Guild Wars 2

sobe.4157:

Supports it just fine. The issue that you will have @ 1440p will not be GW2, but other games. Your video cards run with 2GB VRAM, attempting to max out other modern games you will hit a vram wall. 3Gb+ is a good minimum for 1440.

This exactly.

Vram doesn’t stack when you’re running SLI/CF, each card keeps its own pool, so you’ll be hitting the limit there before anything else. GW2 should be fine, though.

Couldn’t tell you. Just decided that I wanted one and made it.

Indeed. I always forget that you don’t need an OCing mobo and aftermarket heatsink in lower end i5s >_>

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2dpSV

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2doHq

And the HDD from your laptop and like $10-20 for KB+M. FX-6300 over i3 because they’re close enough that I’d rather have the 6300, since it’s likely to last longer overall.

Any sort of specific budget in mind? Do you already have KB/M/OS/Monitor/HDD that you can reuse?

You can only change the CPU in certain high-end laptops. You’re pretty much out of luck with that one.

I haven’t spent a dollar on the game besides the box fee. I’m just not really interested in going the cash route for things; once I do that, I’ll do a lot of it, which I would really like to avoid.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

Not really … Guild wars uses 4 cores…. so FX will beat i3…

k

Avelos.6798:

That is worth the two hundred if OP cannot afford a new board, Fermi

No, it’s not. It’s a quite outdated CPU, no matter what his board is. For $200, the CPU is nuts overpriced no matter the what the situation is. It’ll take blows with an FX-6300, which is what, like $110? And GW2 won’t see much of a boost, if any, from that upgrade.

Not to mention the fact that ~$220 will buy you an i5+board.

That’s not nearly worth $200. Go for the i5 option, it’d be worth it.

The CPU well be hurting it moderately badly, but it should do decently. If you build your own, you can probably get a decent i5 at that sort of budget, though. Not too sure of component prices in £.

I’m actually impressed, though. That has a decent GPU where most prebuilt ‘gaming’ computers will have something completely awful.

Do yourself a favor and don’t get an HP. They’re heatboxes and not incredibly well built.

Go for Lenovo or some other better brand.

Avelos.6798:

When you go into 1080P for Guild Wars 2, suddenly the system demand goes up with it and it hits hard at 1080P so I have read.

Going up from slightly lower resolutions? I’m actually curious about this, going to go test it right now.

Edit: Doesn’t seem much more demanding at all. I didn’t really see any appreciable change in framerate going from 1080P to 1024×768 (in steps).

Avelos.6798:

You’d be better off sticking with the 410P 1366×768 or 1600×900 version with a GT755M in my opinion, where you have that extra power, and still decent resolution to get enjoyable frame rates and playability out of the game.

Eh, my friend’s got the 1080P Y510 with the 750M and he’s been playing it fine@1080, although ‘fine’ for framerate is probably 30 FPS. Still, I wouldn’t be excessively worried about running the game fine, even in WvW; CPU power is a much bigger issue.

That being said, it is somewhat a matter of personal preference. Like I said, I’d much rather have the extra 1.6" of screen and higher resolution as opposed to the slightly higher performance.

It’ll run GW2 just fine, even in WvW if you knock the settings down a decent bit.

As for how it is for the dollar, it’s a pretty nice deal. If you bought refurbished, you could possibly get something better, but I prefer my computer/components be new.

As another personal point of preference, I’d opt for the 510p as opposed to the 410 because it’s a little bigger. Also, the 1080P version is only $800 atm, although it only has a 750M as opposed to a 755. Still, I’d go for the larger one.

Hmph. Knowing that it’s an HP, I would actually be rather wary of it fitting. However, knowing that it’s an HP, I’d be even more wary of that old PSU. Even though it’s labeled ‘300W’, it might not even be safely able to supply that much.

The case’s ‘designation’ shouldn’t matter as to whether or not the PSU will fit, though; (at least with custom cases) if it’s any sort of ATX, it’ll take an ATX PSU.

And, although it’s another part on a tight budget, the PSU is the one thing that you don’t even want to skimp on. If the PSU goes, you could potentially ruin everything else in the computer, making it well worth it to spend the $20 or whatever on a quality one.

Do you know the specific model number of the HP?

Get a Corsair CX430 seeing as a good PSU is the heart of any build and it’s only $20. Not knowing what the 300W PSU is makes me rather unwilling to recommend its further use.

As for part selection, go for the i3 over the APU.

VOLKON.1290:

Well, that’s love and all. While all the “kings” are waypointing back to the start of the tower the rest of us that actually use the full aspects of the combat system will be waiting for you at the top.

Wait, getting to the top in full Berserker gear is hard or something? I easily did the entire tower in zerker gear. It’s not exactly what I would call ‘hard’, if you have any idea of what you’re doing.

