Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Looking for some advice on building a PC to run GW2 on awesome graphics
Zeppelin5083
Member Posts: 410
Here is what I have so far. Basically I need a bit of help with a motherboard, don't need keyboard/mouse/monitor etc.
Also any input as to something that will work just as good that will save me money, let me know!
Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
XFX Double D HD-695X-CDFC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
CORSAIR HX Series HX750 (CMPSU-750HX) 750W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Notes:
-I do plan to use this for other things than gaming (photoshop/rendering/video editing) so if something needs to be upgraded/changed in order to allow this, please let me know.
Guild Wars 2 System Requirements:
-Minimum-
Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or better • Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3, AMD Athlon 64 X2, or better • 2 GB RAM • NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800, ATI X1800, Intel HD 3000, or better (256MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better) • 25 GB available HDD space • Broadband Internet connection • Keyboard and mouse
Thanks for all the help! I'll also post this in the PC equipment discussion as well.
Comments
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Get a solid state drive and use it as your primary OS and gaming disk. Movies, music, and other random stuff that high-speed hard drive performance doesn't matter for can go on your mechanical drive. You will love the Windows boot time of less than 30 seconds (after the BIOS finishes its stuff) and games will load fast. Hitching you used to experience will disappear.
Make sure your motherboard supports SATA 6Gb/s. Also, look for 4KB read/write performance when comparing SSD performance. From what I understand, that is the best benchmark for gaming because most reads are about that size. I haven't kept up with the latest news, but I know the controller chip makes a difference too. Might want to look into what people are saying about the different memory controllers, unless you just want a budget SSD.
The one I am using could be considered a budget SSD now. It isn't the fastest any more but it still blows mechanical hard drives away. At $175 on Newegg, none of the other SATA III, 240 GB SSDs give you more bang for your buck. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227727
If you plan on doing a lot of WvW in max graphics, I'd suggest getting a second 6950 vid card in crossfire and OC your CPU a tiny bit. You might want to wait a bit on this until the game is fully optimized.
Otherwise you are totally fine.
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
id HIGHLY advise against crossfire or sli I had a SLI setup and its almost never worth the hassle over getting a single card that comes close to the power of the two cards. Generally you aren't saving much money by going crossfire and you are limiting yourself in many ways. Only way i see it worth it is if yuo can afford two of the top cards as soon as they are released. I had 560 ti's running in sli and switched over to the new 670 which is actually cheaper than buying two 560 ti's and is a lot faster
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Yes I agree crossfire/sli is a big hassle and is a big risk since performance is could be anywhere from %5 to 80% increase in performance, but all of this depends on how well the game in question is optimized.
It is only a suggestion, I was averaging 25 FPS with 70-80 people in one area spaming skills, at max graphics on my single GTX 670.
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
must be your cpu limiting you then I never dipped below 40 fps in huge battles with tons of crap going on(was on max but turned reflections to sky an terrain which made my fps jump up 10-15fps, I also run with post processing off as well since I hate the bloom effect)).. Average in pve was 80-90 fps
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Yeah, my i5 2500K is deffinately my bottle neck, especially since I never O'C it.
I think of 25 FPS as worst case scenerio, not that I'm trying to complain.
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
Thanks for the input guys, what are your thoughts on this motherboard?
Intel BOXDH77KC LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
OC that baby! you should be able to easily hit 4.5ghz on stock cooler and it will help a lot. I have a 2600k running at 4.5ghz and temps are just slightly over stock temps(like 5 degrees over) odd thing is if I bump it to 4.7ghz temps jump 10 degrees so i settled with 4.5ghz
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
if that's the price range you are looking I would look into http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157296
or something else with the Z77 chipset
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I had too many CPUs died from O'C T_T
I'm too much in love with my 2500K for it die on me when I'm planning on playing GW for a long time
"When you're born you're naked, when you die you're naked again, and in-between all we do is work, eat, and play MMOs." ~Forum Warrior #141
The price range just depends on how much I have a few days before GW2 releases. Can you explain the significance of the Z77 chipset to me? I'm trying to learn as much as possible while building this.
Thanks!
as long as you have a good cooler and run stress tests to keep an eye on temps you should never have an issue. Also need ot make sure PSU is good enough for it.. I figure my builds never last me over 4 years due to how fast hardware comes out so If I can squeeze an extra ghz+ out of a cpu for that long why not? I actually have OCed all my systems since I started building in the mid 90s when OC was a pain in the ass and never had a single CPU fail
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
read this gives you an overview of the differn't chipsets and you can decide what you feel works best for you
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboards/display/intel-z77.html
Z77 doesn't offer much for people already with z68's but for a new build I would go with the newer one.. but really upto you the H77 would be fine as well but is more of a lower end board usually although many people don't need all the stuff the perfromance boards offer.
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
My BF built me my system for GW2 (Even thou he does not play MMOs..*sniff*)..anyway..Here are the specs (Not the best but I love it :
Bought it all from Newegg (Awesome prices)
Case: Coolermaster HAF X ATX Full Tower
Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel 6GB Sata 3
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB GDDR5
PSU: Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750 750watt 80+ Bronze
Cooling: Coolermaster Hyper Evo 212 Fan
PCU: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3Ghx (3.7Ghz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 Quad Core
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
SSD: Intel 320 Series 120GB Sata 2
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium
Monitor: ASUS 24 inch
Runs very quiet and cool.
We will OC the system to 4.0Ghz for release. (Seems like a good start)
EDIT: Cooling added
"My Fantasy is having two men at once...
One Cooking and One Cleaning!"
---------------------------
"A good man can make you feel sexy,
strong and able to take on the whole world...
oh sorry...that's wine...wine does that..."
^ very close to what I got very good stuff:)
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
I just got the New Video Card. We did a "Step-up Program" with EVGA...Initially had a GTX580, paid the difference of $19 and got a new GTX 670.
"My Fantasy is having two men at once...
One Cooking and One Cleaning!"
---------------------------
"A good man can make you feel sexy,
strong and able to take on the whole world...
oh sorry...that's wine...wine does that..."
yea 670 is great very glad I ditched my two 560 ti's for it. I got it running at 680 speeds now and break 10k P score in 3dmark11
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg