Guild Wars 2

A C2D will crumble in WvWvW to a point that most people would consider unplayable..< 15fps

FYI:

What LithePanther.5027 described is not what culling IS ,,its what culling CAUSES.

Culling is what a GPU does to reduce load. It is controled by the game in question and helps keep up performance. Anything outside a ingame range distance and line of sight (i.e behind you) can be culled.
Examples:
For range distance in front of you, you can see this when you see someone pops up infornt of you X yards away out of nowhere. A more obviose and drastic effect happens with large groups of people hoarding together like in the halloween event. As you run around you will notce that there is effectivly a invisible circle around your character where anyone outside of it is not rendered.
Culling behind you, you can feel the effect of the fps stuttering as you turn the camera ..this is the gpu reloading stuff that was ‘culled’.

The ‘BUG’ people talk about is the ‘conditions’ currently set inplace for culling to occure. It is currently set to close to the player, meaning people can pop up all of a sudden very close to you becouse culling is happening to close. In additon to this culling is also happen to clsoe and to soon when moving around cuasing stuttering when a player turns the camera to somwhere he hasnt been to in a while. preferably culling should be set with a greater distance in mind however this would cause performance hits on lower end GPU and CPU’s as there will then always be more to render and compute. it would however help performance(less stuttering) and visusal quality(see more people) for those with high end rigs.

EDIT; the reason for people being slow to ‘pop up’ when within the culling distance is down t oa slow CPU. For GW2 to that ‘pritty much’ means anything that is not an up to date OC’d cpu.

Yes. A 650 non ti isnt great tbh but it should manage medium, if it was a 650ti probably medium/high.
FPS should be around 30-40, possibly more depending on settings.

If you CPU is a K class then it can be OC’d, try(if you have good air cooling) to get it close to 4.5ghz. If its not k class then you will have issues in WvWvW. FPS will likely drop below 20 in medium – large fights, however this may not be caused by your CPU to start with as your GPU will likely slow you down with so many effects to render.. lowering all settings to low would remedy this but then you fps would be capped by your CPU.

You system is to old and to low spec to run GW2 smoothly.

Any upgrade you could get will be hampered by other parts of your system.

4gb RAM was the standard a couple years ago ..nowerdays its usualy 8 or 16gb ..so you way behind on that.

The CPU is also very dated and todays is to slow for most games that even remotly gain performance from a cpu. Idealy at minimum you would want a 2nd gen i5, maybe as low as a high spec 2nd gen i3

Your GPU again is to slow. mid range ‘gaming’ cards today would be a 560ti or 660ti. Low end would be the 460, 560(non ti), 650ti. Or ATI equivalanets on all them.

indeed .full upgrade.

FYI: a gaming rig generaly needs upgrading every 2 to 4 years depending on how much you spend on it when you upgrade. If you save up and spend alot it can last atleast 4 years with little to no upgrades before a complete overhaul is again needed.

My advice for a cost effective setup would be.

Intel 2550k + Motherboard + Evo 212 cooler (OC to 4.5ghz)
GTX 560ti or ATI equivalent
8 or 16 gb 1600mhz RAM
600W PSU minimum, recommend 750w

If that doesnt fit inside your case or your case has bad cooling then any ~£60 gaming case will do. If you HDD’s and Optical drivers are still IDE, then you will need some Sata drives. They dont cost much. ~£20 for optical and ~£75 for 500gb-1TB HDD.

If you from the US then i leave the prices to you to find but for a gaming rig it shouldnt cost to much.

I think the 6870 will be enough to play on medium, maybe even some high settings ..but without a good cpu you probably wont see all that the card can do. Crossfireing them would work but GW2 doesnt like SLI or Crossfire from what iv heared. Not only that, waiting longer, and buying a more expensive single card is better than using 2 slower ones.

I think what most of us would advise is that you to save your money for a longer period and then upgrade with higher performance parts. From what i can see, your trying to make a low tier gaming rig with only enough money to make a media rig. It doesnt match up.

My old rig which is still in use has a Intel QX6850 OC 3.7ghz cpu and a OC 460 GTX gpu.
In WvW it goes down and below 10fps. Its heavily CPU bottlenecked.

You really need a up to date Intel CPU to be able to enjoy GW2 to the fullest.

