Guild Wars 2

sirsquishy.8531:

In my experience yes, because GW2 will spawn 50+ worker threads. While the core of the game rides on a single management thread for the entire engine, the rest of the game is split into tons of other threads.

A fresh load of GW2 sitting in my ‘banking area’ it has 35 threads spawned, and its using the resources of 5.25 Cores.

Oh, I didn’t see this. You realize that that i7 is worse then/equal to my old i3, correct? It’s an awful example when we’re talking about desktop parts. My i5 sits at like 70% or a bit lower usage at the bank in LA. I’m actually curious as to where your “banker area” is.

When you’re not running a laptop CPU of all things at a super low clockrate you’ll see much more reasonable usage percents. You’re trying to cherrypick things to prove your argument; all it does it make you look a bit ridiculous.

sirsquishy.8531:

An i7 is going to be faster then an i5 due to clock speed differences alone. When I still had my 4670K, I had it clocked the same as my 4790K and the 4790K was still 20-25FPS higher then the 4670K using the same RAM/GPU. So yes, HT does yeild more FPS.

In what, GW2? I’m calling bull kittening kitten on that right now. Sure, you might see improvements in the 2 multithreaded games in existence, but an i5’s not going to struggle in those anyways. You were either streaming or running some other incredibly intensive programs for that to happen.

And calling it clockspeed differences? I literally just said to spend the extra money on a better cooler. You’ll easily be able to push a higher clockrate (and as such pull higher framerates) much easier with a DH-15 over a 212 Evo or some such thing. Even if you clock the i7 to the same speed you’re either running hotter or you’re an extra $100 in for a marginal performance, if any.

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1261?vs=1260

sirsquishy.8531:

You are getting way more then 5% performance between an i5 and i7. You gain HT, you gain more L3 Cache and you have a higher base clock and higher Turbo.

HT doesn’t matter if you can’t take advantage of it, like you can’t in almost every single game on the planet. So, you’ll be seeing the slightly higher single threaded performance gain instead of the larger increase from hyperthreading; in the benchmark posted the i7’s a little bit ahead in single threaded performance even after accounting for clockspeed.

Outside of video/picture editing or streaming there’s pretty much no reason to buy an i7.

sirsquishy.8531:

http://ark.intel.com/compare/88195,88191

Comparing CPUs on anything but (relevant) benchmarks is ridiculous. The only thing that’s going to matter is real world performance.

Why would anet move servers to a location that would serve their intended region worse? It doesn’t make sense. Especially since having split location servers would likely make things more difficult to manage.

realmouse.1095:

avoid both Logitech and razer..they both have issues and poor customer service.

What’s wrong with Logitech’s customer service? I’ve heard, without exaggeration, nothing but good things about it.

sirsquishy.8531:

for THIS game there are only 2 Choices for CPU, 6700K or 4790K because they are the FASTEST single threaded CPUs on the market. The 6700K is ONLY 5% faster then the 4790k at the same clocks. And the 4790K overclocks higher then the 6700K on average. So If you are going to OC, depending on your Binning Luck there maybe no IPC performance difference between the two.

What? You get literally nothing from the multithreading i7s offer for GW2. Sure an i7 might beat an i5 by a couple of percentage points in terms of single threaded performance but it isn’t worth the additional money in the slightest. We’re talking like 5% difference for $100; that money would be much better spent on an H100i or a Noctua DH-15 so you can push a higher overclock.

For this game, an i7 is a waste of money TC. Grab a 6600k+mobo and a good cooler and OC the balls off it and you’ll be in the best place possible for this game.

The rest of the ramble about ITX vs ATX didn’t make any sense to me either; that’s a matter of form factor and what size PC you want.

Your performance sounds about right, honestly. OCing your CPU if you haven’t already should help a bit but you’re pretty much where you should expect to be with an AMD CPU.

Iyeru.5240:

The K70’s keyboard has no “Edge” I guess you could call it, instead of outset, all the keys can be pulled via finger instead if need be. (By working from the outside in.) This is nearly impossible on keyboards that lay the keys inset into the keyboard.

You really want to use a keycap puller of that for the health of the switches. Snapping a stem is not fun.

Not off the top of my head, but in a topic somewhere around here you should be able to find the version that worked for someone else. They posted it a few days ago iirc

It will run but not well.

