Guild Wars 2

Dont get ur hopes up with just upgrading the vid card.

GW2 is heavily influenced by CPU.

To be blunt ..ur rig is not capable of playing GW2 with ‘playable’ fps. You will need a new one.
Dont go cheap on the CPU with GW2 ..u need a intel 2nd or 3rd gen i5/i7 ..preferably a K version for overclocks.
GPU wise u can get a cheaper gaming model for around $150 and it will play GW2 fine.

GL

Hoegarden pls dont bring that argument here. What the human eye can see if evident to every1 who can see which, unless they have poor eyesight, completly disproves what u just said.

OP.

it is ur CPU bottlenecking.

GW2 uses 1 main thread 2 secondary threads and about 47 other minor threads to run. When any 1 of those 3 top threads can no longer run fast enough on a single CPU thread/core to process its data, the rest of the game lsows down along wiht FPS. Meaning u will never see 100% CPu usuage unless ur using a Dual core or Triple Core CPU.
GW2 relies on the performance of each individula thread. Some CPU’s have 2 threads per core (hyperthreading) but what ever the CPU has, its the Single thread perofrmance that matters. So even though u can have a 6 or 8 Core AMD cpu which runs great for highly efficient multi threaded apps, AMD CPU’s have very weak single thread performance compared to Intel. Thus GW2 tends to run worse on AMD CPU’s.

OC if u can, but dont get ur expectations up. ALWAYS spend equal amounts on the CPU and GPU , dont go cheap on ether. Becouse u will inevitably come across a situation (like with GW2) where one bottlenecks the other in a drastic way.

I know thats odd coming from me as i have a comparativly cheap GPU compared to my CPU, but i am waiting on the 700 and 8000 series to come out at which point ill be getting ether 1 or 2 of the flagship single GPU models ..at which point both CPU and GPU will be even in cost.

Give ur 7year old child a hard game to play please. We dont need yet another decade of easy mode games being developed and sold becouse the kids grew up on the current Ezmode games :P

MMO’s dont have difficulty settings.

Im not gunna say dont let ur 7 year old child play computer games, becouse I grew up on the Atari2600jr and other consols like the Genssis when i was 7 and started playing computers games around that age to.. but i started on the MUCH harder games of the late 80’s and early 90’s and still had plenty of fun.
Hard games are good ..the challenge is fun. Give her hard games to play and learn on ..not EZmode mmo’s like this.

@Habib Loew

I got questions.

I was around for the test run of the culling solution ur going to be using. The grouped allies being visable was great and all but the culling distance was still incredible close to the players character still.

Can we expect the same short culling radius as before? becouse to blunt..the radius is waaay to close.
From what iv seen culling can get very close to the character.

When said test run was introduced i went from seeing every1 inside the Stonemist keep main room in eternal battleground., to only seeing people within a small radius around me (same room, same day, same people, just b4 and after the culling was introduced during the WvW reset). Both before and after i had 60 fps, there for culling was not neccesery on my end. There was ‘atleast’ 50 people in the room.

Cant u make culling take into account client side FPS?

So say for example the Server finds that client FPS starts of at 50 when entering WvW, then plumits to 20 in battle .. culling kicks in to keep FPS above 30 (say 35 for leeway). If FPS never reaches 30 then culling stays on. If it goes above 40 the culling radius increases till the FPS is again near 35.
If FPS starts of at 60 and doesnt drop down below 35 ever then no culling is used untill it does.

Ah PvE ..Yea in that case u should be fine.

I’ll point out some graphics settings u should avoid using. Even top end desktop users tend to avoid them in this game atm also due ot the massive performance hits and/or bugs related to them.

Reflections: All
Set it to Terrain and Sky or Off.

Shadows: Ultra
Set to ether High/medium/Low/off

Rendering: SuperSample
Set to Native

Enjoy

Yea u will get varied resposnes and claims of fps in WvW depending on what the player has experianced.

Some servers will have been fighting in WvW for months but the rank they r in may mean they never actually see how big battles can become so those people will consider ‘big’ battles completly different from another set of servers and people.

Its a PITA tbh, becouse it can make people look like they r just lieing/trolling when in fact they r not.. its just they have yet to experiance what a truley big WvW battle is.

I rarely see truly big battles becouse my server isnt doign to well but i have been in them (roughly 100 people) and they will hammer even the best OC’d cpu’s out their to around 30fps. And battles are capable of getting as big as 300 (100 vs 100 vs 100) now u will never see that many people due to culling but even so.. with culling and a tight compact battle u can expect to see upwards of 100 people on screen hammering away at the CPU.

