Upgrading processor for gw2(and other mmo's), help:)

[Lady Jane]

As the topic states, both my boyfriend and myself are in the process of upgrading our cpu's to play gw2 with good frame-rates. Currently we are both running the following:

i3-530 @ 3.0ghz dual core
asus gtx 560 direct cu
4gb ram
1600x900 resolution.

We have played the beta, pvp went smooth, in battlegrounds anyways, but the general pve however was less inviting. We realize the optimization of the game at the moment isn't as near as it should be yet we are still looking into a quad-core cpu which in price is affordable and would yield good results.

I myself was wondering how the following would perform:

Amd phenom II x4 965BE @ 3.4 ghz

Amd FX 4170 @ 4.2 ghz

Intel i5 2320 @ 3.0 ghz

The reason we are less inclined on intel processors (since almost anyone would suggest an i52500k) is due to the price. As far as I have seen I could almost get 2xamd cpu's for just one i5. and we are tight on money as it is Thus i would be very thankful for any input on what sort of a solution would be the best in a price-performance range.

Thank you all in advance(also pardon for my English spelling)

[Deleted]

Remember that beta isn't optimized. There even was an article on the gw2 page which explained how the GPU was heavily underused in the beta. Don't think the fps on beta will be the fps on final.

OT: If you think of upgrading your CPU, take intel. A i5 2500 is only some bucks more than a amd phenom 2, but has almost double the benchmarks. Til they fix their bulldozers for singlecore uses you should stick with intel for the moment.

The gpu/cpu hybrid amd's are a viable budget choice, but since you already got a gtx 560, just buy an i5 2500 and you'll be very fine for the next 3 years at least - spend some more for an good i7 and you'll be fine for the next 7 years.

[Lady Jane]

Remember that beta isn't optimized. There even was an article on the gw2 page which explained how the GPU was heavily underused in the beta. Don't think the fps on beta will be the fps on final.

OT: If you think of upgrading your CPU, take intel. A i5 2500 is only some bucks more than a amd phenom 2, but has almost double the benchmarks. Til they fix their bulldozers for singlecore uses you should stick with intel for the moment.

The gpu/cpu hybrid amd's are a viable budget choice, but since you already got a gtx 560, just buy an i5 2500 and you'll be very fine for the next 3 years at least - spend some more for an good i7 and you'll be fine for the next 7 years.

I thank you for your answer, but that's just what I've been saying, an i5 is not really just 20bucks over a quad phenom...here where i am(Holland) it's actualy about 85 euros more expensive, and that's quite a lot of money for my pocket...If it comes down to other processors performing just horrible in comparison then we may yet decide to wait even more and meh...save up more...but more sensible solutions are as well welcomed

[Phishy714]

In all honesty, people with i7-2700k's clocked to 5ghz and a GTX 680 had crappy frames - myself included though I only have an i5-2500k (but I do have a 680).

So, I would seriously just wait for release to come to make a decision.

One more thing to remember - and perhaps most important because money is a key factor for you - is that with ANY of the 4 core CPU's that you are looking to upgrade to, you will be REQUIRED to buy a new motherboard with it to match the new CPU. This is AT LEAST an extra $80-$100 on top of the cost of the CPU (not to mention compatible RAM depending on the type of RAM you guys have.)

By far, the cheapest option for you to upgrade would be buying this particular CPU: http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-650-P...5973879&sr=1-3. This one will work in the motherboard you both currently have and it is a 4-core cpu.

The reason I say to wait, however, is that you may honestly not get $200 worth of a performance increase with the new CPU upon release. It is a modern game, but that does NOT mean that it will utilize more than 2 cores upon release anyways, so you may very well be wasting your money for all you know. Seriously, its a bit silly to judge a game's performance through a BETA. Hell, the poor performance could be because of many reasons:

1. Game is not optimized for ANYTHING yet.
2. This was as much of a stress test on servers as the earlier announced official stress test. All the lag could be due to the fact that the servers were not ready/capable of handling the load yet. All the computer horsepower in the world isn't going to alleviate lag from this source.
3. Your internet connection was/is crappy during that time and thus introduced lag.
4. Did I mention the game is not optimized for ANYTHING yet?

Considering the minimum specs required for the game, upon release, I think you and your BF are going to be JUST fine playing at 1600x900 resolution.

Keep what you have, if you find that its not good enough when the game is released, decide on your course of action then, using benchmarks from various sites on what is the best thing to upgrade.

[rhandric]

I've heard the FX 4xxx series is good for the price, which http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...4170+Quad-Core seems to confirm, however it has half the performance of the 2600k (though at 1/3 the price). It's a good price, and seems to be a decent performance, and for a budget gaming computer it would probably be a good choice.

[Lady Jane]

In all honesty, people with i7-2700k's clocked to 5ghz and a GTX 680 had crappy frames - myself included though I only have an i5-2500k (but I do have a 680).

So, I would seriously just wait for release to come to make a decision.