Yeah, if you really are using it as a desktop, there’s no reason to not just get a smaller desktop.

Power/Precision/Critical Damage boosting ones. Basically stuff that gives you damage at the expense of everything else.

Bearbow is honestly pretty effective, and I actually find it pretty entertaining.

A 17.3" laptop that’s over an inch and a half thick isn’t really something that would be great to carry around, before you consider the weight factor.

Bastien.1645:

Interesting post to read. I too am suffering currently, got an AMD Phenom 955 which I appreciate is getting old but all other games run fine at 60+ FPS, makes me a bit sad to think I’ll have to update my System for an MMO, I mean, to play a game like Crysis/Metro I can understand but an MMO?

The very nature of MMOs tends to make them demanding, same with RTS games.

I’ve actually got two friends who bought that laptop at my recommendation, although they both have the single 750M version and one has the 1366×768 one. The friend with the 1080 one runs on high in PvE without too much of an issue, although larger group events (ie Maw) do cause some drop in framerate.

The other friend (1366×768) just runs on medium all of the time, since he’s too lazy to change settings for WvW. Again, it runs fine, although larger WvW zergs cause lag (it’s their very nature, especially on a laptop CPU).

So, the laptop should by and large run the game fine on higher settings. You’ll only really have issues when there are a lot of people around, as is the case in group events/WvW.

I’m not sure if the game likes SLI, though. I know that it has issues with CF, but I don’t know if that extends to nVidia.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

Nah you dont bealive me i have better score than i3 with FX 6300 we tested…

Read again. The exact opposite was proven.

zerk.9701:

And this will give the same performance for $400 less than you picked.
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1YZ5n

And I offered another, much cheaper build as an alternative. However, an i7 build will be much more futureproof, and the TC has the budget to get a better computer. That also means the ability to get a better cooler, case, etc.

zerk.9701:

16GB of memory for a gaming PC REALLY?

There are more uses for a PC then just gaming.

There is a 1280×1024 resolution option, so yes, the game will run at that resolution.

Wouldn’t the laptop’s screen be higher res, though? Why would you want to play on a worse external monitor?

Avelos.6798:

Essence Snow.3194:

Don’t think anyone was suggesting those cards for this build. We just got bit sidetracked as the 780ti just came out. One that note though, amd might allow 3rd party coolers in time for bf cm in which case a 290 non-ref might very well fit into this budget.

I know. I read the topic and people are saying H80i, H100i and other sort of things… It’s kind of ridiculous.

A $1400 budget is easily enough to fit in an H100. You can get high end everything with that, without really skimping anywhere.

zerk.9701:

All of that is for nothing I really don’t think he lives in the US and prices and availability are so deferent from region to region. You really cant just say this is 1500US dollars so with the currency exchange you can buy it.

Alex Ko.4580:

My budget is around 1000-1400 USD.

zerk.9701:

He never mentioned building one.

He asked about a new desktop; we gave him new desktops. Buying a prebuilt is just a good way to throw away a couple hundred dollars.

sirsquishy.8531:

I think you just confirmed what I said in my post.

Software is programed with Intel in mind. Single Threaded. and Optimized to use Intel’s Instructions.

Except it isn’t. Software is programmed how its programmed. Intel’s CPUs are just designed to fit the software better.

With AMD offering lots of threads, there is more incentive for more multithreading of applications now, though.

sirsquishy.8531:

That is completely on the programmers, not Intel not AMD, not Windows/Linux. But the ‘behind the times’ companies that are selling us software.

Exactly. Don’t put it on Intel for using dastardly methods to gain an advantage over AMD, where everything is optimized for them.

Oh, it’s a $1400 budget, not $1500. Whoops.

In that case:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1YNvA

Or for the lower end:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1YNxU

Most software doesn’t really need to take advantage of more cores, though- just the more demanding stuff will really benefit from it.

sirsquishy.8531:

But, since the world is in favor of Intel

I wouldn’t say that. Intel is just currently better fitting the needs of consumers given how software is programmed to run these days.

SolarNova.1052:

850w PSU more than total overkill for a haswell system.

Not if you go for CF/SLI down the line.

SolarNova.1052:

That case has no side window to see the awsome sauce inside :P

And?

SolarNova.1052:

Blue RAM and Blue PCB GPU with red/black motherboard .. ?

And?

Color matching can be nice, but it’s not really that important. Hell, depending on where the computer is put, you may not even be able to see the side where the window would be.

As a thought on your build, there’s no reason to throw away money for looks; performance comes first and foremost. For example, 6 ridiculously gaudy $15 case fans? Nonsense. You’re better off getting actual computer components, AND those components won’t be distracting.

SolarNova.1052:

otherwise for now 2gb should be fine for 1080p. You could always get a 4gb GtX 770, but its just not cost effective, 4gb VRAm for 1080p is overkill.

