Good PC config for Guild Wars 2

I'd been playing GW2 on my laptop, but it stressed the power so much the battery started swelling. I'd like to get a desktop system for gaming (or maybe a laptop specifically designed to handle MMO stresses), but I don't want to buy better gear than is needed for MMOs. I've been searching online but the options are just completely overwhelming. Anybody got any tips, links to good guides, etc? Most of the guides I've seen assuming you want to buy the cheapest possible, or the most-advanced possible, and don't really talk about specific gaming genres.

Don't use a laptop. Even a really good one will be slow when there's lots of people on the screen

The big issue isn't that you want to play Gw2 its what is it that you want the PC to do for you overall. Is GW the only game you play? What else do you need this PC to do for you? Streaming art? Word processing? What's the size of the area you can devote to the PC. A medium area? A small? Do you prefer to overclock the GFX or core processer or is bog standard fine. Do you use two monitors or desire to use two monitors or one? Are you fine with liquid cooling or is air cooling enough for you?

https://pcpartpicker.com/ this link is a pretty good way to build YOUR pc and all the bits you need while keeping track of the money your spending and the parts you need. Just remember to look for everything down to the operating system and to actually start from the case outward. I say start with case since A. that's what your truly going to be looking at the most and B. that helps the parts list determine what parts can FIT in the case so you don't have to leave it open.

Last parts of advice. I find that when choosing power supplies to actually look for one that 100-200 watts higher than the listed amount that the pc will need so that if the processors need more power you don't bog down. If the parts picking tool says you use a total of 300 watts you want a 500 watt supply. Intel is the way to go for a gaming pc, BUT you don't need the I7 or I9 chipset unless you have a insane amount of things going on in the background like downloading + streaming, while watching a movie and playing GW2. I5 chips will work just fine. Lastly you may want to have double drives, more specifically a ssd and a regular HD. I have a 250 gig SSD for my OS system, and what that means is my startups are 10 to 15 seconds and is pretty much overkill. Its so nice to not wait while the drive spins up and wait the minute to 3 when the pc gets older. Now the current windows size is about 60 to 90 gigs and I could have gotten a smaller cheaper ssd but I did plan so that any updates that happen over the next 5 years wont create a situation where it has no room to go. As it stands Im using about a quarter of the drive atm.

The reasoning for double drive is that as stated the ssd is fast but you can get a regular drive for all the rest of your programs and have 2 terabytes of storage for about $50. Depending on what kind of SSD you pick you might pay $150 total for drives but I have to tell you its worth the fast loading times plus enough space for multiple games.

@"Corax.7692" said:I'd been playing GW2 on my laptop, but it stressed the power so much the battery started swelling. I'd like to get a desktop system for gaming (or maybe a laptop specifically designed to handle MMO stresses), but I don't want to buy better gear than is needed for MMOs. I've been searching online but the options are just completely overwhelming. Anybody got any tips, links to good guides, etc? Most of the guides I've seen assuming you want to buy the cheapest possible, or the most-advanced possible, and don't really talk about specific gaming genres.Um, that just sounds like an old/broken battery. The laptop cant draw more power from the battery than its rated for regardless of how "stressed" it is. If its a removable battery, you can probably play with just the power cable in.

Either way, GW2 will be fine on a midrange PC.

If it's just for GW2 I'd say 5.1-5.3GHz overclocked i5-9600K or i7-9700k is the best bet until Ryzen 3rd gen on 7nm process. GW2 is quite CPU bound but held up by a main thread.

If it's just for GW2 and gaming then a cheaper cooler such as Coolermaster hyper 212 series could suffice but anything more a dual tower or liquid cooler should be considered.

16GB+ of DDR4 3200 memory is rather standard nowadays as that is the inflection point on pricing. The latency you pick doesn't matter as much on Intel CPUs unless you are overclocking it (CAS latency 14 is usually Samsung B-die). The two common choices are typically Gskill Ripjaws V and Corsair Vengeance LPX.

For GPU you don't need anything overkill over a GTX970/GTX 1060/RX570 unless you are running >120Hz or 1440p/4K. Generally EVGA "FTW"/"XC Ultra" and Sapphire Nitro (AMD) are the go to brands.

A SSD is essential but a ~500MB/s Samsung 860 Pro/Evo or Crucial MX500 perform similarly and you won't see huge gains from NvMe. An older 850 Pro is also a good choice as it has 10 year warranty and speeds more or less the same due to MLC NAND. If you decide to buy NvMe with TLC NAND try to stay with 500GB+ drives as the smaller 250GB Samsung 960/970 Evo dips below SATA SSD speeds (300MB/s) once you exhaust the SLC cache.

For power supply , that is typically 550W-650W unless you have a high power consumption GPU such as VEGA64 , RTX 2080 Ti, GTX 1080 Ti or RTX TITAN. Seasonic power supplies are usually a good choice. Their Focus plus series is generally good value and consistently top performing.