Wizkid.5982:

A lot of people talk kitten about Razer

People say bad things about Razer because they charge a premium for their products despite the quality of their products not warranting that price tag.

That being said, trying a mouse before you buy (if possible) is a great thing to do.

So yeah, basically what the G600, Corsair mouse, and Naga have.

It really doesn’t make a difference for keyboard, though, since you need to pull the keycaps off to clean them anyways.

Iyeru.5240:

I had two logitech mice quit on me in about 4 months each sadly. I wish I could believe you however

It’s always possible to get a dead product or two, but overall metrics show that a lot more people have Razer mice dying in 4-8 months then people have Logitech mice dying that quickly.

Iyeru.5240:

The outsetted design on the K70 really is amazing, and I can’t see myself ever getting anything (even mice) without buttons that are outset.

It’s too bad that Corsair’s keyboards use a nonstandard bottom row. It completely kills any will I’d have to recommend them. That doesn’t even count the fact that you can get higher quality brands at the same/similar price points…

And I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about with the “outset” mouse buttons. The G600 has the same exact thing as that Corsair mouse, as does a Naga.

I noticed a substantial decrease in loading screen time when going from my 7200 RPM HDD to a 240GB Mushkin Chronos SSD, especially going into LA or playing GTAV

AnClar.1304:

Just to add a bit here, I recently went from a 660 to an EVGA 970 FTW. While I’m pleased with the card (and it’s DX12 capabilities for future games), I was surprised at how little the upgrade affected frame rates in GW2. An apples to apples comparison…all GW2 graphics settings maxed, including supersample, with the 660 I was getting around 35 FPS in Divinity’s Reach. With the 970 I got about a 10 FPS bump, averaging around 45 FPS. While not disappointed at all, I was sorta expecting more.

It’s because your CPU is the limiting component there, not your GPU.

Go for Logitech. The G502 has fine button placement and it’s not worth compromising on quality by going Razer.

MrFayth.3546:

I wouldn’t call it 50% more powerful, the hardware just isn’t there.

It doesn’t even offer 50% better performance in most cases(only scoring around 10-15FPS less than the 960 in GTAV as shown here

Using the 1080P benchmark we see that the 960 is 38% faster then the 660. Using the 1600P benchmark the difference is even bigger at 54%. 15 FPS is a lot when you’re only get 40 FPS to start with.

MrFayth.3546:

and here)

Again, at 1200P (1920×1200. Do people really still use 4:3?) we see a 43% performance difference.

Using anandtech’s 660 benchmarks and these 960 benchmarks (because anandtech doesn’t have them for whatever reason…) we see that there is a (55%) performance increase in Battlefield 4 performance (1080P/Ultra) and a 48.5% increase in Thief performance.

I really cba to keep calculating more of these, but the overall trend shows a ~40-50% performance increase going to a 960 from a 660. Calling it a “sidegrade” or “hardly an upgrade” is far from the truth; that’s a solid bump in performance.

I’d personally get something like a Pentium G3258, MSI H81M-E33, 8 GB of the cheapest 9 CAS 1600 MHz ram you can find, and a used 260x for ~$55-60.

Downgrade your drivers and it should be fixed.

MrFayth.3546:

That wasn’t much of an upgrade at all. Discounting DX12 capabilities(which wont help in Gw2), your 660 is actually stronger in some areas.

What? A 960 is a solid upgrade over a 660. It’s like 50% more powerful…

What are your exact specs? Often people have had luck fixing that by downgrading their drivers

What has been announced so far doesn’t seem like enough content to justify kitten expansion. I didn’t even pay that much for the base game, which had way more to do.

If the price was a bit lower I’d buy it, or if there was more actual content announced.

Last time I did Wurm I had it running at like 25-30 FPS solidly (at the one with the barrels), so you might be surprised

I made a Cele set for my Engi for roaming but never really ended up using it. I’ve got the whole set still sitting around but it’s just taking up space, so I’m tempted to salvage it and sell the runes or something. I always enjoyed cele, about as much as condi, but is it worth keeping the Cele gear or should I just switch to condi?

martaug.1762

Ignore Fermi, he is an kitten. The vishera is a great cpu and 150 cheaper than a comparible Intel.