1st gen ‘i5/i7’s users have also experianced these battles along side me and have given my accurate fps readings, they drop way below 30 specialy if they r not OC’d so your low FPS readings r not unheared of with that generation of CPU’s.

Indeed i can backup what Kirito said.

GL

You dont ned ot be rich to have a good OC’d rig to play GW2 the best that is currently possible.

Asuming u have parts to salvage form ur current rig u can build urself a OC’able rig for between $500-700. Not exactly expensive when it comes to gaming rigs.

A 690 is totaly overkill for GW2, now for other games that like to push the graphics high like Crysis 3, Metro, Sleeping Dogs, etc ..the 690 will do well.

GW2 on the other hand can run almost max setting on a much cheaper cards. its the CPU that matters most and so u should not be thinking.
“i got a wicked gpu that costs X amount, i should be getting better performance”.
You should be thinking
“kitten, i shoulda spread my money more evenly, got a 680 and spent the saved money on a top end Intel CPU and motherboard”

In all honestly the 690 is more a status symbol than anything. 2x 680’s r much better performance wise. I try to stear people away for dual GPU cards atm becouse they inevitable cost to much, have little anoying problems, and each core tends to be a tad weaker than its single GPU card counterpart. In the case of the 690 each core is like a downclocked 670 so price/performance wise 2x 680’s r much better.

SSD wise u can expect faster load times and a few small perks ingame such as faster access and loads times for certain things.

For example.
Large map icons : Standard HDD may have a delay in icons showing/loading.
SSD: Instant load

HDD:
FPS: Will have stutter and fps drops when first loading an environment whislt moving camera.
SSD:
FPS: Will have less stutter and FPS drops shouldnt drop as low or last as long thanks to faster access times for textures and models etc.

The difference will only be slight performance wise, it will dependon the person whether u notice it or not, but it wll be there. IMO if u have the spare money after upgrading more inportant parts, then do get a SSD.

Indeed install as usual. Dont get to carried away with the ingame graphics settings. Remember that although u have bnought an expensive high end Laptop its still a notch down from Desktops so dont be to ambitous.
Be prepaired for BIG WvW battles to still have low fps.

Nice build BUT.

your getting a K version CPU, and if u want the best experiance GW2 has ot offer u will want to OC it ..to around 4.5ghz. What CPu cooler r u going to get or got already ?

I sugest at minimum a Coolermaster Evo 212. Should manage 4.2 to 4.4ghz …4.5ghz if ur lucky wiht the CPU and tweek for low voltage.
If u have the money get a Noctua NH-D14 cooler and change ur RAM to G.Skill. If u get this cooler it requirs low profile RAM, most of Corsairs range are to tall.

Yea its ur CPU. You could try OC as high as u dare to increase the FPS a bit. But tbh AMD cpu’s dont do well in WvW with GW2 due to their lower single thread performance. Even intel 2nd/3rd gen i5/i7’s which have alot better single thread performance have to be OC’d.

Aye true but when moving around doing ur own thing that slight difference in ‘blur’ is hardy noticable. And is worth it for those extra fps if u really want them. its personal preference bassicaly

Super HD + high levels of MSAA means ur gunna need a crap tonn of DDR5 graphics memory.

Im waiting on the nvidia 700 series and AMD 8000 series cards to come out ..then im getting 1 ..‘maybe’ 2 of their best flagship single GPU cards. That should handle Crysis 3 at 1920×1080 rather well i think
the wait for the new cards is theo nly reason i didnt upgrade my graphcis card along wiht the rets of my rig to what i have now in my sig ..hence why the 560ti looks so out of place compared to the rest of the specs lol.

There’s no need for the frame limiter then. Just use Vsync.

Try not using the limiter and instead use Vsync. Vsync will cap the fps at the screen refresh rate which is usualy 60hz. It also gets rid of screan tearing which will still hapen if Vsync is off and frame limiting is on.

The speed is the 1333mhz .
The timings are shown like the following: 9-10-9-28

In CPUZ there should be in the row named ‘memory type’
Example:
Memory Type : Quad Channel DDR3- 1867 SDRAM (9-10-9-28 CR1)

I’m just seeing if those of u with this issue have the same speed and or timings on the RAM which might possibly be slowing things down a tad.

Crysis 3 will need SLI to run at Max i garaunte it.