Im also waiting on the 700 series or 8000 series ATi ..hence why i have a 560ti paired with a 3930k :P

Aye i agree it is a shame. And i also miss the days when AMD could compete performance wise vs Intel. Alass gone are the good ol days

OK fair enough Umbra ..sounds good.

The fps drops your notcing are due to GW2’s culling mostly. User wise there only a few thigns that can be done to help reduce its impact.

Settings:
Relfections – Terrain & Sky
Shadows – High
LOD – High/medium

That should help.

Other than that its just down to hardware . The faster the cpu the faster it can re process the culled objects your loading as you turn. a SSD will help load up textures and model faster to reduce stutter and fps dips. Note a SSD wont increase fps it will just help reduce stutter.

As you can see in my spec i also run a 560ti also..slightly lower clocks than urself as its factory clocked 950mhz core and 4580 ‘effective’ memory. But i dont get as drastic fps dips as yourself EXCEPT in LA when i load it up for the 1st time ..i just spin the camera around once or twice and its sorted.

EDIT: 400W is slightly on the low side but since ur not OC’ing ur cpu its fine for what you have. If/when you get a new cpu and OC you will need atleast a 600w PSU since sandybridges atleast can pull alot of watts when OC’d, Ivybridge aint so bad.

Its gunna sound like im bashing AMD again but JERRIX ..its your cpu :P I bet your 580 sits there at 50% usuage most the time right ?

And omg. .the 486 ..i remember those :d .. i ran a 486/66 then a 486/100 back in the day ..used ot play C&C on it and Wolfenstien ..and DOOM and such hehe.

What CPU exactly do you have? becouse GW2 takes alot of performance from your CPU.

As for the 630 ..to be blunt its not a gaming gpu ..i dont even recommend a 650 (non ti) ..so there rly isnt much i can say about the 630 ..it will strugle greatly ..you will be lucky to run medium settings, most likely will have to run low setitngs. .even then you probably wont get high fps. Minimum you want is a 650ti or 560ti or 460 ..or ATI equivalent.

The reason upgrading ur computer as you have been doing has shown little to know imporvment is becouse you seem to have been looking at the wrong part.

its not the GPU. GW2 is one of a few games that has performance hinged greatly on the CPU.
If you indeed do have a good gaming machine then i can asume you have a Intel 2500k/3570k or better. In which case all you need to do if you havnt done so already ..is OC your CPU to around 4.5ghz (Sandybridge) 4.3ghz (Ivybridge). Do that and you should be fine. CPU usuage will not show 100% usuage so dont bring that up please ..plenty of posts around toexplain why ..browse my posts and you will find one explaining it.

If you already have it OC’d, then do share what your CPU and GPU usuage is ingame and what settings ur using.

Note you wont get 60 FPS all the time in some areas of LA or WvW no matter your rig.

iSmack.

From my undertsanding i think i know what your issue is with WvW performance.

Your CPU is fine ! im happy to say ..as you probably already know. However….

I have seen alot of talk about SLI and GW2 ..it doesnt seem to work. Your pushing a 560ti way to hard in respect to resolution and settings. I run my OC’d 560ti (384CUDA, 950mhz core 4580mhz memory) at 1920×1080 on max settings EXCEPT SS is on NS, Reflections is on Terrain and Sky ..and shadows when in WvW is on High not ultra.
That keeps my fps between 35 and 60 on WvW (30-80 people on screen, havnt been in a 100+ battle yet). But my GPU does max out frequently, so i can only imagin that ur gpu is constantly maxed out due to the resolution ur running at. I render 2,073,600 pixels, your trying to render 3,686,400.

Anyway ..try disabling SLI completly and runing GW2 at 1080p with high settings all over like i am.. I know it isnt ur native resolution ..but its just to see if it is SLI and the resoltuion ur using Hope it helps.

EDIT: oh and its 3960(X) ..no (K) :P

I do perfer Tera graphics tbh ..BUT Tera uses Unreal Engine ..which has its own flaws ….mainly being invisible walls due to the way hitboxes work for enviromental objects and such.
Also note that Tera also crumbles during Rifts ..the game engine cant handle the 100+ models (both npc and pc) in such a small location.. so it doesnt matter what rig you have ..it grinds to 15 fps or lower. Its PvP however is fine and can handle then umber of pepel involved ..mainly becouse there isnt as many people :P
In that respect GW2 is better becouse the lowets iv ever heared WvWvW go down to on a beasty computer is 20 fps with 100+ people on screen.
I personaly dont go below 30 ..but have yet to test this is a truly massive battle (100+ people)

As for your OC.

