Guild wars 2 and my Rig

[Solidmustard]

Hello I have a question im pretty desperate to get a solid answer for, I've been playing the guild wars 2 beta's and enjoying them thoroughly regardless of my sloppy-ish rig. I'm not that demanding with super amazing graphics, i just want to keep a steady 40+ frames per sec in large scale events at about medium settings (willing to reduce shadow effects to lowest possible standing) that involve particle effects flaying left and right. So I feel i only need to upgrade and not necessarily buy an entire new machine. ill link my specs below and you throw in your opinion, including what i could change for a fair price (preferably storebought)

Motherboard: EG41MF -US2H
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo CPU E8500 @ 3.16GHz (2 CPUs), ~2.8GHz
RAM: 4GB
Direct X 11
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 9500 GT (Slight over clocking 700 MHz core clocking)

Any replies will be GREATLY appreciated. I'm not a hardware proffessional, just someone that will do more than most others to have a steady run with Gw2 and SOLELY Gw2. rest of my gaming will mainly be on a kidsole.

Thanks

 

[LokalHero]

That GFX card is renowned crap. I'd seriously consider upgrading it.

 

[Solidmustard]

Yeah you're telling me, i bought the rig for 300 and that was originally what had me hesitant, can you suggest a card that would compliment the dual duo core?

 

[Tibbs01]

What power supply do you have? Most likely a 7750 would be a great choice for ~$100.00.

 

[AntiZig]

Hello, first of all I'd like to mention that GW2 hasn't been optimized for hardware performance yet, so on release date you might see better performance with your current hardware that might satisfy you.

On the other hand if you're set on upgrading, then we need to know what your PSU make and model is and your ram frequency.

Your CPU should be ok it's at the level of first gen i3 CPUs or PII x4, but GW2 being an MMO high CPU dependancy is expected. So, if you determine that it's your CPU that is weighing you down you might have to upgrade your mobo+ram+cpu.

As for GPU, that card is pretty weak (6450 equivalent or so today), I would say bump it up to at least a GTS 450, but all that said you need to double check if your PSU will handle it. On the off hand that you need to get a bigger PSU might as well look into getting a bigger GPU as well then and look into upgrading your CPU side later when you save up more money.

PS> on another note, your estimated CPU ~2.8ghz when it's rated for 3.1? did you downclock it? or is it clocking down because of heat due to dust build up in the heatsink?

 

[Solidmustard]

@ Tibbs, i currently run a 335W power supply, im aware it desperately needs an upgrade so im looking into about 750-850 but if you can suggest anything else that'd be great

@AntiZig, Firstly, cheers for the very informative reply very appreciative , secondly, i'll get to the heatsink first because that sparked my attention the most. I bought my current rig off of a friend that owns a web cafe, i'll ask him if he downclocked it at some point. But before i go doing that, I'll check the heatsink also.

With the CPU would you personally suggest and I3 or Piix4? i can raise my budget for it to 200 if it's going to be a high CPU dependant game.

GPU wise im aware of it's weakness, when i upgrade my PSU to 750+ watt would you recommend a GTX460 or 550ti?

thanks

Edit:
P.s; What is a mobo?

 

[Solidmustard]

Update:

I just overclocked my crappy card to 700 MHz, And my CPU to 2.90, strangely however it wont go higher than that without failing to boot, any known reason for this?

 

[AntiZig]

whoa, 750+ watt PSU? unless you're planning to run crossfire/SLI there's no point to get such monster. 460 would need a 450W PSU ( could go with 500W for efficiency and headroom), 550ti required is 400W (could go with 450W for efficiency and headroom). 750W you'd be running at 50% or less load, at that point PSUs start to curve into diminishing efficiency. If you are planning to upgrade to SLI at some point, then 750 should be fine.

mobo = motherboard (the big PCB that you put everything onto)

460 vs 550ti, personally I would say get the fattest card your budget allows you to, in this case 460 would be better. But for $50 less 550 is not that bad either. That said, going from your aspirations for big PSU and maybe the fact that you're considering to SLI the cards, get the 460. 550ti doesn't perform well in SLI, we have first hand experiences from users on these boards attesting to that.

i3 vs PIIx4, well the most important question would be whether GW2 can use more than 2 cores for threading on the CPU. If it can, then PII would be better since it's a quad core. If it cannot, and only uses 2 cores at most, then i3 would be more efficient. As of right now, we don't know, so look at these parameters:

you will need to get a new motherboard for both CPUs and probably new RAM as well, which would fit better into your budget? generally PIIs are cheaper than i3.

second thing to consider, how long do you plan the upgrade to last you? if you plan to save up money and upgrade within one-two years on the same motherboard, going with i3, so you can later upgrade to an i5 or i7 (because they are on compatible socket) is a good choice. If you get a PII, as of right now it's a dead end as you won't be able to upgrade to anything significantly better on the same socket/motherboard. (this might change in the future)

 

[Solidmustard]

Wasn't planning to get SLI, only wanted a high power supply because a majority of people would shortly answer "Get lots" so i randomly selected what i thought would be mid range, so 450w and a 550ti (assuming you mean it performs better without SLI) should be more than viable.

Is it necessary to change my 'mobo'? I've done my research and from what i think i can gather (Sad sounding sentence though true) is that it does have a PCIEx16 slot and that can slip in a 550ti.

Ill trust your judgement with the PIIx4, and from what i partially understand it seems with Gw2 that the more cores the better (Not just beta it appears it could possibly be more driven via the cpu after release).

I plan for the system to last me for as long as i take interest in Gw2, and that will be a long time, i might upgrade once every 2 years considering graphics gradually go up with expansions and patches, might save for an i7 depending on my performance with Gw2 on release, otherwise ill get the i3*.

Edit:
Forgot to ask, know of any 450w psu's that'l do the job? I'd check myself but i don't know what to search up, don't know enough to well... know.

And with RAM.. Does it come with the new CPU? If not what software/hardware is used to get more?

Apologies with the questions, im still new to all the hardware business

 

[AntiZig]

The PSU, you're looking for Antec, Corsair, XFX or Seasonic unit in 450-500 W range (reason is sometimes you can find 500W that's cheaper than 450W) Aprrox. 50-70 USD.

reason I'm leaving this up to you to look for is you might find a good deal at some local store.

and also, you need to check whether you need a top or bottom mounted PSU (you don't want to mix the two up)