As for the CPU OC. it will deffinatly help. More so if its a Intel 2nd or 3rd gen i5 or i7…4.5ghz is the sweet spot for those cpu’s as u shouldnt see fps drop below 30 even in WvW battles and even with the fps drops.
Like i said the only time i see it below 30 is after a tab out ..and even then its like 25 for less than a second. The drops still happen just not as bad. Remember the reason its droping is becouse it loading/reloading stuff, the faster ur CPU can process the info and ofload it to ur GPU, the better.

But i will point out that some people ,even with a OC’d i5, say they have issues, so it might well be a funky software issue, of which i have no solution for.

Shadow affects the CPU load.
Its becoue its connected to player movment and such. So even those players out of view will be having their shadow rendered.
As such ‘ultra’ (which has high detailed shadows at long range) has a noticable performance hit in high population areas. On ‘High’ however the high quality shadows r only rendered closer to ur chracter. This includes environmental shadows also. So it has a much lower performance hit. The ‘arguable’ bug with it is that players out of view shouldnt be being rendered in the first place and as such nor should their shadow. Like i said ..is a ‘arguable bug’ ..depends on how u look at it.
Ether way the image quality from high to ultra is realyl not that noticable unless ur looking for it. I used ot run Ultra for a godo month or so till i realised i didnt really see the difference and the extra coupel FPS is always nice in a game thats this starved for FPS in the first place.

Check out the forums at Overclock.net

has some good guides and people will be able to help u 1 to 1 if u ask nicley.

I was out of the OC’ing scene for a good many years b4 my current rig ..so i went there used some guides ..then got 1 to 1 help to tweek my CPU to run on even lower voltages to save heat

What are all ur RAM speed’s and Timings ? (asking every1)

If u got 2 HDD’s of the same speed/size u can put them into a Raid0 configuration. Will increase performance. U will get the combined total space but it will be seen as a single drive instead of 2.
The HDD’s space is split into ‘strips’ and used alternativly for storing data.. means when loading information ur loading of 2 drives at the same time instead of 1 thus thats where the increased perfomance comes from. its not exactly double performance. .buts its alot better than non raid.

Though ur problem is also possibly being caused by some strange software hitch ontop of that.

I know this helps reduce stuter, and also the fps dips when loading for the first time but it will still be present. And tbh its not exactly a cheap fix..

Solid State Drive.

They have MUCH faster access times, so it helps with the loading and stutter.

For example.. I run on a SSD and when i tab out and do somthing like browse the web ..then tab back in ..the fps will drop significantly when i turn my camera as it reloads stuff. BUT no where near as low as ur finding .. it rarely drops below 30 and when it does its for a split second and only after tabing out.
First time loading when logging in (no tab outs) also has the same issue but not as bad ..doesnt drop below 30.
The reloading fps drops are really only noticable in LA and other CPU heavy environments i find.
When i first played the game using my Raid0 HDD i found stutter issues were overall worse. most noticably ..map icons appearing on the main large map had a obvious delay ..now though they r instant.

The slight ingame performance increases of a SSD are really only noticable on really fast CPU’s. Since ur’s is OC’d u have a chance of noticing some also BUT as u say ..its no Intel.. so i cant garaunte what u will get out of swithcing to a SSD.

Indeed.

I agree its important.

But i just also know that Anet wont be doing it anytime soon..if at all. Unless they are planing a surprise (doubt it).

The BEST place to check FPS in LA is the northern most waypoint. Simply turn the camera and face the mystic forge zomed out as far as u can. That is the most intensive spot.
During the winter event that spot would drop my fps down to exactly 30 fps with settings on max with the exception of. Sampling: native/ Reflections : T&S/ Shadows:high.
Normal LA i get the below results.
I use EVGA PrecisionX for my OSD but it doesnt show up on my screenshots.
So FYI:
1st SS: GPU usuage is Max 99% on Highest playable settings. FPS capped by GPU.
2nd SS: GPU usuage on Lowest settings is about 60%. So FPS is capped by CPU.

So bassicaly u can run GW2 in LA with 80 FPS on max settings if u had a strong enough GPU AND if ur have a CPu with strong single thread performance thats OC’d.
The settings with the lower FPS in the SS alows me to play usualy at 60 FPS, even in LA. But thats just an example the most intensive area. In WvW i drop down to at lowest 30 FPS in HUGE battles. Capped by GPU again but also likely to be close to capping on CPU. Those settings r just balanced for me, meaning in ‘heavy situations’ if the GPU caps out ..the CPU is not far behind it.

