The game relies heavily on singlethreaded performance, which your CPU sorely lacks. You’ll definitely see a framerate (and/or settings) increase with a new GPU, but you’ll also still have performance issues, especially in busy/zergy areas.
Given how good Nvidia cards have been for me for my 14-15 years PC gaming, I’ll never change.
Honestly, this isn’t a great attitude imo. Both brands are perfectly fine as long as you get something decent (so like not Visiontek, basically). Your best bet is to buy the best card in your budget no matter what it is.
The i3 it has is basically the same as my old i3-3220 and the GPU is supposedly 750ti level, which is slightly slower then my old 7850. I was playing the game at 1080 on high/ultra settings with sweetfx at ~45-50 FPS in the open world/dungeons (less in zergs, but that’s the way at things), so it will definitely handle the game just fine. You’ll easily be able to lower the settings to get 60 fps anywhere but zergs.
Like I said, you might want to wait for a second opinion because it’s possible that there are better deals out there, but for a prebuilt computer for $500 an Alpha is at least somewhat reasonable.
Edit: Now the link you posted to Best Buy’s site works and the one I posted doesn’t. Interesting. But yeah, that’s the one, and it’s gone on sale for <$400 multiple times, even once in the last couple of weeks iirc, so if you’re patient you could get it for even cheaper.
That’s really not that great for the price (which is incredibly common for things from brick and mortar stores), and its GPU is incredibly weak. In addition, it’s got an AMD CPU, which means that it’s not the greatest for GW2. In general, a prebuilt at your budget is going to be really lacking in one (most likely 2) aspects- GPU or CPU (most likely GPU) and power supply. If you really don’t want to build a computer, you could likely just find a prebuilt with a solid CPU and add a power supply and graphics card.
Although, now that I think about it, those Alienware Alphas for $500 are actually all right for a $500 prebuilt; i3+750ti(ish) and I’ve seen them on sale for like $350-400. Even though it’s $500 I don’t think you could do much better straight out of the box with a prebuilt.
And where outside of college or the back of a truck do you get a legit copy of Windows for $15?
Reddit, reuse one from another computer, ask a college friend, although reddit was the specific method I was thinking of. That being said, if you’re dropping $100 on Windows your best bet is to just skip the GPU and save up for one to add later.
Actually you’re right, I got it mixed up with the Line-M. Stupid similar names. Case selection is pretty preference based, though, and getting a $35 case that can fit everything is easily doable.
G3258s go for sale for $50-55 all the time. At the $400 price point it’s worth being patient. Also, of course it’s after rebate; you need them when your budget is so low.
You also can save by not spending so much on a case, which lets you bump the GPU up to a 750ti (A $73 250x really just isn’t worth the money). I also swapped the mobo to a slightly cheaper one that’s still great; my brother got his G3258 to 4.8 GHz on one. Add Windows for $15 and you’re at $385 for an all-around solid computer.
A G3258+mobo is going to be $100, 212 Evo $30, CX430 or other PSU $25, ram $40, HDD $45, case $30, Windows $15, 750ti/7850 or similar $80. OC the balls off of the CPU and you’ll be able to run the game well enough.
It’s definitely doable, but having a higher budget would definitely be ideal.
An external mouse is a must, but the built-in keyboard should be fine. If you do decide to get an external keyboard, make sure to get a quality mechanical board instead of some crappy rubberdome.
This biggest bummer about this is that the Phenoms were great CPUs at reasonable prices in their time, where the new AMD CPUs just don’t hold up in a lot of cases now. Even a solidly overclocked G3258 is going to be close to a 6300 in multicore performance and you can get one+a motherbaord for like $100 total.
Once you figure in sweetfx a 7850/750ti level card really doesn’t cut it, though. My 7850 had a solid OC on it and I was only getting ~45 FPS in the open world/~50 I’m dungeons and I don’t quite play the game maxed out
Seems pretty low TBH…
I don’t have it maxed out but I’d consider these settings “high”. I get 40-60fps in LA and 60FPS solid in dungeons/open world. 30-50FPS during The Maw which i can get screens of later.
With a 2 GB 7850@1050/1350 and my 3570k@4.6 GHz I was getting the performance above. It would go to 60 in dungeons, but far from always. LA is like 30-40 but that’s whatever.
Settings: http://i.imgur.com/af3Urwq.png with sweetfx on top of it, a slightly modified “dragon rising” (or some such thing) preset.
Now that I have my RMA replacement 280x it’s all good to go, though, 70-90 in the open world when I uncap the framerate and it doesn’t dip outside of LA/zergs
Keyboards are much more than a quality of life thing. Extended periods of gaming on small, uncomfortable laptop keyboards can lead to severe hand cramps, and worse, long term nerve damage.
What? The keyboards on laptops are fine. Just don’t be an idiot and use it in some super awful position and you won’t have issues.