Depending on what cooling ur using people can usualy get between 4.3 and 4.5ghz on top end air cooling and mid/high end water cooling on a Ivybridge 3770k . So if ur on say a H50 water cooler or a mid range air cooler ..4.2 isnt bad.
As for not noticing any performance increase..you do need to make sure your GPU isnt choking when your trying to measure these increases.. also it is indeed hard to see diference when your looking at 100 or 200 mhz increase ..but if you went straight from 4ghz to 4.5ghz ..you would likely see a difference.

Also as for what normal users OC to. Well tbh 2nd and 3rd gen i5/7’s usualy get OC’d up to 4.5ghz(SB) 4.3ghz(IB) as its usualy considered the ‘reasonably attainable’ OC for begineers and for relativly cheap cooling. If you wanna go higher than that then you generaly need more knowledge on what to tweek in settings and also more money for better water cooling. And ofcourse the time it takes to fully test highly ‘tweeked’ OC’s which can be on the edge of be ing stable.
For example my OC is on Air cooling since i didnt wanna spend loads of money on a water cooling rig..i was already at the limits of my budget…but i did spend the time to highly tweek it to get as low a voltage 4.6ghz OC i could ..if i go down on the voltage even by 0.05v or change any other settings in bios ..my system become unstable ..it took me over a week to get right due ot the 12 hour long stability tests i had to run, but i done it not for just1 game ..but for an overall increase in performance for all aspects of PC usage.

Megido ..look on forums for otherposts related to GW2 performance and you will see plenty of posts by me explaining why you wont see 100% usuage of the CPU when playing GW2.

Ill just copy and past what i said in another thread to somone here for ya :P

“You wont see a cpu max out in overall usuage becouse once GW2 maxes out one of its threads thats it, the game slows down. GW2 has like 50 odd threads it uses for various operations ..2 to 3 of them are the main ones used for performance. When 1 caps out thats when it bottlenecks…any other threads that are not capped out just add to the overal usuage your CPU indicates to you via task manager.

Bassicaly the math to work out at what overall CPU usuage will be when GW2 start to max out is this:

100/No. threads x 2= Lowest possible %
100/No. threads x 3 = Likely %
In your case your CPU has 6 threads.
So its
100/6 × 2 = 34 %
100/6 × 3 = 50 %
Meaning once your CPU reaches 34% usuage you can expect FPS to possibly start to drop. at 50% and up it is HIGHLY likely you fps will drop. When this happens you GPU usuage will also drop UNLESS there is alot of special effects going on to tax your GPU.

the way around this is simple but hard to swallow for some.

OC your current CPU
Buy a new beafier CPU & OC
Wait for a possible optimisation patch (dont hold ur breath) "

The 7850 ‘should’ trounce the 650ti ..even if the 650ti is OC’d.

And even if you get a stock 7850 ..you can still OC it yourself somewhat. How far i do not know though.

You gotta remember that with ATI’s latest drivers, most their cards including the 7850 have had a performance boost. So old benchmarks will be out of date.

Pritty much what Rampage said.
Although i disagree about Ivybridge.
They are pefectly fine and can OC rather well.. they wont OC as high as Sandybridge granted but they run the equivalent to 100mhz faster than sandybridge anyway.
A IB at 3.3ghz will give you roughly the same performance a SB will give at 3.4ghz bassicaly.
So unless your OC above 4.5ghz a Ivybridge will do just fine ..since most can do 4.3 to 4.5ghz on air cooling and mid end water cooling. A Sandybridge will do 4.5ghz easily on air and can go as high as 4.7..
So bassicaly if your going 4.6ghz or higher on the OC ..deffinatly get a Sandybridge, if your going 4.4ghz or lower ..get an Ivybridge.

Sounds like a plan. Just make sure ifyou get a unlocked (K) cpu that you also get good enough cooling when you OC it.

FYI Wauwi. Do note that my post said to stay ABOVE 30fps you need said specs. meaning you can frequently get higher fps.