As the above poster said. A OC’d 560ti can handle GW2 on the Max settings so long as u dont get silly with the ‘arguably’ bugged and/or inefficient settings.
Reflections: All (Bugged, renders those out of view)
Shadows: Ultra (Bugged, renders those out of view)
Sampling: SuperSampling (Inefficient)

Dx11 will help performance.. ok it will slightly improve the graphics quality ..or if they so desired hugly imporve it. But realisticly they would move ot Dx11 and not use the extra eye candy and instead just use the more efficient Engine.
Dx11 actually has a slightly lower CPU usuage as it shifts more to the GPU. This means it would be very good for GW2 as GW2 is VERY CPU bound atm.

Will they do it ? ..possibly. Will they do it soon.. doubtfull.

OP.

If u want help ur gunna need to give us ur system specs.

A common issue is that people will asume they have a good rig, when infact they dont.. atleast by GW2 standards.
There are things that can be done to imporve fps but we will need details on ur rig first. Including current driver versions and OS.

Just for a heads up the BEST performance currently possible in WvW with the lowest FPS u ever see is 30. But it requirs a certan Desktop Spec.

FXAA off is a personal preferance. FXAA is a shoddy AA..kinda like a poor mans AA. All it does is blur the screen bassicaly. hence why u get next to no performance hit. He has turned it of and is using a 3rd party AA injector instead for better quality but a higher performance hit.

I would use a AA injector myself if i wasnt already maxing out my GPU.

Well that would be up to u .. i dont think OC’ing that particular CPU would give u a much better experiance. .it would increase fps ..but not by much.

TBH ur on the edge of waiting being worth it.

Any more than 4 months and u end up always waiting.

At this point in time i dont think u could go wrong if u get a Ivybridge. its up to u how long u can put up with the performance.

its like me waiting on the Nvidia 700 series and AMD 8000 series. I started waiting in December. They ‘should’ be coming out around March time.. So again ..roughly 4 months. I can wait though becouse my GPU is handling this perfectly fine atm. Its only just started reaching its absolute limits in recent games.
However for som1 who has already got a computer or computer part that is past its limits and is now causing greif ..i couldnt wait 4 months myself.

I know what its like to buy somthing then 2 months down the line somthing MAJORLY better comes out ..its sucks ..specialy if u do what i did and put over almost £2000 into it (this was like 5 years ago).
However in ur case ur wont be putting that much money into it and tbh i dont forsee Haswell being THAT much of a major improvment…think about it…. Intel really dont have the competition to force them to bring somthing so ground breaking out atm ..they can afford to sit on it and charge more for their cheaper tech. Marketing 101.

Same shadow detail up close. .but the distance shadows transition from ‘basic’ to ‘complex’ is shorter.

A H60 isnt that good tbh so yea 4.2 is god aim. you can get air coolers that are better than the H60 ..its only really worth going water cooling if u get the H100 or better …or go fully custom.

If ur going from ‘All’ to ‘terrain and Sky’ ..u will have less reflections .u wont have tree’s and houses ofr exmaple. What will reflect is exactly what it says ..the terrain..and the sky. The FPS WILL increase if ur changing from ‘All’ to ‘terrain and Sky’.

That is unless ur CPu bottlenecked.

in which case OC’ing is what u need ot od next to get better fps. I Sugest getting as close to 4.5ghz as possible as that is the sweet spot for GW2 to stay above 30 fps in massive WvW battles, and to keep 60 fps in LA with 2nd and 3rd gen i5’s/i7’s.

You said run max except sampling. Turn down Reflections, also Shadows On max can somtimes cause issues, turn that down 1 notch also. See if that helps.
Make sure ur GPU is running on X16 PCIE also just incase.

For those asking about upgrading FROM a 2500k,2550k,3570k,2600k,2700k,3930k.. to somthing else…..DONT.. just OC.

You can run GW2 the best that is possible with ANY of those CPU’s (and only those CPU’s) so long as u OC to around 4.5ghz.

*well ‘only’ ..except for the 3960X and 3970X :P but they r insanely expensive and give no performance increase.

If u have anything lower than those, OCing will still help . But depending on how far down the single thread performance tree ur current CPU is it might not be worth the effort OC’ing and would be better just buying one of the above CPU’s then OC’ing.

SCREENSIZE:
As the poster said above.. SIZE doesnt matter. Resolution does.
I run a 42" Plasma TV at 1920x 1080 …if i used a 17" CRT at1920x1080 ..it wouldnt make the slightest difference in FPS.
Refresh rate does have an effect when Vsync is enabled. Most TV’s/Monitors nowerdays are 60hz so FPS is capped a 60 wiht Vsync on. You can get 120hz monitors also now ..so thats 120FPS cap with Vsync.