If it's just for GW2 I'd probably budget $900 unless it's only a CPU+RAM+motherboard change.

Thanks for the advice everybody! This new computer would be pretty much just for GW2 and other MMOs play, so I'll take your tips relative to that.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@"Corax.7692" said:I'd been playing GW2 on my laptop, but it stressed the power so much the battery started swelling. I'd like to get a desktop system for gaming (or maybe a laptop specifically designed to handle MMO stresses), but I don't want to buy better gear than is needed for MMOs. I've been searching online but the options are just completely overwhelming. Anybody got any tips, links to good guides, etc? Most of the guides I've seen assuming you want to buy the cheapest possible, or the most-advanced possible, and don't really talk about specific gaming genres.Um, that just sounds like an old/broken battery. The laptop cant draw more power from the battery than its rated for regardless of how "stressed" it is. If its a removable battery, you can probably play with just the power cable in.

It's a MacBook Pro, and I've been playing with the power cable in, so I'm pretty sure the battery is defective. Now you also know why I am overwhelmed by PC shopping. :-)

@Corax.7692 said:

@Dawdler.8521 said:

@Corax.7692 said:I'd been playing GW2 on my laptop, but it stressed the power so much the battery started swelling. I'd like to get a desktop system for gaming (or maybe a laptop specifically designed to handle MMO stresses), but I don't want to buy better gear than is needed for MMOs. I've been searching online but the options are just completely overwhelming. Anybody got any tips, links to good guides, etc? Most of the guides I've seen assuming you want to buy the cheapest possible, or the most-advanced possible, and don't really talk about specific gaming genres.Um, that just sounds like an old/broken battery. The laptop cant draw more power from the battery than its rated for regardless of how "stressed" it is. If its a removable battery, you can probably play with just the power cable in.

@Corax.7692 said:Thanks for the advice everybody! This new computer would be pretty much just for GW2 and other MMOs play, so I'll take your tips relative to that.

I had the same problem, i used until recently gaming laptops.I upgraded to 9700k ( 2070 although the graphics card is irrelevant, with an 1060 you should be fine) OC to 5.2ghz and i think is good enough.in WvW zergs i can leave the LoD check off and have the settings in high (detail and limit of characters). i can hit the upper 2x Fps in worst case. Genrrally around 40-60 with the zerg.

Ofc i would love the game to run smoother with that setting but is much better now than when using a laptop.

If you dont mind second hand parts, you can cut down the costs

and you dont need the latest and greatest for playing GW2

Steam's hardware survey gives you a pretty good picture of what your average gaming PC should look likehttps://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

• CPU: 6700K, most games dont use more than 4 cores

• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S, best aircooler on the market, comparable to high-end AIO watercooler, you dont need to worry about leaks, and probably can use on future CPUs assuming Noctua will release new brackets

• Motherboard: any Intel LGA 1151 compatible motherboard, ASRock tends to be cheaper compared to ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI

• RAM: 8GB is enough, really depends on what you have running at the same timethe price had come down a bit https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/; get Corsair ;)

• GPU: GTX 980 or 1060 or 1070, be careful and check the seller isnt selling multiple, could mean they may have came from a mining rig, which would have ran at 100% for the past few years.

• Storage: Samsung EVO 500GB, this depends on how many games you install, I would recommend getting a WD Red as a storage drive to keep less often played games on; Get this (these) brand newkinda regretting paying the extra premium for my PRO as there's little performance difference, just the PRO may last longer, but by that time the price of SSD may have fallen more https://www.datenreise.de/en/ssd-comparison-differences-between-samsung-pro-and-evo-series/

• Power Supply: 550W is enough, but you can get higher ones if you want to future proof a bit in case you need the PSU to pull more watts from the wall to Overclock, add in additional GPU for SLi, etc; Get this brand new, and make sure it's at least rated GOLD or abovegood brands include Corsair, Coolermaster, Thermaltake

@Jura.2170 said:Don't use a laptop. Even a really good one will be slow when there's lots of people on the screen

You can control how many pop on your screen at a time, but its very odd to play it like that and will certainly take you out of the immersion.

If you still want some portability with your PC, you can go small form such as with a mini ITX. That’s what I did with my most recent one. The size of the case I used is 8.74” W x 7.13”H x 11.22” D.

@"crepuscular.9047" said:If you dont mind second hand parts, you can cut down the costs

and you dont need the latest and greatest for playing GW2

Steam's hardware survey gives you a pretty good picture of what your average gaming PC should look likehttps://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam

• CPU: 6700K, most games dont use more than 4 cores

• CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S, best aircooler on the market, comparable to high-end AIO watercooler, you dont need to worry about leaks, and probably can use on future CPUs assuming Noctua will release new brackets

• Motherboard: any Intel LGA 1151 compatible motherboard, ASRock tends to be cheaper compared to ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI

• RAM: 8GB is enough, really depends on what you have running at the same timethe price had come down a bit https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/; get Corsair ;)

• GPU: GTX 980 or 1060 or 1070, be careful and check the seller isnt selling multiple, could mean they may have came from a mining rig, which would have ran at 100% for the past few years.

