my gaming pc for guild wars 2?

[sassyjay]

heya there I am going to build my first gaming computer :s and I wondered what kind of performance on guild wars 2 I would get with this set up.
intel pentium (ivy bridge) G2120 3.1 GHZ
asus p8h61 motherboard
8gb corsair ram 1600mhz
XFX hd 7770 black edition super OC
450W XFX PSU bronze cert
500gb seagate SATA 6gbs harddrive
samsung 22x dvd/cd RW
NZXT Source 210 elite white mid tower
I plan to use a 1920 x 1080 monitor. I have had a look at the Tom's benchmarks of CPU and GPU but since they used an OC'ed i7 with the gpus and a 7970 with the cpus I couldnt decipher how that would translate to this set up.( sorry that may seem a bit dim) I guess the processor could be the weak point as GW2 is CPU bound. Any comments/suggestions would be appreciated

....the parts will be from scan!(best prices) and I could spare an extra £40 or so on the budget for improvements.

[losertheone]

You won't be able to run at ultra high settings but it should be playable with at 40 fps+
You could always tweak some settings to increase the fps though.

With an extra £40, you could upgrade your CPU to i3 2120 or i3 3220. Getting an SSD is always an option but it wouldn't really improve your FPS in gaming.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Toms Hardware article does not test many CPUs and also not at their default frequencies either. The game seems to scale with core count,but does not respond very well to HT for some reason. Its a shame they don't include a Phenom II X4 965BE as that is not far off a 4.2GHZ FX4170 and is around £70. A FX4100 at around 4GHZ is slightly faster than a 3GHZ SB dual core in the game. Looking at the FX4000 against the FX6000 series,there is a 30% clock for clock performance increase.

[sassyjay]

The Toms Hardware article does not test many CPUs and also not at their default frequencies either. The game seems to scale with core count,but does not respond very well to HT for some reason. Its a shame they don't include a Phenom II X4 965BE as that is not far off a 4.2GHZ FX4170 and is around £70. A FX4100 at around 4GHZ is slightly faster than a 3GHZ SB dual core in the game. Looking at the FX4000 against the FX6000 series,there is a 30% clock for clock performance increase.

WOW!! loads of useful information thank you!!! well on scan the i3 3220 is only £20 more so i will definitely upgrade to that! however you make a strong argument cat the fifth for AMD. I dont know why but toms benchs seem squewd to make the fx's perform really badly so I find it hard to weigh up performance. It doesnt help vishera released yesterday!! though I doubt I will get hold of a piledriver chip but I could go for an fx 6200(I really like the look of the performance of the 6300, I think thats the star one) .. the motherboard would be better for same price then. The only thing I forgot to mention is that I must admit having a low watt build is good for me as I tend to end up in shared accomodation and keeping ppl happy by not upping the enrgy bill too much is helpful. :S

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I found another article:

http://gamegpu.ru/mmorpg-/-onlayn-ig...-test-gpu.html

CPU scaling:

http://gamegpu.ru/images/stories/Tes...20proz%202.png

However,their conclusions are not exactly the same as Toms Hardware regarding the CPU,as the latter see much better core scaling and worse HT scaling. It seems the Phenom II X4 965BE should be around Core i5 760 level and I estimate the Core i3 3220 to be around 20% faster than the Phenom II X4 965BE for around 30% additional cost.

OTH,the game also tends to be GPU heavy too:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rk,3268-6.html

http://gamegpu.ru/images/stories/Tes...202%201920.png

An HD6870 is around 15% to 20% faster than an HD7770.

From what I read supersampling,craters performance and disabling it reduces image quality but gives much better framerates. The second review uses supersampling in the CPU and GPU benchmarks.

I would also read this article too:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/user/6...e__tab__topics

A Phenom II X4 925 and an HD6870 with the game on medium,should be able to run it reasonably well it seems.

Whats your total budget?? I can see what I can come up with?? Do you need a copy of Windows 7 and a new monitor??