If you want the card to last more then a year, you’ll want over 2 GB of vram. Just look at all of the people who went with 1-1.5 GB GTX 570s and the like; the cards are still plenty powerful, but they’re running out of vram, which means that an upgrade is now needed.

Getting at least 3 GB of vram at this point in time is the most logical thing to do, even for 1080P. Like I said before, just look at BF4; it’s already chugging over 2 gigs of vram at 1080 once you max it out. More games will be trending in that direction before long.

Don’t get 2 GB GPU. We’re at a point where games will be taking more vram soon, like BF4 already does.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1Yhw2

If you already have an OS, go for a 256 GB SSD instead.

zerk.9701:

I just noticed the PC in your siggy. That’s a very good budget setup, can you WVW on that? I’m thinking of a similar PC for my son i3 3240, B75 MB, Seasonic 430 PSU, and a 650ti boost, 900p TV he already uses for a monitor.
Sorry to get off topic.

It works pretty well. I haven’t WvW’d in a while, but the framerate generally drops pretty low when I do. However, the last few times (the ones I’m thinking about) I’ve been only gone in for a couple hours on reset night and ended up fighting map zergs of both of the opposing servers in our garri, resulting in probably 5~8 FPS. However, this is with the character limit as high as possible (I’d rather be able to see all of the enemies), as well as having the view distance as far as it will go.

Overall, I find it easily playable, and in more ‘standard’ zerg fights, the framerate’s higher. Not to mention that if I turned culling on, even a little, I’d probably see significant boosts. Every other game I’ve played has easily been played on high/ultra@1080P, including BF3 on 64 player games- GW2 is really the only game that causes issues, if they could be called that.

So basically, yes, I can WvW on it. Performance could be better, but I could also make it better, and it’s never excessively inhibited my ability to play. If you do end up getting one like that for him, just make sure he builds it with you- he’ll love it.

How I normally run:
http://i.imgur.com/9dOOE5a.jpg

~12-17, ~15 average

Fly’s post:
http://i.imgur.com/478yyWO.jpg

Like 21-27, pretty jumpy.

Fly’s normal settings:
http://i.imgur.com/iuzcZaw.jpg

31-36, usually 34/35.

I realized that I had the window in the middle instead of off to the side at the last one, so I can retake them later if you guys want. I’d do it now, but no time. It didn’t really change the framerate at all, though.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

http://postimg.org/image/i1nqzivpj/

Under this setting it never falls under 28-29 FPS

also little of GPU bottleneck

Obviously it runs well with culling on and low shadows.

Also, my previous post was borked it seems- something with the quote block- so I fixed it.

Behellagh.1468:

He is running nearly a 30% overclock and if your sig is accurate you are only running an i3.

Remember that AMD doesn’t quite see linear gains like Intel does when OC’d. Anyways, he was (as we saw) claiming grossly inflated numbers- we actually perform about the same. Not to mention the fact that we were running different settings and resolutions. In addition, given different servers and times of playing, the performance will vary depending on number of people as well.

When I get back to my room I’ll tweak it to what he had and go to the same place., I measured on the other side, directly next to the forge and had things set a bit higher (more characters, LOD higher).

Fly, what was your render sampling set to? Supersampling or subsampling (or is it not called subsampling in this game o-o)?

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

So i have better FPS than you….
FX 6300 4,5Ghz all maxed out 50-55%.
minimum 19 avarage 25 max 35.

I don’t believe that for a second.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

Only for AMD CPUs… Game CPU is not demanding if i3 can run it

gl hf with an i3 in any sort of decent sized zerg fight. The game is incredibly CPU demanding anywhere with a lot of people.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

Fermi
Please tell me your FPS and your CPU usage in LA max settings?

Maxed except render sampling native, 70-80% usage at ~16-23 FPS.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

You can buy i3-i5, but you will need to buy better GPU then it is gonna cost you

For this game, a 650ti is fine.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

50$MB + 7.1 sound at least 65$
190$CPU i5 4430 – 125$ i3 4130
+ GPu at least 7770/7750 – 85-95$

All you need is a mobo for $45-50 and the CPU, which would be $120 ish or whatever you’re paying for the i5 you choose (the dollar sign goes in front of the number, just for the record). Not to mention the fact that you can get a 7850 for like $110 these days, so spending $90 on a 77×0 card is a waste of money.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

This game is demanding as CPU as GPU….

It’s much more CPU demanding- you can easily get by with a 7850/7870 as long as you have a beefy enough CPU.

Rogier.4572:

No I am not happy. i just spend like 1.5k on my new rig. and all that for 10 more fps.

$1.5k and you went AMD for the CPU? You must’ve done something wrong, then. You can easily get an i7 for that sort of budget.

And that’s the issue, the CPU- it matters much more for this game then the GPU, as long as you’re around 7870 level or better.