You clearly have no clue what you’re talking about. It’s an OC’d 8350 which is like a $150-160 CPU priced at $230-240 that can’t compare to an i5 in terms of single threaded performance and barely beats it in multithreaded performance (~10% when you’ve got a stock i5). If you OC the i5 it absolutely demolishes the 9590. You can’t OC the 9590, either, because it’s OC’d to hell out of the box so you will see no performance gains from that. It’s objectively an absolutely awful purchase. If you’re going AMD you should at least get an 8350 on sale, which still isn’t the greatest purchase at all.

Don’t try insulting people when you clearly don’t have the slightest idea what you’re doing when making recommendations, it just makes you look like a fool.

martaug.1762:

@EddieMo, please give us a parts list for a $700 comp that can run GW2 on max. I personally think you are full of kittenpoo.

A quick bit of mental math puts my computer at $675 including Windows and not counting my SSD/upgraded fans.

Or, alternatively:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/mkznRB

It really needs a toggle imo. I know what my name and title are so I don’t need it popping up in while in the middle of my screen when I’m trying to see any ally names

I’ve noticed that the footfalls on Sunrise vary slightly in size, but they all basically look the same. Isn’t that just how it works?

That’s actually a pretty reasonable download speed, as stated. ~2/3 your rated isn’t super far off in practice.

Hell, I’ve topped out at like 5.5MB/s on my 95 mbps connection but it’s usually lower, like in the 2-4 range.

Agemnon.4608:

So…Fermi’s an ironic handle then? My first GPU was a Fermi 560 Ti It was Asus cooled and 20% cooler than the competition…and a famous little girl show appropriated the phrase lol!

Honestly, I went for it after the man, not the GPU line

Agemnon.4608:

AMD may be cheaper but you won’t get Shadowplay with it and AMD is notorious for drawing a lot more power

Power draw is card dependent it honestly doesn’t really matter. You’re looking at <$.01 additional cost per hour run at full power draw (assuming $.14/KWH). Negligible imo, especially when you’re getting the card for $50 or more less.

As for Shadowplay, the value of that is subjective. I mean I guess it’s nice if you want to record stuff but if you have no interest in that it’s useless. In any case, it’s not worth the price increase imo; that extra money can go other places where you’ll get a lot more for it.

I don’t harbor any animosity towards nVidia, I just think that in general you’re much better off with an AMD alternative, since you can get more for your money. If an nVidia card is the better buy at a given price point I’ll recommend it

martaug.1762:

With that type of budget go with an amd Fury, amd vishera 9590 4.7Ghz cpu, 32 gig of G Skill ripjaws ddr3 2133 memory, a 2 TB hard drive with a 240gb ssd , 750watt power supply for ~$950british pound at newegg Uk
http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/ShoppingCart.aspx?submit=view
Figure about 100 more for various little bits and you are good for at least 3 yrs if not more.

This is honestly bad advice and that link won’t work. 32 GB of memory is a waste of money, that AMD CPU isn’t worth the money and you’re much, much better off with Intel. With OP’s budget a 500gb SSD is far from unreasonable (hell, my friend’s 960 GB was $186 US shipped). Overall, OP, don’t listen to this guy

Rynier.3629:

There is not a single way in the world wwhere your cpu is bottle necking your GPU. your GPU is the bottleneck.

False. GW2 will most certainly run into CPU issues before running into GPU issues, especially with a lot of people around.

Rynier.3629:

You are going to laugh at me but stop your Overclock. put your cpu on stock then test. Just go with it and if it works i will link you to resources taht can prove OC is not good for your gaming fps

Also completely false, and I’ve love to know the twisted logic behind this statement. If you’re in a CPU-bound situation, OCing your CPU will get you some nice gains in performance.

You can get a used 3570k+mobo for $175-200. Throw on a $25 212 Evo amd you should be good to go.

Get an i5-6600k (i7s don’t give a performance increase in most games as of yet, so they’re not really worth it unless you’re streaming or doing picture/video editing) with a Noctua DH-15, a decent motherboard that will support overclocking, a 970/290x/980 depending on how much power you want, a decent power supply (check the power supply tier list, get a top tier 650-750W unit), 8 GB of ram, and whichever case you like. A Samsung 850 Evo and a 1-2 TB HDD should round it out.