One more thing to remember - and perhaps most important because money is a key factor for you - is that with ANY of the 4 core CPU's that you are looking to upgrade to, you will be REQUIRED to buy a new motherboard with it to match the new CPU. This is AT LEAST an extra $80-$100 on top of the cost of the CPU (not to mention compatible RAM depending on the type of RAM you guys have.)

By far, the cheapest option for you to upgrade would be buying this particular CPU: http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i5-650-P...5973879&sr=1-3. This one will work in the motherboard you both currently have and it is a 4-core cpu.

The reason I say to wait, however, is that you may honestly not get $200 worth of a performance increase with the new CPU upon release. It is a modern game, but that does NOT mean that it will utilize more than 2 cores upon release anyways, so you may very well be wasting your money for all you know. Seriously, its a bit silly to judge a game's performance through a BETA. Hell, the poor performance could be because of many reasons:

1. Game is not optimized for ANYTHING yet.
2. This was as much of a stress test on servers as the earlier announced official stress test. All the lag could be due to the fact that the servers were not ready/capable of handling the load yet. All the computer horsepower in the world isn't going to alleviate lag from this source.
3. Your internet connection was/is crappy during that time and thus introduced lag.
4. Did I mention the game is not optimized for ANYTHING yet?

Considering the minimum specs required for the game, upon release, I think you and your BF are going to be JUST fine playing at 1600x900 resolution.

Keep what you have, if you find that its not good enough when the game is released, decide on your course of action then, using benchmarks from various sites on what is the best thing to upgrade.

Thank you for your reply, was very helpful. Indeed it seems we should wait a bit for gw2 to clarify the requirements, and wether it will support more then 2 cores to begin with. I know our motherboards need upgrading too, and I am keeping this in mind yet a budget one would cost me around 40 euros, since ram sticks we have. I shall try to keep up-to-date with affordable prices in the meanwhile. thank you again both

[Deleted]

it's actualy about 85 euros more expensive

Dunno where you buy your stuff, on every amazon i found (UK, german, austrian, US) the i5 is only 30€ more. Same on other sites like newegg and alternate. Maybe you should search on another sites? Even on ebay.nl its only 40 bucks more (120 -> 160), and the i5 has as mentioned double the benchmarks. Not to mention that the phenom boards are outdated, you won't be able to upgrade much further if you buy a phenom II motherboard.

[Deleted]

which http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?...4170+Quad-Core seems to confirm

That site's benchmark are very much incorrect, and has pretty much always been

[rhandric]

That site's benchmark are very much incorrect, and has pretty much always been

Good to know; I was doing a hasty search and didn't realize that

[Phishy714]

Thank you for your reply, was very helpful. Indeed it seems we should wait a bit for gw2 to clarify the requirements, and wether it will support more then 2 cores to begin with. I know our motherboards need upgrading too, and I am keeping this in mind yet a budget one would cost me around 40 euros, since ram sticks we have. I shall try to keep up-to-date with affordable prices in the meanwhile. thank you again both

You mentioned something a bit conflicting that I wanted to clarify.

You just said that you needed to upgrade your motherboards, and that you can get budget motherboard for cheap. One RARELY "upgrades" to a budget motherboard lol, so just keep that in mind. The motherboard itself doesn't translate into in game performance at all either - all it will do is allow you to overclock a little better (something it seems that you aren't really invested in) and also provide for more bells and whistles. In all honesty, that processor you have is pretty decent still when it comes to gaming. I really, really doubt you would notice any performance increase switching over to a Phenom X4 or FX 4170 UNLESS the game is heavily threaded and is programmed to run on as many cores as possible. Considering that the minimum requirements for the game is a very old 1-core cpu, I doubt that the game would use more than 2 cores overall.

Even if the game is designed to take advantage of as many cores as possible, I still don't think you would get your money's worth on a Phenom or FX cpu. I doubt you would notice a big difference because while those AMD CPU's do have more cores, the intel chip you currently have is a good deal more powerful overall. The only thing I think that would yield a very noticeable increase in performance would be something like the i5-2500 (k), but I know that would be way over your budget to get that and a new motherboard.

If you upgrade your CPU, I would seriously go with the i5 that I mentioned. I am not sure what the price would be in Euros - but that chip is 180 usd. The Phenom chip is 120 usd and a cheap motherboard for it is about $50. So then you are looking at spending $170 for a very, very insignificant upgrade, while the i5, for $10 more, would yield a much bigger upgrade.

Anyways, that's just what I would do. Good luck to ya, and above all else, wait for the game to come out and read up on performance reviews before you make your decision.

[hapylol]

I am with Phishy on this one. I don't think you will notice a big enough improvement unless you were to drop ~250 for an i5-2500k and mobo.

[Ieatsouls]

I would wait. As stated the beta was using the CPU more then anything. The beta would also run in only low priority even after setting to high. You computers will run the game fine when it comes out. Also beta was DX9 an not DX11 so that will also help out.