With the spec in my sig i get usualy between 35-60 fps in WvW depending on the size of the battle. When fps drops down near 30 it is usualy becouse of a combination of both cpu AND gpu nottlenecking since i run my graphics settings on max and do no turn them down. if i tuerned them down i would likely not drop below 40fps as my CPU is rather strong. that is untill i see a 100 man fight which tbh i rarely see :P

Rampage.7145:

Pretty much even the i5 overclocked at 5ghz will bottleneck the GTX 260 in WvW.

If you run at low & medium graphics settings yes.

If you run on high/ultra the number of effects that increases as more and more people flood into a battle will quikly overwhelm the 260 ..its caps out a 560ti :P

Not disagreing btw. .just ..elaborating

30 fps with 60+ players on screen you looking at :

i5 2550k OC to 4.5ghz+
Nvidia 660ti or ATI equivalent.

GW2 thread optimisation isnt that good tbh, hence why you need a heafty CPU good at single thread operations.

EDIT: a 560ti would be ok but from experiance i can tell you that once there is more than 50 people on screen in WvW all shooting ..the cpu bottleneck quikly becomes GPU bottleneck(max settings) ..unless you lower graphics settings. .which i personal do not do :P Even still ..with a 560ti in WvW i have yet to see my FPS drop below 30 using max settings ..it gets close though.

Thats GW2’s thread optimisation at work. It requirs a beafy cpu to run WvW and LA smooth.

You wont see a cpu max out in overall usuage becouse once GW2 maxes out one of its threads thats it, the game slows down. GW2 has like 50 odd threads it uses for various operations ..2 to 3 of them are the main ones used for performance. When 1 caps out thats when it bottlenecks…any other threads that are not capped out just add to the overal usuage your CPU indicates to you via task manager.

Bassicaly the math to work out at what overall CPU usuage will be when GW2 start to max out is this:

100/No. threads x 2= Lowest possible %
100/No. threads x 3 = Likely %
In your case your CPU has 6 threads.
So its
100/6 × 2 = 34 %
100/6 × 3 = 50 %
Meaning once your CPU reaches 34% usuage you can expect FPS to possibly start to drop. at 50% and up it is HIGHLY likely you fps will drop. When this happens you GPU usuage will also drop UNLESS there is alot of special effects going on to tax your GPU.

the way around this is simple but hard to swallow for some.

OC your current CPU
Buy a new beafier CPU & OC
Wait for a possible optimisation patch (dont hold ur breath)

If you decide to upgrade do note that becouse GW2 is heavily influenced by single thread performance… AMD cpu’s dont fair to well compared to Intel, its also possible GW2 isnt optimized for AMD vs Intel. AMD can still make do when highly OC’d ..but not as good as Intel.

Turning certain grpahics option off or lowering them may help you. I.e Shadows. Relfections, and LOD.

Yep thats the range issue i was talking about. Culling is fine ..but being that close is stupid. It still isnt as bad as what the Op was talking about ..but imo it still shouldnt be that close to the player.

Correct me if im wrong but didnt the FX 8150 come out in Q4 of 2011 and the Intel 980x in Q1 of 2010. Your comparing 2 different generations -.-
It would have to be Fx 8150 vs Intel 2700k…pritty sure the 2700k beats it.

And yea Intels run hotter.

Anyway like i’ve said befor ..i got nothing against AMD. They are just beat by Intel when it comes to performance, yes they cost more but you get what you pay for bassicaly.

Hmm….

As much as i hate always saying this to people. It might just be your CPU. I mean it will run the game fine ..but i think it may just be that tad slow for instant loading of large numbers of people. I mean its only a 3.1ghz and has no turbo boost feature ether. Obviosly the game could do much better with optimizations but atm thats unlikely to come anytime soon if atall.

So yes the game is at fault mainly but i think atm you asking to much from a 3.1ghz dual core i3 cpu. Everyone knows GW2 requirs some beafy cpu’s to play smoothly…its not right ..but its what we got >.<

Mag ..what cpu do you have. Your GPU is fine, but it may not be getting information quik enough to be able to render. Also a SSD can help, the faster your gpu gets the info the quiker it can render it.

Granted there is a culling issue, but form my experiance its been an issue of range, as in… it give no options for the user to determin at what range culling occurs. I have not ever had any issue where people right next to me take a long time to load. The issues i see with culling is simply only people within a certain distance of me load.

Omino .. what cpu do you have?

It is possible it may be an problem that ever1 has but your seeing and exagerated version of it due to somthing else. Maybe a driver problem.. if you havnt done so already ..try downgrading your drivers.