For MMOs a 970/290x should be plenty of GPU (they have similar performance, which one pulls ahead depends on the game; 290xs are way cheaper here in the US so I’d go with one over a 970 all day long.

Spend the rest on a quality mechanical keyboard (Ducky, WASD/Code, Filco, CoolerMaster; avoid Razer due to low quality and (imo) Corsair (due to a nonstandard bottom row) and a decent mouse (Logitech of some sort). You’ll also be able to get a monitor if you need one.

This computer should easily last you years without upgrades, and building it is a breeze; watch Mewegg’s how-to guides youtube and you’ll be good to go.

Both sites let you choose a custom setup and with how cheap everything is it’s not really worth looking at buying the parts separately to build yourself as custom pc shops can build it for you for the same price if you’re looking for new parts.

Have you ever actually looked at prices? Barring some epic deal, building your own will save you an easy few hundred dollars.

Your CPU is bottlenecking your GPU. This game is super CPU dependent and only really takes advantage of a couple of cores, so your CPU and GPU usage both make sense.

Specs would be helpful.

MahouKami.6095:

1. liquid cooling and water cooling are the exact same right? (never built a system myself)

Yeah, pretty much.

MahouKami.6095:

2. what are the chances of the liquid cooler breaking and destroying my entire system?

Without ever having seen any actual data, I’d say that the odds of that happening would be pretty slim, at least for an AIO cooler like an H100i

MahouKami.6095:

3. would I need to install anything else beside a Z-series Motherboard to overclock cpu?

Nope, although a quality power supply and an aftermarket cooler are usually wise things to have

MahouKami.6095:

4. would the PSU i’ve chosen have all the necessary cables to power everything I’ve chosen in my system?

The only thing that you’d have to double check would be the number of 6+2 pin adapters for the GPU (for example, my old CX430 only had 1 so I would need to use a molex adapter to run my 280x off of it), but any decent PSU will have plenty of those. That being said, make sure to buy a high quality PSU; it’s the last thing you want to skimp on because if that fails it can easily take the rest of your computer with it.

MahouKami.6095:

5. will there be any issues fitting all this into the 300r mid case that I’ve chosen?

I’d say to look up the compatibility to be sure, but I don’t think it would be an issue. My brother crammed an H100i into his 100R just fine, even though it was a bit of a pita to install.

MahouKami.6095:

and lastly, will I still need to buy additional case fans if I liquid cool the cpu? I suppose there is the GPU to consider. But it’s an asus gtx 970 turbo. Seems to have some pretty decent cooling on it

Realistically 1 intake and 1 venting fan is plenty, especially if they’re decent airflow fans. It’s nice to have an extra 1 or two though, just to maximize the airflow.

Fyrebrand.4859:

Um… yeah. I can imagine how frustrating that must be for you. 40 FPS, you say. Wow, how do you LIVE??

It’s super obvious/obnoxious when you’re happily cruising along at 60 FPS and it suddenly tanks to 40 or whatever. Especially the feeling of increased input lag…

A 212 Evo is all right but with the money you’re spending you should be able to afford a Noctua DH-15 or a Corsair H100i or something. Although the 212 Evo is great at its price point (I use one myself), you do see some solid gains from a better cooler.

Behellagh.1468:

You can read the generational games charts in that article and find that the i7-6700K isn’t any or just fractionally better than an i7-2600K for single GPU gaming.

Eh, you’re looking at a 30% clock for clock improvement from a 2600k to a 6700k. While that isn’t huge, it isn’t really negligible either imo, especially in CPU bound situations.

Behellagh.1468:

So does that mean you shouldn’t bother upgrading from a Sandy or Ivy Bridge

Personally I’d say you should stick with Sandy/Ivy (I upgraded to an Ivy i5 this summer myself because I didn’t think Skylake was going to be worth the price increase), but if you’re swapping to an i7/it from an i3 or from a locked to an unlocked CPU it could be worth it.

Agemnon.4608:

Eight had no start button while it introduced the lazily designed Metro interface.

Who cares if there was no start button? Clicking the bottom left of the screen had literally the exact same functionality as the start button without taking up the space. And Metro is honestly great, much quicker then the standard start menu. I hated it when I got it but after switching back to my laptop’s Win7 install I realized just how much better Metro is.