If som1 tells u otherwise about screen size (not resolution) affecting FPS .they dont have a clue bassicaly

Well a 2500k when OC’d can be considered High end for gaming deffinalty.
For example GW2 will run the best that is currently possible with a 2500k at 4.6ghz.

3570k OC 4.5ghz = 2500k OC 4.6ghz

both of which will perform pritty muc hthe same as a 3770k OC 4.5ghz and 2700k OC 4.6gz and even a 3930k OC 4.6ghz.

Its all down to how many threads they have. for GW2 ..4 is enough ..5 gives a tiny boost ..6 or more gives next to nothing. A 2500k has 4 threads, a 3570k 4 threads ..a 3770k 8..a 2700k 8 ..a 3930k 12.

So for GW2 ..a 2500k with OC is high end.. BUT a AMD FX 8350 is NOT .becouse although its ‘overall’ a faster chip due to its increased number of cores ..its single thread performance is far lower than that of a 2500k. and GW2 is all about single thread performance.

TBH 1st gen ’i’s and Core 2 Quads have simular single thread performance so it wont help with GW2.

Your best bet is upgrading to a 2nd or 3rd gen i5. Preferably one which is a K version so u can OC to get the best performance u can.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

Temp wise.. yes it is high as Kirito said but it wont be throttling yet so i doubt that a new cooler will help.

CPU.

GW2 is heavily dependant on single thread performance.
More importantly if u dont want to fall below 30fps in the biggest WvW zergs. u will need to OC one of said high single thread perfromance CPU’s.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
As u can see that rules out AMD cpu’s at this point in time.

This does mean pritty much a new rig though. As a new CPU will requir a new motherboard and likely new RAM. Possibly a new PSU and Case also depending on what u have atm.

My advice would be to get a 2550k or 3570k + ‘around’ 4.5ghz OC.
That will ensure FPS will not dip below 30 fps in those zergs. Asumng u keep graphics settings set so ur GPU doesnt max out.

These requirments to stay above 30fps are proven/fact. I know its not cheap but thats whats required. Sorry if this is bad news.

Hope this helps

@OP There be alot of performance claims on here but not much in terms of a way of sorting ur issue..wiht that said…

Turn Reflections to terrain And sky, When on ‘All’ it has a massive impact of FPS since its sort of bugged. It will render relfections that aren to even visible. .like underground and out of view. Shadows on Max can also cause a significant drop in certain situations so u could try lowering that.

Make sure ur GPU is running on PCIE x16, GW2 performance drops significantly if its on anything but x16. Try different driver versions, old ,new, and beta’s. try downlcoking ur GPU if its facotry OC’d.. GW2 can be picky. make sure any CPU OC is stable without errors using Prime95. Check out the following thread for more ways of troubleshooting.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/FAQ-Frequently-Asked-Questions-Compilation/first#post1095383

As for the comments on CPU and GPU and AMD etc.

GPU wise there is no issues with AMD or Nvidia. There are cases of driver/software issues with the latest series of cards mainly, but they r not the ‘norm’.

CPU wise there is a difference. Dispite claims of good performance , AMD CPU’s will at some point in the game, mainly WvW, drop below 30 fps.
The only list of normal consumer CPU’s that will keep GW2 from droping below 30FPS are the following.

Intel 2500k,2550k,2600k,2700k,3570k,3770k,3930k. All with a OC of ‘around’ 4.5ghz.

Any thing above those that are capable of good OC’s wil lalso work but are not really consumer friendly as they r the 2 extreme CPU’s that cost insane amounts. Xeon CPU’s rate good on single thread performance but dont OC that high so get out performed by the listed CPU’s at those OC’s.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

If you have a good OC’d CPU and a half good GPU, there is no reason to drop below 30 fps so long as u set graphics accordingly. If u have done those and u still get poor performance there is highly likely to be a software/driver issue not related to GW2 specificaly or possibly,though less likely, a hardware issue.

Hope this helps.
FYI none of the above info is bassed on my ‘opinion’

You could try 2 things.

Change the CPU for a 2500K or even 3570K and OC it to around 4.5ghz.
This will give u better FPS overall aslong as u stay within the limits of ur GPU, which should be aroudn the medium to high settings.

Upgrade ur GPU to a 660ti, should handle all high settings.

NOTE: Reflections on All is sort of bugged, as is Shadows. Keep them 1 nothc down from max.
Use native sampling not supersample.

other than that go through the tips on Kirito’s FAQ.