• Storage: Samsung EVO 500GB, this depends on how many games you install, I would recommend getting a WD Red as a storage drive to keep less often played games on; Get this (these) brand newkinda regretting paying the extra premium for my PRO as there's little performance difference, just the PRO may last longer, but by that time the price of SSD may have fallen more https://www.datenreise.de/en/ssd-comparison-differences-between-samsung-pro-and-evo-series/

• Power Supply: 550W is enough, but you can get higher ones if you want to future proof a bit in case you need the PSU to pull more watts from the wall to Overclock, add in additional GPU for SLi, etc; Get this brand new, and make sure it's at least rated GOLD or abovegood brands include Corsair, Coolermaster, Thermaltake

I missed this reply but I disagree with buying Thermaltake PSUs. Their company is under pending litigation yet again for infringement (watercooling coolant this time) and except for a few PSUs that break the trend, they're mostly cheaper quality with gimmicks like RGB. Coolermaster has had some mediocre PSUs that are built by cheaper OEMs, but Seasonic is consistent and most of Corsair's current lineup such as RMx or AXi are built by CWT or Flextronics.

Also using a NH-D15S is overkill unless you have a hexcore , it's a bandaid for the i7-6700K's thermal interface material that lead people to delid their CPUs. Most people are better off with a less expensive single towered NH-U14S , it's good enough for LGA2066 i9s and TR4 16 cores so it's good enough for an i7 quadcore.

If you buy a i7-6700k there will be no upgrade path other than i7-7700k as Z170 and Z270 don't work with i7-8700k and i7-9700k unless you physically modify the motherboard. An i5-8600k / i5-9600k performs on par with i7-7700k , especially when overclocked, and provides an upgrade path. An i5 hexcore without hyperthreading is less susceptible to the security vulnerabilities as well.

Asrock has some good boards but also some terrible ones, so do Asus , Gigabyte and MSI. Buying motherboard solely based off brand is unwise.

Buying a GTX 1060 probably isn't a great choice when the GTX 1660 Ti is rumored.

@Infusion.7149 said:I missed this reply but I disagree with buying Thermaltake PSUs. Their company is under pending litigation yet again for infringement (watercooling coolant this time) and except for a few PSUs that break the trend, they're mostly cheaper quality with gimmicks like RGB. Coolermaster has had some mediocre PSUs that are built by cheaper OEMs, but Seasonic is consistent and most of Corsair's current lineup such as RMx or AXi are built by CWT or Flextronics.Never used seasonic, all my recommendations came from my own experiencesmy Thermaltake Toughpower XT 875W from 2011 still running fine 24/7 on my file serverI'm running a corsair RX 650 on my backup gaming PC built back in 2014, and my current PC is running a HX 1000i

Also using a NH-D15S is overkill unless you have a hexcore , it's a bandaid for the i7-6700K's thermal interface material that lead people to delid their CPUs. Most people are better off with a less expensive single towered NH-U14S , it's good enough for LGA2066 i9s and TR4 16 cores so it's good enough for an i7 quadcore.NH-D15S is cheaper than NH-U14S, at least in my country; even semi hardcore PC builders dont delid their CPUs, for 1 it voids the warranty, and 2 you may break it during the process

If you buy a i7-6700k there will be no upgrade path other than i7-7700k as Z170 and Z270 don't work with i7-8700k and i7-9700k unless you physically modify the motherboard. An i5-8600k / i5-9600k performs on par with i7-7700k , especially when overclocked, and provides an upgrade path. An i5 hexcore without hyperthreading is less susceptible to the security vulnerabilities as well.OP asked for cheapest possible and most advanced as possible for GW2Intel's release history has been about every 3-4 years you need a brand new motherboard to cater for the new CPU, all Intel do every year between that time is tuning the existing architecture and slap on a new SKU with measly performance improvementwhen a new architecture is released then you are forced into a new motherboardfair enough with i5-8600k / i5-9600k, but you should also take the price of other components into account

Asrock has some good boards but also some terrible ones, so do Asus , Gigabyte and MSI. Buying motherboard solely based off brand is unwise.OP ask for cheaper option, enough said

Buying a GTX 1060 probably isn't a great choice when the GTX 1660 Ti is rumored.more price drop on the seconds market

no one can afford the latest and greatest due to their financial circumstances, or build a PC to play everything on max settingsi mean, would you build a $10,000 PC for an elderly man if all he's gonna do is read the news on the internet, watch some youtube videos, and play chess?

at times, people cannot afford it, or not worth the extra money base on the games they play