Agemnon.4608:

I should have gone for UI design. Had I known I could have a six figure income by basically doing nothing (Metro adds absolutely nothing and is a big step backward) but “designing” (that word has too much dignity to use seriously here) something with an overly flat and simplistic pre-alpha looking color scheme (no gradients or shadows, seriously?) I’d take it.

If a waiter or waitress were that lazy I’d complain to their manager. If a cook were that lazy with chicken they’d risk giving careless people salmonella.

It sounds like you’re hating it just for the sake of hating it at this point.

Agemnon.4608:

You qualify for a free Windows 10 upgrade. Windows 8 is the worst OS since Vista. With the exception of optimizations (DirectX 12 and H.265 readily come to mind) Windows 7 is far superior to 10 as far as ease of access and aesthetics go.

That right there is 10% a matter of opinion. I couldn’t stand 10 and ended up going back to 8.1. Of 7, 8, 8.1, and 10, 8 is still the best by a mile imo.

Yeah, I had loads of issues with the wireless in my house even at like 2:30 AM when I was the only person awake in the house. Go wired and you’ll never go back.

Dawdler.8521:

Be sure to do a complete reset every once in a while

What? You shouldn’t have to do this unless you manage to corrupt your install.

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

Drlightningbolt.1754:

When Non lore frinedly named Sylvari Rpers insert thier horrible headcanon as lore and rp as if they arent doing anthing wrong.(PS YOU RUIN IT FOR PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY CARE)

This and them using names that don’t belong on them, like a Canthan/Asian name On a sylvari? Wtf? Can I burn you to ashes now?

I could make a whole thread on how to properly name a character in GW 2 and no one will even read it still.

Probably because there’s no “proper” way to name a character. People can name their stuff whatever they want to name it

I don’t really get immersed but the massive white name above my head when I try to view ally names. Literally the worst update yet

I’m using a CM Storm Quickfire XT MX Brown with a Sharkk wired gaming mouse. Definitely buy a quality mechanical keyboard, they’re fantastic investments. If you want Logitech get a G710 or a G710+, or ask around on /r/mechanicalkeyboards with your budget if you’d be interested in seeing what you can get in your price range. In general if you want a tenkeyless board a Quickfire Rapid is a good buy these days (~$80 on Amazon) and I’m not too sure if you want a fullsize.

For a mouse, just get what’s comfortable. A couple of extra buttons are nice to have but a G600/full-keypad mouse is unnecessary. Whatever you do, don’t buy Razer; their quality is hugely lacking, especially given the premium price. The same goes for their keyboards, honestly.

http://i.imgur.com/HJ2KlTd.jpg

That’s how I have my desk, personally. I’d really like to push everything back way further but the crappy desks at my school have a shelf that prevents my monitor from moving back any further. I recline pretty far when I sit so I can have my arms decently stretched out in front of me.

Yeah, this is obnoxious. If it was a toggle that would be nice, but it’s not. If they can’t make it toggleable I’d like to see it gone

8 80s and a couple of low levels on an alt account. I’ll have 9 80s if I get HoT or maybe before, if I decide to make a new character. I don’t know why I’d make another alt though, since I have every class at 80; why would I have 2 of the same class?

75-85 is hot but fine, especially for a laptop.

Infusion.7149:

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/zVKfzy

16 GB of ram is a waste and that SSD puts him way over budget. Otherwise this is reasonably solid.

JoshSoCal.4516:

Should ordered a Naga bro. I’ve been using one for 2 years and it’s so simple to get used to. I love it.

Nah, Razer’s QC is crap these days. A Logitech mouse is a much better choice.

For $700US and only new parts, I’d personally be looking at this computer:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qCRcnQ

I went a little overbudget, but it’s worth it, and if need be the GPU could drop to a 280 or 960, pretty much whichever is cheaper. I’m not sure what prices are like in the land of the GBP, but I’d aim for something like this.

If it’s grossly over (changing my list to the UK puts me at £636), I’d drop the GPU down a bit and if that’s still over I’d likely go for a locked i5 (4460?) with one of the cheap MSI boards (H81M-E33 I think).

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/GVp6t6

Maybe something like this? It’s still a bit over, though, and you’ll need to source windows yourself (it’s pretty easy to get a copy cheaply or just reuse one, at least over here). I’m really not too sure of the prices over there, like I said, but an i5+decent GPU is what you’ll want to be looking at.