Advice on GW2 Gaming System

Budget:
~$2800 USD

Expectations:
Medium to Medium-High gaming system. Single Display 27" at 1920x1200. Maintain high FPS and provide a great play experience on high settings in MMO Games.

Usage:
This system will mostly be used for MMO Gaming. I'm still 50/50 on SandyBridge-E vs. Ivy Bridge. Not sure if the SandyBridge-E is overkill or if the Ivy Bridge will be up for the challenge.

I'm coming from a 2.4Ghz(OC 2.8Ghz) sock 775 Quad Xeon, 8GB DDR2, AMD 6870 1GB. This system is getting crushed by Guild Wars 2 on medium settings in 1920x1200, in the large (50vs50) WvW battles I'm seeing 10-15 fps. Normal questing play 5-10 players around is around 25-30 FPS. Busy public quest events with 20-30 players drops to 15-20 fps.

I want a system that will do ~35+ fps in epic scale (100+vs100+) WvW on high settings. Maybe I could compromise and turn settings to medium when I expect epic scale WvW for 30+ FPS. Then the rest of the time change settings to high.

Special Needs:
SSD Storage 120GB min. 240GB would be nice. I've never used more then 200GB on any of my gaming systems. I have external USB 3.0 Storage devices for images, video, etc.
MoBo and PSU with option to SLI 2 cards now or later.

Saved Ticket #: 721572

Specifications:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Corsair Carbide 500R (Black Finish)
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 3930K 3.2GHz (Unlocked CPU for Extreme Overclocking) (Six-Core)
Motherboard: ASUS P9X79 PRO (Intel X79 Chipset) (Features USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gb/s)
System Memory: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1050W Corsair Pro Silver 1050HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (240GB Solid State (By: Corsair) (Model: Force GT Series CSSD-F240GBGT-BK) (SATA 6Gbps)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB (Includes PhysX)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: H20: Stage 2: Digital Storm Vortex 240mm Radiator Liquid CPU Cooler (Extreme-Performance Edition)
H20 Tube Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: - No Thanks
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires Pro/Deluxe/Sabertooth Motherboard)
Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows 7 CD)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: - No Thanks
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 10-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty

Edited by DBAndrew - 24 Aug 2012 at 12:13pm

bprat22,

Thanks for the advice. That is an interesting option dropping the CPU down to the 3820 (3.6Ghz) to save 300$. That makes me wonder which is faster between the i7 3820(3.6GHz) vs. i7 3770K(3.5GHz). I could then put to a 2nd video card and SLI from the start.

I'm still not sure on the quad core vs the hex core. Guild Wars 2 is really new. ArenaNet has their own engine and from what I can tell it is better threaded and uses my 4 existing cores more evenly then any other game. Most games I play (Blizzard, D3,SC2,WoW) have 1 core at like 80% and the other 3 at 40-50% load. I've talked to some friends on AMD CPUs with 8 cores and they claim GW2 uses all 8 evenly. This is why I'm so conflicted on the Hex Core vs. Quad Core.

While I've been playing in the Beta and stress tests, they keep making changes to the performance of GW2. So it will be interesting to see tonight when the game goes live what the performance is like on CPUs with more then four cores.

One more quick thought.....   to save $$$$   consider the gtx670 instead of 680.    Its only a few fps slower and $150 cheaper.    In sli, you're saving some bucks.     But, the 680 is a great card so your call of course.   

Hey I just purchased a system a couple weeks ago for the same reason. I got a 3770k and a Nvidia 670 Ftw card, and it plays Gw2 flawlessly. Everything is nice and smooth. The SSD I got also helps immensely with loading times. So if you want to run maxed out a 3770k does exceptionally well, especially considering it will be overclocked to 4.5. For reference I normally play with adaptive vsync on so just 60 fps, out of curiosity I turned it off and was running at 120+fps. So whatever you decide to go with will eat the game up I'd imagine. If you have the money I'd go with SLI, but it would probably be overkill. You can get a single 670 overclock edition and be on par with a single stock 680 and it will save you a bit of cash.


This is the thread where they helped me figure out what I needed in my build. If you were curious about what parts I got.
http://www.digitalstormonline.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=18590

Edit:Gw2 head start is just hours away!