Once you figure in sweetfx a 7850/750ti level card really doesn’t cut it, though. My 7850 had a solid OC on it and I was only getting ~45 FPS in the open world/~50 I’m dungeons and I don’t quite play the game maxed out
Imo just get a decent IPS panel and you’ll be good to go. You should be able to get one for $120-130 on sale or $150-160 not on sale. I’ve got an Asus VS239H-P and, although the stand is garbage, the monitor is great
A k CPU will be the same temperature as the same non-k CPU at the same clockrate. It’s when you start overclocking that temperatures go up. For example, my 3570k doesn’t even go over 60 when it’s stock but at 4.6 GHx it starts pushing 80 while in games.
That build is exactly what my brother has right now. It ran GW2 all right outside of big zergs; the zergs lagged even with the G3258 at 4.8 GHz. That being said, that’s a good budget build and as long as you limit the character models and reflections/shadows you should be able to get a smooth experience in 95% of the game.
If you’re willing to spend the money, an i5 will make a pretty solid different, especially if you spring for a k model and overclock it. I saw massive improvements going from a 3.3 GHz i3-3220 to a 4.6 GHz i5-3570k even without changing my GPU.
That’s a desktop CPU, which is really strange, but a laptop with a decent quad core mobile i7 (which that should most likely have) will be able to handle the game fine. Do you have a link to the laptop you’re looking at?
AMD have the R9 270x/280x/290x to compete with the Nvidea GTX 960/970/980 , ignoring the price tags those are the “tiers” of each company, the R9 300 series will compete with the next Nvidea series, at least that is how I look at it.
The R9 200 series were nVidia 7xx competitors, though. The R9 300 series go against the 900 series.
AMD vs Nvidia depends on how you compare, if you compare by price range AMD have the advantage, if you compare by “tier” then Nvidia takes the lead.
GTX 960 cost about $200 while the R9 270x cost $180 but the 270x is way better
A 270x isn’t quite the same tier as a 960, though, it’s a generation older. And they’re like $150, not $180.
but the card that is the same “tier” as the R9 270x is the GTX 970 but it cost around $300.
Again, not quite. You’re comparing across generations. A 290x is the AMD equivalent to a 970 (or I guess a 380x, theoretically? I haven’t even looked at AMD’s new cards). But the direct comparison would be a 280x vs a 770; those are equivalents.
BTW I’m not even considering the new AMD 300 series.[/quote]
What? AMD does fine in games these days. The only relevant benchmarks are games, and the briefest look at anandtech will show that AMD does just fine. When the savings from buying used are brought into play, a cheap AMD card blows everything else out of the water.
I’d like to see this and I’d like gear stat inspections as well. I’m curious as to what people are running a lot and being able to just take a gander would be nice
A few thoughts. I used to built my own computers, thinking I saved a ton of money and got the best of the best. But in recent years, I stopped bothering. Sure, if you want to build everything yourself, you can save a bit here and there. But to my experience, there are stores and websites that build the computer for you, and they don’t cost much more than building it yourself.
Not really. eCollegePC, the “we’ll build it” site worth using, is going to run you a fair bit more then the equivalent personally built PC if you want all of the nice doodads like an SSD.
You also save a ton of time and effort by getting it sent directly to you
I think you’re overestimating the difficulty and time it takes to build a computer, it’s like 2-3 hours to get the whole thing together. Really not that bad.
and on top of that, you also know it works right out of the box. If anything were to go wrong with it, you can simply send it back and have it repaired or replaced.
You could say the same about a selfbuilt PC; sure, you need to spend a couple of minutes troubleshooting, but if anything is wrong you can send it back and get it repaired or replaced.
All in all, building your own computer isn’t really worth it anymore, unless you want the feeling of having built it yourself. But if it’s just a money issue, there’s not much point.
Not in the slightest. You can still save a few hundred dollars or get a better PC for the same money, depending on what you’re looking to do.
The 750Ti is not that good anymore, especially for newer games. I wouldn’t buy it new unless you’re on a very tight bugdet. But it should handle GW2 most of the time.
I’d normally disagree, but my 280x blew up (water damage, most likely…) so I’ve been using my 7850 (A bit faster then a 750ti) and I’ve actually been impressed. I’ve been managing at least high settings@1080P for everything I’ve played without dropping below 60 FPS (sans GW2, but those dips are because of the CPU, outside of big groups it’s fine). That’s not necessarily the most demanding games, but I’ve been playing FC3, GW2, GTAV, etc.
So, while it may not be the greatest card any more, it’s still certainly a capable one, and if you’re looking to spend like $90 on the new market it’s a good pick.
You should be fine if you OC your CPU. And to that other fellow, an i7 isn’t really worth it these days since games can’t really take advantage of all of the threads. In the majority of games the thing hosting you back is your GPU, not your CPU.
Rest of your system is fine.