[sassyjay]

Excellent!!! of course be my guest. yes my budget was £550 for computer plus monitor and new windows 7 but i can up it to £600. My aim is to run guild wars 2 on high(not max but the middle point on their sliding scale between balanced and maxed) in pve and balanced or lower on wvw (to be honest it is going to lag here with my budget so i am not too bothered about performance here and i will be playing pve mainly). please feel free to adjust the monitor to 1650x1080 to improve the build as i am happy to play at this lower resolution.

oh just to make it clear i am happy with 30-40 fps with dips i dont need higher than that for my gaming pleasure!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Are you a student?? If you have an MSDNAA account,you can get free Windows.

However,Windows 8 is being released this week:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10...d_you_upgrade/

If you have an old XP key it should work and you pay only £25 - of course we confirm the limitations of the upgrade license after the 26th. If you don't want to use the Start Menu,I would get Start8 which should make the desktop look more like Windows 7.

[sassyjay]

ah no but my friend is at uni (UK) but he looked into and couldnt get windows free any way(just special student offers) I have XP but sadly only spa1 which the upgrade disc wont work with . I will look into this more.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

ah no but my friend is at uni (UK) but he looked into and couldnt get windows free any way(just special student offers) I have XP but sadly only spa1 which the upgrade disc wont work with . I will look into this more.

You can install a newer service pack over SP1:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/downl...ils.aspx?id=28

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/downl...ils.aspx?id=24

[sassyjay]

you beauty!!!! yes with those two I can buy the upgrade to windows 8 for so much less !!!!! you are awesome!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Are you intested in overclocking,or are just going to keep things at stock clockspeeds??

BTW,once you hit 20 relevant posts you can get free postage from Scan:

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...tup-guide.html

Also,Scan does daily special offers:

http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/index.aspx

[sassyjay]

oh yeah sure if its viable I will overclock (i.e get a phenom ii x4 965 and overclock it) yeap i knew about the free delivery thats a bonus!! and to be honest the daily offers at the moment tend to repeat themselves so i havent seen anything that fits my budget well.

look at this compared to my previous build!!! thanks to you the saving on windows and delivery makes this less than the previous build!!



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[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would look at getting this case:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/BitFenix-Mer.../dp/B005JRICNG

Both,builds should come to around £600 including a copy of Windows 8.

The motherboards in both builds,have 4 RAM slots,are ATX and have SATA3.0 and USB3.0 ports. The B75 chipset in the Intel build does not support overclocking and neither does the CPU. The motherboard in the AMD build supports overclocking but the motherboard is not really suited for it.

OTH,the HD7850 2GB does tend to overclock well:

http://hwbot.org/hardware/videocard/radeon_hd_7850/

The stock clockspeed is around 860MH and the MSI is slightly pre-overclocked.

You can get a GTX660 for around £10 to £20 more,but for around £30 more for the Intel build you could can get a low end Core i5.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I reformatted the build with a Core i5.



However,you will need to use an HD7850 1GB instead and the model probably won't overclock as well as the 2GB version in the previous builds.

[sassyjay]

awesome builds!!!! thank you! and you gave me a choice of three!! I actually find it really hard to choose which one!! hmmm I guess for overall performance I might go for the 6300fx with the 2gb 7850 as I can over clock the graphics card later by saving money for the cooler for the fx... however you said the motherboard isnt good for overclocking? imagine not being limited by budget on the motherboard, which cheapest motherboard would you suggest that would be suitable for an overclock on the processor? oh and does the phenom ii 965 BE measure up to the i3 with overclocking? that would be a way to increase budget for cooling plus better motherboard. hmmm shucks to be fair these builds are good enough thank you so much for your time!! I think I will go with either the i3 or the fx 6300 to get the better graphics card.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This one:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-%28x16%29-atx

However,Asus has not released a Vishera compatible BIOS yet,although supposedly the older BIOS version should work still.

There is also this Gigabyte:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-...-%28x16%29-atx

I know people with both motherboards,the Gigabyte is better for overclocking AFAIK.

Of course remember,that you could instead get a Core i5 3350P and a B75M motherboard instead.