can feed it properly (min 450 watts with 24 amps or 264 watts at 12 volts) it should be fine. The 660 uses around 35 watts more than the HD 5770 you think you have. In areas where you aren’t CPU bound you should get a really nice performance bump. Of course zergs will be zergs and framerate will suffer at crowded events.

Have fun.

Until ANet pushlishes the M1 of active players (logged in within the last 30 days say) in a nice friendly easy to read chart there will be players who insist that the TP gold sink isn’t necessary to halt inflation.

DJRiful.3749:

GTX 670 or HD 7850 I recommend. Now they are good time to buy due the next gen is out.

Which would be fine if he wasn’t on a tight budget.

Those at Farmer’s Markets still have to pay tax to the state based on their sales and if they don’t they can and do get into trouble. Heck we have stories about state and local officials shaking down little curbside fruit and vegetable stands. Same is true at swap meets, flea markets and dealer rooms at cons.

Okay, black market was a bit extreme, how about underground economy? ANet wants all player to player transactions to happen where it can be tracked and coin taxed. This way they can closely monitored the economy a quickly spot any hanky panky going on.

However hoegarden if you do performance/price for single threaded Passmark numbers it’s a different story. FX-8350 (8.45), i5-3570K (9.17), i5-4670K (9.35), i7-3770K (6.82) and i7-4770K (6.80).

I’m all for bang for the buck, which is why I recommended the GTX 650Ti Boost (e-i-e-i-oh) but most people on the planet aren’t pushing their CPU usage to the point where 8 cores or 8 pseudo cores (i7s) are necessary. And if you’re primary CPU intensive use for your computer is gaming, go Intel and bang for the buck with Intel is an i5.

I’m running an AMD cpu right now and I knew when I got it that it wasn’t the best for gaming. But I needed a replacement quick and it was cheap and gets the job done. Wish I could have spent twice the money and gotten something more game friendly but hey, life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Yes it’s working now for me as well.

Sounds more like you’re upset about no direct player to player trades, meaning a trading screen where both players place their items and coin to trade and both must confirm for the trade to happen. What we have is simply gifting via mail.

Basically you want a black market where players can avoid the tax and fees.

Exchange comes up. I’m able to enter an amount but executing it appears to fail. No message, page is simply blank.

At least no coin was deducted.

10-15%. An OC 650Ti Boost can narrow that to 5% of a stock clock 660. $30 difference at NewEgg (like that would help you being in Hungary and all).

As Intel keeps lowering the power use of their CPUs, OCing headroom seems to be going away as well. And I can’t find any game comparisons between the i5-3570K and the i5-4670k at my usual chart laden sites. I can’t imagine any game that will be optimized for a Haswell core. The i7-3770K Vs i7-4770K yielded a few % points at most in games at stock speeds so I imagine the comparison between i5s would be similar.

The switch comes out to around $30 between the CPU and motherboard. And overclocking may be “more mature” with the older ivy bridge CPU. Haswell changed up the OC rules again.

Edit: Read new edits, never mind about choice of CPUs.

Since it’s unscheduled I would say when they have it fixed. Players were reporting missing buy orders so a possible database problem.

Edit: Oh look, it’s fixed.

I know Solar, but still no 3rd party heat sink which is why I went with the GTX 650Ti Boost, which is a lot closer to a GTX 660 in performance (within 10%) than the GTX 650Ti (which is 25% slower). And the $40 upgrade ($70 if going from basic 1GB 650 to 2GB OC 650Ti Boost) from the GTX 650 will yield almost twice the performance. Best bang for the buck upgrade IMO for a DIY gamer on a budget.

Plus always good to leave a little cash on the table for unexpected price shifts or other expenses. People tend to forget little things like tax and shipping.

Well the $100 or so they save from dropping the SSD isn’t going to be anywhere close for to get a GTX 770 or even a GTX 660 depending on various other tweaks in prices. Remember he was already to his limit. The “but for only X more” is a kitten slippery slope.

That’s why you use charts like this one Ricky (waiting for Tom’s Hardware bashing in 3 … 2 … 1 …). High end video card and testing at low resolution and game settings is so the differences in CPU performance is highlighted.

For those who suspect Tom’s, here’s X-Bit Labs i5 Ivy Bridge review. Remember that the i7-3770K has about a 3% higher clock rate (a wash when OCing), a 1/3rd more L3 memory cache (does help), Hyper Threading (which can hurt or help) but costs $100 more. The average gain there doesn’t warrant the cost IMO so a good choice for the OP.

The GTX 650 is a tad weak. If it was me (donning fire suit), I would nix the SSD and put some of the money toward a better video card (like the GTX 650Ti Boost). SSDs are nice but it will only affect loading times.

Also I prefer the Asus P8Z77-V LK as a motherboard. Their both fine and should be within $5-10 of each other.

Don’t forget the Microsoft tax (ie copy of OS).

Ram should be at least DDR3-1600 Cas 9.

Case?

You can also take some of the windfall from nixing the SSD and put it toward a 3rd party CPU cooler like the CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO. Overclocking produces more heat and the default Intel cooler isn’t up to the challenge.

How would they control inflation without a gold sink? Oh, they could lower the drop rate.

Wait… no that would cause an outcry. Soulbind everything. Only allow sales to vendors.

No the fee siphons a fairly large portion of all the money, in coin or item, the game drops on us. Without that we would be seeing hyper inflation with basic mats selling for silver not copper and green items for gold.

All that “flippers” do is eek a bit of profit out of the psychology of the market. That most players are impatient and don’t want to be bothered picking a price to sell or buy at. Competition between “flippers” narrows the gap between highest offer/lowest sale price until all the profit is squeezed out of it.

What rich coffers do, other than filling ANet’s, is give you a much higher chance on getting everything other than taffy over the regular free coffers. For tickets it’s estimated 25 times higher to something around 1 in 80. So in 20 “pulls” you still have a 78% chance of not getting one. Even if “rare” odds were 1 in 10 you still would have a 12% chance in not getting one (but a 13% chance of getting 4 or more).

Note that $20 of gems, converted to gold would have bought you around 2300 regular coffers. At the estimated 1 in 2000 odds with the regular coffer for a ticket you would have a 68% chance of getting at least one ticket which is 3x better than you had with 20 rich coffers. Sure you might get a nasty finger cramp clicking that many times …