Another more drastic approach would be to format your HDD’s ..reinstall your OS + Drivers + GW2 only ..no other programs. And see if that works. I know you said you reinstaleld your OS just before GW2 released. .but maybe a recent update or program has caused an issue. This is bassicaly what i do as a last resort.

The 3770 is an ivybridge.

22nm/3rd generation = Ivybridge
32nm/2nd generation = sandybridge

Do you mean its not a ‘k’ ?

2550k + OC would be fine. Air cooled 4.5 to 4.7ghz

If you want to go further get a 3770k/3750k + OC. Air cooled 4.3 to 4.5ghz

Chances are you wont see much differnece between the 2 though.

If you really wanted to go to the extreme. Get a 2700k + high end water cooling .and get it to 5ghz. thats the best you can do bassicaly.

The SB-E 3930k and 3960X wont perform any better than the 3770k or 2700k and will be harder to OC due to the extre cores. The SB-E processor are just for future proofing and for those that want to do encoding and other multi threaded intensive tasks.

Its simply becouse the main GW2 threads do not offload processes onto another threads when the main thread has maxed out. Instead it just strugles along causing your gpu to wait for data thus lowering fps.

The only way to resolve this is for GW2 game engine to have significant code changes to split up the current processes even further, which is not easy as some things just can be split.
GW2 uses 2 to 3 main threads for its performance. When any1 of them maxes out, you see fps drop along with gpu usuage. it also means your CPU usuage (unless u have a 2 core 2 thread cpu) will likely never reach 100%. Most 4 core 4 thread cpu’s will hover around 63% to 80%. 4 core 8 thread 31% and 40%, and 6 core 12 thread 20% and 25%. It can go abvoe these figures in extreme casses where other game threads are also being used more than usual..like during special events (Karka invasion) and enourmose WvW battles.

20-25 is where your CPu maxes out for GW2.

bassicaly gw2 uses 2 to 3 main threads forits performance when one or all max out the thread performance, the game drops in fps. it will never use 100% of the total cpu performance becouse it isnt going by the total cpu performance ..its going by the ‘thread’ performance.

So the 980x has 6cores 12 threads. Just like my 3930k it will work out that you will notice fps droping when you cpu’s total usuage is anywhere from 20 to 25 and up depending on how heavily other threads are being used when 1 maxes out. Note that task manager will not show you the information you need to check this. it wil lonly give you ur total usuage ..not per game thread usuage.

I see my cpu usage reach up to 30 ..maybe a tiny bit more under extreme circumstances like enourmose WvWvW battles and special eventsl ike the Karka invasion. Normal anywhere from 20-25% and i see FPS starting to drop along with GPU usuage droping ..untill ofcourse there is enough effects on the screen to make my GPU become the bottleneck.

Whats happening when you turn is that the thread responsible for loading thei nformation is maxing out causing your GPu to wait for said data and thus lowering your FPS. Thats why lowering shaodw and reflections aswell as LOD can help.

Due to the way GW2 is coded these important threads do not ofload processes to seperate threads once a thread is maxed.. instead al lthat happens is thigns slow down. The onyl way to get around it as a user is to have a supper fast CPU that has really good sinlge thread performance. Those cpu’s like urs requir OC’ing to do this..even then its not enough to keep a stable 60 fps in places like WvW and high population events.

Along with the usual fast loading times of a SSD, you also get less ‘stutter’ in games. This becouse SSD’s have faster access times to data such as skins, character models ,icons etc that get loadedo n the fly and so you dont see that ever so slight pause. A SSD will ether completly remove or, more likely, reduce stutter in games.

Its atleass worth geting a 120/128gb SSD for your OS and 1 or 2 games. Just dont fill it up. A SSD runs faster when it has free space. Keep atleast 25% free space. I personaly have a 128gb (119gb effective) SSD and have 35.7gb free and thats how its gunna stay.

NP i fully understand.

The Quad core 6600 is still very old. If he has heavily OC’d it then that may account for his good fps. But in general even intel cpu’s like the 6600 are nothing compared to 2nd and 3rd gen i5’s/i7’s and top end 3rd gen i3’s.

The Q6600 was released in Q1 of 2007..so its 5 years old now. I would be surprised if it didnt reduce fps in large WvWvW battles to an unbarable level. My old QX6850 was OC’d to 3.7 and drops down to under 10fps in large WvWvW battles.