Edited by Grimme - 24 Aug 2012 at 2:45pm

I run at 1680x1050. I didn't have any problems with WWW in the last stress test. Unless you count that bug that would warp you all over the map when you used a leap ability. Everything ran very smoothly, but you will get some fps dip no matter what kind of computer you have just because the game has to draw 100 people at once. Now once you get into a area and see everything around you it runs super smooth. That initial dip when you first hit a area or a ball of people, after that its smooth as hell. Best example I can thing of is when you first load into a zone and you do a jump with a 360 spin. The fps dips the first time then after that no matter what you do it stays solid.

Just to be clear that dip is literally just going from 60fps with vsync on to 35-45 for a couple seconds and then back up to 60.

Edit: Screen is 22inch @ 1680x1050
Also My processor didn't get over 62 Celsius and my video card only hit 74.


Edited by Grimme - 24 Aug 2012 at 3:21pm

Also I believe your CPU is overkill for GW2. Its also overkill for gaming in general unless you want to max Rome total war 2 next year.

From what Ive found the gtx 680 is great but the gtx 670 almost matches it and yet is much cheaper.

Heres the framerates for GW2 for each graphic card from Arena Net themselves https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/bill-freist-talks-optimization-and-performance/

As you can see the Gtx 670 almost matches the 680. Heres more games to compare.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-670-review,3200-15.html


Another thing you might of noticed is that AMD cards seem to be slightly better for GW2 (tho I dont know if I would trust those numbers). So if your going to play mostly Gw2 you could go with a AMD card. However, in most other games the Gtx 670 and 680 will outperform the equivalent AMD cards.

As long as it optimizes the sli you cant go wrong with the ode level 4 :). However if you have that much to spend you could go gtx 690 for a single card but im sure that would be overkill. I imagine the frames for GW2 will drop for anyone with a giant army. Some will maintain better than others tho. Ive read online somewhere that a person with a gtx 690 had 60 plus framerates even with huge numbers of players on the field. No idea if he is telling the truth tho.

PS playing guild wars 2 tonight :) another hour hopefully!

Edited by marccody - 24 Aug 2012 at 8:05pm

agreed. And on this site dual sli 670s are much cheaper (if you were to build yourself 690 would be closer). And now that I think about it the gtx 690 is better for higher resolutions so I would def go for the ode level 4. My ode has been great so far. Looks great too :). Case is huuuuugeee so make sure you have room!

Congrats on a real nice rig.        No free t-shirt?

Congrats on your new rig.   The free T-Shirt is a must.  It makes the build.

Hi Pirate Penquin....  That is a real nice rig DBAndrew put together. 

Originally posted by marccody HIgh DBAndrew I recently just played in the GW2 stress test (yesterday) in WWW with a ode level 1 (i5 3570 overclocked to 4.2, single gtx 670). The game ran at maximum settings and stayed at above 60 frames except for when there were lots of players on the field (30+ dropped to 40 frames, 50 more dropped to around 37. it averaged around 27 for when there was 100+ people on the field). However, I was told before the game that I needed to update my drivers because my current driver has known issues so I might actually get even better frame rates. Hope that helps :). O and my resolution was 1080P. The only thing I didnt have on ultra was the shadows (medium) and the sampling was at native (not the super sampling). During pve with even the shadows maxed I experenced 70+ framerates up to around 110.

This made my day, I've been researching rigs for the past week soley for the purpose to run GW2, and SWTOR. Thanks for posting this as I was leaning towards the ODE lvl 1 but was wanting to make sure it'd run the games fine.

DB. Are you playing with everything max? (including supersampling). With everything max I get solid frames but not as good as yours. In lions arch when im moving around I get like 50. For big battles I get the same as you tho.

Originally posted by marccody DB. Are you playing with everything max? (including supersampling). With everything max I get solid frames but not as good as yours. In lions arch when im moving around I get like 50. For big battles I get the same as you tho.

Negative. It is on "Native". If I change that option to SuperSampling it drops by 10-15 fps.

Sorry I've also been playing with Reflections on "Terrain & Sky". I don't like being blinded by overly shiny armor. I think it looks cheesy. Other then those 2 settings everything else is on HIGH.