Top end intel CPU’s can get good performance.

The problem is that many dont understand what type of top end they need to look for nor what they include.
For example many people beleve that the AMD FX 8120 is top end and would be great for GW2. Unfortunatly as we know, AMD cpu’s dont have good enough single thread performance to stop GW2 from droping below 30 fps in those intensive WvW battles.

The ‘top end’ cpu’s’ for GW2 are the ones with good single thread performance and are OC’able. Get one of those and OC it (as they r designed for) and u can run GW2 without dropping below 30fps anywhere, and have good high average FPS
I.E. 2500k,2550k,2600k,2700k,3570k,3770k,3930k.

As for X series chips ..well there are only 2 that would run GW2 well, both of which r insanely expensive: 3960X and 3970X
So ur friends with X series likey dont have them in which case they are gunna be old and not so good now anyway. Like the QX6850 or i7 965X or 980X. All of which are low on the single core performance and thu wont be running well with GW2.

Its a PITA tbh becouse most people wont know that GW2 is bound by the CPU’s single thread performance ..nor what ‘single thread performance’ even means.

Pull out a switch knife and say “Play GW2 or ELSE !” :P

Then say u got the idea from GW2 ..wont sound boring then :P

You wouldnt wanna go lower on the specs tbh.

So if u dont wanna spend the extra for the MSI ..get the Lenevo and just keep an eye on temps since i hear they can suffer form high temps.
If it does start getting to hot some small DIY mods can help fix it.
One being a Laptop Pad with a fan on it, the other being hard mods to the Laptop chassis to increase airflow.

A 3610Qm CPU will bottleneck and drop below 30 fps in Big WvW battles as with all laptop and Desktop cpu’s at stock, whether u have noticed or been in a big enough battle is uncertain but if a Desktop CPU that is stronger cant manage to stay above 30 fps in said battles without a OC, then a laptop sure as hell cant.*

Again this just comes down to having been put in the situation to test it. if u havnt been in the right battles u wont truly no how far down the fps will drop. A ‘average’ fps of 45 in WvW is totaly possible though

Remember as much as u may feel the need to ‘talk up’ a component or a computer u own, its always best to be conservative when advising others. If the positions were reversed the last thing u would want is to be told “u will get 60 fps all the time in X game” then find out u actually get 50 fps all the time. (just an example)

-* Note: Not my ‘opinion’

That laptop should do well (for a laptop) with GW2.

Just dont except desktop perofrmance. You will still drop below 30 fps in places.

Click the little ? next to the x4 on GPUz it should do a little test a make it run up to its max x16.

if it doesnt then check ur bios setting to make sure its allowig it to run at x16.

That MB should have a PCIE x16
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (blue)

If ur looking at ur MB. CPu at the top ..ram on the right ..the top most PCIE slot is the one u want it in. (the long one not the short slot, obviosly )

I concure whith what every1 else has said here.

main options to keep donw form max are.

Reflections: Terrain and Sky
Shaodws: High
Sampling: Native.

Oh and OC that CPU, its designed for it. Depending on ur cooler u want to aim for around the 4.5ghz mark to keep WvW from dipping below 30fps in the most intensive battles.

The 3930k does not have a Intergrated GPU.

One thing i can sugest u try OP is running the game with settings on Max EXCEPT reflections. Turn that to terrain and Sky and see what happens.

Run EVGA PrecisionX and turn on the OSD.
Have it display FPS and GPU usuage.
Then do the same for the CPU. I personaly use AIDA 64. and have it show the CPU frequency ..it should go up to 3.8ghz.

The 3930k has so many cores and threads its a PITA to tell whether its bottlenecking on GW2.. ur looking at a number around 25% total usuage.
If ur still running at Stock speeds it could easily be a CPU bottleneck as the 3930k is no better at playing GW2 than a 2500K. Due to the way GW2 uses its threads.

I personaly have my one OC’d as u can see in my sig and dont have any problems running GW2 on ‘near’ max settings. My GPU is what is holding me back as it frequently hit 99% usuage. But thats fine.

You said u tried a 680 and it didnt help. So this leads me to suspect a software issue. But do check ur BIOS, make sure that the settings r allowing the CPU to clockup to its stock turbo of 3.8ghz. becouse if its only running at a constant 3.2ghz then thats likely to be the problem.

Turn reflection to terrain and sky and watch ur FPS sky rocket

Relfection on All is kinda buged as GW2 renders reflection even those u cant see.