Shadow pls dont post about OC’ing if you no nothing about it. OC’ing if done sensibly and right does not lower the CPU’s lifespan, even when you do go far enough to lower its lifespan its still not going below 4 years…most people replace their cpu after 4 if they are running a gaming rig anyway.

The only cpu’s that pop within 4 years are the ones used for Suicide bechmarks..hence the name :P

high end cpu’s are not getting the performance they deserve, but what they get is far more playable than running stock, old and slow cpu’s. So there is nothing wrong with my advice.

As for Intel vs AMD with GW2
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html

Im not saying go just by this one benchmark ..there plenty of post arounf forums and other places.
When i say go Intel for playable FPS, my idea of playable and your own may be totaly different. Also when i say WvWvW ..i dont mean 30 man fights ..i mean 100 man fights.

I got nothing against AMD, its just GW2’s average trend with AMD is that they dont run very well. Yes OC’ing wil help, but you get much better performance out of Intel.

Im not forcing any1 to do anything ..im giving my advice. Take it or leave it.

I asume you done a completly fresh install ..not a ‘clone’ or copy ?

Have you tried just installing OS + Drivers + GW2 ..with no other software like antiviruses, music players, other games, other programs and such ?

Its your CPU.

2 reasons

1) You cpu is slow clock speed wise for a AMD and only has 2 cores.
2) Your cpu is AMD, and GW2 has issue with ‘most’ AMD cpu’s

You have 3 choices

1)OC
2)Buy a new intel cpu & OC
3)Wait and hope for a super-optimisation patch (unlikely)

The blade is a downgrade imo on the gpu.

Save your money ..buy a desktop.

if you need mobility ..just save your money.

Probably medium/high settings. If its a 650ti he could probably manage more high settings. if its just a 650 probably all medium.

WvWvW and LA will most likely cause fps to drop since the cpu is caped at 3.7ghz and becouse its not a K version the best OC you could expect is 4ghz. But if he is ok with dealing with <20fps in WvWvW then it should be fine.

If he is mainly a PVE’er then he shouldnt have much trouble.

You dont wanna go any lower than the 650ti imo.
Its already lower than the lowest ‘gaming’ gpu.

Keeping a gaming rig even remotely up to date is relativly pricy compared to a simple media pc.

If you buy low end performance parts, expect to upgrade often. If you buy mid to higher end parts you can get away with upgraidng less often. The cost is the same in the long run, it just depends on how much money you have free at the time.

I personaly prefer to go the 4 year route where you upgrade lots/all of the parts at the same time and get top end stuff so that it lasts atleast 4 years. Its pricey ..but works out the same as buying low end parts more often. Say every 2 years.

Now i work in British pounds but i spend roughly £1000 to £1500 every 4 or so years. Thats equal to between £250 and £375 a year ..which isnt bad considering you can buy a low end gaming rig for about £600-£800 that will last maybe 2 years before needing to upgrade. Thus it works out the same or better in the long run spending alot in one go to last 4 years.
My lats computer lasted 4 years and cost me roughly £1200. My latest computer cost me again roughly £1100 plus in march ill be buying a new GPU since my current is still from my old computer ..so another £350 can probably be added totaly £1450. That should then last me a good 4 years.

I personaly measure how long it lasts buy how well it can run up to date games on atleast ‘high’ (ultra/max prefered) settings whilst maintaining as close to 60 fps as possible. Once fps dips below 30fps whether it be for only a few seconds during a explosion or somthing ..thats when an upgrade is required..unless ofcourse its due to poor game optimisation.

So yea anyway point is ..if you spend little* expect to do it often.

*little in terms of ‘gaming’ rigs.

Yea plus the 690 is a dual GPU ..i was more talking about single GPU cards. But still the point stands ..even the 690 has ‘next to no’ issues with 2.0 vs 3.0.

Anyway OP…

If you want my advice on which to choose out of the 2. Go for the 650ti. 3 years warranty is perfectly fine for a peace of PC hardware ..by the time that warranty runs out you will want to upgrade….infact you may want to upgrade before it runs out… trust me

Single core performance..but not an ‘old’ Dual Core like the G860.
if you have to choose a dual core make it a modern i3-3240
You need at minimum 4 threads. So 2 cores with hyperthreading is minium. Becouse GW2 uses about 3 main threads for its perfomance.