Xystus.3241:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231381
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230988R

If you get one of these, go for the first one. The second one is pretty bad.

Also keep in mind that they’re both massive- a 17.3" laptop is pretty big and heavy to carry around.

Were you to be interested in the second laptop, this would be a better option, and it’s new:

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/essential/g-series/g510/?sb=:000001C9:0000FB9A:

Also, apparently there was a deal on a Lenovo Y500 on slickdeals a couple days ago- SLI 650Ms with an i5, refurbished for $650, which is an absolute steal. Watching that site could lead to finding some decent stuff at nice prices.

Especially for WvW you’re better off spending money on a nice CPU instead of a GPU. A 290(x) is overkill for this game.

Turn off stereoscopic 3D or whatever it’s called. Not sure if it would be in GW2 or the nVidia control panel, though.

For GW2, you’re best off going with an i5- you don’t benefit from the hyperthreading of the i7. You’re going to need a new GPU as well, though, if you really want good performance.

You can get a 2 GB 7850 for around $100 iirc. May be with looking into.

sirsquishy.8531:

You only spouted about what hardware to look for. Nothing about specifics on what laptop models, or manufacturers to go for. And if you knew anything about buying laptops you know that you just cant go and look straight up to HP, Dell, IBM/Lenovo and start searching for the hardware you are talking about. You need to browse their Inventory THEN ‘customize’ THEN you might be lucky to find a model that has the options for the hardware you are talking about.

So, why not make a few recommendations for the OP, instead of continuing to point out my ‘bad suggestion’? Make better use of your time.

Fermi.2409:

Xystus.3241:

2) “1TB 5400RPM”; slow as heck. Get at least 7200RPM or preferably kitten.

5400 can be slow, but it works fine. It just means that stuff will load a bit worse; far from unlivable. Not to mention the fact that it’s going to be kitten hard to find a 7200 RPM HDD in a laptop for any sort of reasonable budget.

TC, I’d say to get a Lenovo Y510P. Either the $800 model or the $950 model will work fine, the biggest difference being that the $950 model has a 1080P screen where the $800 only has 1366×768. I have a pair of friends with this laptop, one with each model, and it works fine. The one with the 1366×768 screen says that he runs on medium settings in WvW, and it’s decent enough framerate wise. The other one hasn’t done WvW yet, but he’s been doing PvE on high without issues (besides bigger world boss groups).

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y510p/

Good try though.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

Because i could switch CPU with i3 or even with i5 (+50€ – almost 70$). So i had to do…

Where are you buying an i3 for it to be $70 more then a 6300? You’re looking at i5s there, which demolish 6300s across the board.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

Could you just check your CPU usage in lions arch?

http://i.imgur.com/X7lYsBU.jpg

Pretty much between 70 and 80%.

sirsquishy.8531:

You rip, but make no educated recommendations.

Except I did.

sirsquishy.8531:

Sure the 8750 is not ‘great’. But its adequate for what the OP wants. and since the OP was looking at HP, that’s where my recommendation comes from.

He’s still paying too much for it. Also, just because he was already looking at HPs doesn’t mean that you should recommend something by them- they’re really a brand to avoid for laptops.

sirsquishy.8531:

If you want to make a better recommendation then please do. But you really have no good reason for ripping on what I just posted.

I rip because it’s a bad recommendation.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

Fermi.2409
To stream at 1080P u need good network… I dont stream even if i tell you that after 10 month i am 58LVL in GW2 – i dont play so much… only when i am sick or bad weather outside…

So would you be playing at 1080 and streaming 720, or playing and streaming at 720?

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

I just tried because someone told me that AMD cpu sucks at multitasking …

That’s the only thing that AMD CPUs are good at.

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

And according to benchmark FX 6300 beat his i5

If so, only at one thing. Anyways, which benches say that?

XFlyingBeeX.2836:

But when i do i want to have best performance that my CPU can offer. And CPU half of price of the i5 should not deliver same performances…

It doesn’t, unless we’re talking about the crappy dual core i5s, and even then I’m not so sure, unless it’s pretty heavily multithreaded.

sirsquishy.8531:

What you want is a HD8750M or 8790M(If you can find a laptop for under 1500 with that currently).

Dear lord, anywhere above $600-700 for something like that would be a rip, let alone ‘under 1500’. For anything around $800 I’d expect a 750M+ and a decent Intel CPU.

sirsquishy.8531:

The Envy 15z-j100 has the option for the 8750M with 2GB dedicated RAM to that GPU.

The 15z specced with 8GB ram (2×4GB), 1080P 15" LCD, A10-5770 and the 8750M came in at $789.99

There’s no way that a card below a 640M will be able to push a decent framerate at 1080P, and the resolution is its only real redeeming factor. Not to mention lolHP. Buying that laptop for $800 is just throwing away money if you’re doing anything above standard office work, and even then you’re better off with something in the $400 range.