Preferably you need a good 4 core intel with ether the ability to OC ..or a good stock clock speed.

As for AMD ..tbh ..GW2 really doesnt perform well with most AMD’s and even with the ones it does, they are easily out performed by Intel.

Megido.

CPU wise im afraid you are missinformed. If you 3770k cpu does indeed reach 80% usuage playing GW2 i would very much like to know how many programs you have running the background becouse that is waaaaaay to high for a 4 core 8 thread cpu. It should see between 31% and 38% usuage at the point it becomes the bottleneck. Add on what ever % your computer ’idle’s at in your OS with your usual programs running and you could maybe add say 3-5% ontop. So say 35% to 43% usuage is the range of usuage a 3770k will bottlneck at.

As much as i hate going into it time after time ….

The reason for this being is that GW2 uses between 2 and 3 main threads for its performance. If any 1 of those reaches 100% usuage on a THREAD (not core) then a bottleneck occurse becouse GW2 is not programed to offload the caped out thread onto a seperate one.
The way you work out what % you ‘should’ see when your cpu is bottlenecked is…

100/number of cpu threads x 2.5 = (lowest usuage for bottleneck to usualy occure)
100/number of cpu threads x 3 = (highest usuage for bottleneck to usualy occure)

In the case of a 3770k its 100/8 × 2.5

this is not 100% accurate but its close. My cpu caps out between 20-25% (6cores 12 threads) ..but i have seen in extreme cases it reach a tad over 30%. This is on the rare occasions where more than the usualy 3 perfomance threads are having high usage. Think special events like the recent karka one ..where not only do you have normal perfomance threads that are heavily used like in WvW and in LA ..but also dynamic event threads and masses of npc enemies and such.
I wasnt monitoring the thread usuage at this point but its likely that some of the other 50 GW2 threads that GW2 uses between them were being used more and as such accounted for the increased cpu usuage..however it is still highly likely the same 2 or 3 threads where the ones maxing out and reducing framerate.

Hope this helps correct some of your missconceptions

3.0 cards are compatable with 2.0 .. Infact 3.0 isnt even being used atm. No card out is using all the bandwidth 2.0 has available. So you have no worries there.

The 650 would be enough. But i will still point out that the X50 nvidia cards are really high end media cards. .not gaming cards. So whilst it will be ‘enough’ ..you may feel the need to upgrade again soon after. That said though the 650Ti is better than a 460… so your only other choice on Nvidia’s side would be a 560ti which it soudns like would be outside your price range.
If you get a 650ti ..make sure its a ‘Ti’ becouse there is a big difference. And if you get a non reference card you could probably OC it for more performance if you so desired.

Im no expert when it comes to ATI cards, its been a long time since i used one. So when people such as urself ask about them and what could be as good or better. I use this website to help compare. It isnt always 100% accurate in terms of gaming performance, and thats where more research and actually benchmarks come in. But for an overal performance comparison ..its really good.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

Find you card there, then look at anything above it for an upgrade.
IMO for GW2 you should look at cards that score 2650 and above.

Ofcourse the amount of performance increase you actually see with GW2 will also depend on where your CPU starts to bottleneck. Chances are with your current card you wont be seeing much ..if any. ..botleneck due to you cpu as your gpu will cause slowdown before you cpu does. A new card though, like say the GTX 460, will show up any weakness in your CPU if you have your graphics settings set to medium.

Price wise im not much help as im from England..prices in the US compared to England are very different.

the 1st one ..dont bother with ..its AMD and the GPU is crap.

The 2nd one isnt to bad though. Should handle GW2 ok. More so if u OC the cpu. The one thing i will sy about the 2nd one is that you wont be able ot run high on the graphics ..since the 650 is not a gaming GPU .its a high end media GPU .. the Nvidia gaming gpu’s start at x60 ..i.e 460, 560 and 660 and up

hmm 650 vs 580 ..i honestly dont ‘think’ thats an upgrade. Ill look into it more but im pritty sure thats a downgrade.

EDIT: yea a 650 will be a downgrade. The only way it beats the 580 is in the wattage is uses.
This isan overal comparison. use your browsers search engine to select the 650 and the 580
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

You would have to get a 670 or 680 to ‘upgrade’ IMo you should wait for the 700 series or 8000 series ATI’s. I am.

500W will be fine for a 550ti.