Guild Wars 2 processor upgrade

[bmadd89]

Guild Wars 2 has been my go to game since it launched and I'm looking at upgrading my processor. Currently in full maps my system crawls to mid to high 20’s and when doing world bosses I’m getting high 10’s. This is bugging me more then I’d care to admit and I’m thinking of trying to remedy it. Adding to this, one of the dimm slots on my mobo has stopped working so I will need to warranty it and I’ll be without a machine for roughly 4-6 weeks (general warranty time for a mobo in Australia).

Currently my system
· I7-4930k @ 4.2Ghz
· Asus Rampage IV Formula
· 16GB 1866Mhz @ 9’s
· 256GB Crucial M4, 2TB WD Black
· Seasonic 860W Platinum
· AMD R9-290 Stock clocks but can do 1120/1450
· 2x Dell 27” 2560x1440 monitors
· Closed loop water on CPU and GPU

Since I mainly play GW2 and it is inherently a CPU heavy game (uses 50-60% of my 6 cores) I’m thinking of just upgrading while the mobo is on warranty and selling the mobo on eBay along with the CPU when it returns from warranty.

The reason I went with the i7-4930k was at the time I had a use for the extra cores that it provided, however this is no longer the case. Currently I have it clocked at 4.2Ghz and have HT and turbo disabled. At these settings I’m able to keep in under 60c under 100% Prime95 load. This is the temp I like to keep the processors at. This is also what has limited my push to a higher clock. While not gaming I have change the windows power plans so it clocks down to 1200MHz.

This is my thinking. I’d get a 4770k and try to clock it to 4.5/4.7Ghz range. Given there has been some “issues” with TIM and Ivy/Haswell it will push my temps up but people have been able to get to 4.5 on air so it should be attainable with my closed loop. That would give me a 7-12% clock speed increase, as well as the 5-10% IPC increase. Some of the unknowns however are how moving from Quad to dual channel memory would affect the game and how the latency of the different memory controllers would go.

My concern is that moving forward I’ll be getting a second r9-290 and the PCI-e config on z87 vs x79 is of concern. What kind of a hit can I expect in games that will use both r9-290 when going from 2x16 to 2x8?

Money isn’t a super concern as I will get most/all of it back from selling the x79 gear. What little I have to spend is done happily. The reason I'm asking here instead of just doing it is it will be a lot of work and there are a few things I'm not 100% on.

If you have any other ideas I’d like to hear them or if you have a similar setup for comparison.

 

[nwo]

I don't really think there is much of an upgrade from a 4930k... Wouldn't a 4770k be a step down?

If you are getting 10 fps in GW2 with your config, I think there is something wrong with your system.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html

 

[ratjacket]

4.5-4.7 is a bit optimistic maybe if your very lucky. The last thing you will want is for it to crash at that important moment.

more likely 4.2-4.4 stable.

There is more heat but stress tests and bench marks heat it up a great deal more than gaming

The IHS is the problem and if you get a particularly bad one with poor contact the cooling system just cant pull the heat away fast enough

But if your game, delid and reapply TIM this will fix the issue

I can get 4.4 prime stable on my 4770K i could get 4.5 stable but it would require alot more volatge (exponetaily more), if i delidded i would consider trying but for the increase in voltage required its not worth it.

If i belived the lower level stress tests (aida64 and Intel extreme tunning utility) yea i could get 4.5-4.6 easily but i know its not truly stable and system crash or corruption could rare its head later on down the track when im running something more demanding than i currently do

 

[Enigmoid]

I play Gw2.

The only thing you can do is lower your settings.

On a 3630qm @3.2 ghz in full zergs I go down to ~15 fps with everything set to low except resolution. That is enough to hold back a 660m at 1080p.

Chasing after ~10% fps is not worth it. Personally just push your overclock higher. 60 degrees is fine.

 

[Headfoot]

Yeah agreed, push the overclock. That will get you to the same place. Besides, seems wasteful to change an entire, already very high end system, for one poorly optimized game

 

[ethebubbeth]

Guild Wars 2 doesn't really use more than 4 threads, so a faster quad core would theoretically yield better performance than a slower hexacore. However, I don't think it would be a noticeable difference in performance in a big WvW zerg.

Stick with what you have and turn down your settings in WvW. Alternately, start using LN2 to boost your overclocks .

 

[BallaTheFeared]

What kind of a hit can I expect in games that will use both r9-290 when going from 2x16 to 2x8?

Basically none, and AMD tested PCIe 2.0 x8 and found no performance loss with the new Crossfire interconnect going through the PCIe lanes.


I have a i5-4670k that does 4.8GHz all day on air, I would be willing to trade with you!

What I mean is, keep what you have unless you can make money doing the swap it isn't worth it unless you get insanely lucky like I did and get a chip that clocks high, does it at low voltage, and has no IHS issue so it does it all on modest air cooling.

I'd try entering your bios and disabling 2 of the 6 cores, probably 012345, then forget the silly 60C requirement and go up to 85C+ for stress testing.

 

[NTMBK]

Don't bother going to a 4770k. Haswell-E is coming later this year, and that will be the true upgrade for your system.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Don't bother going to a 4770k. Haswell-E is coming later this year, and that will be the true upgrade for your system.

Will it be though for a poorly threaded game like this? The 8 core are 1000.00 should be a killer for a game that loves cores. But for this game, maybe not unless the quad or hex cores overclock like crazy.

 

[NTMBK]

Will it be though for a poorly threaded game like this? The 8 core are 1000.00 should be a killer for a game that loves cores. But for this game, maybe not unless the quad or hex cores overclock like crazy.

The hex cores should deliver at least 4770k single-threaded performance, without the significant regression in multithreaded performance. It will also not have the same regression in PCIe performance.

The 4770k is an improvement in only one aspect (single threaded perf). Haswell E will be a clear improvement in all aspects. Hence, I recommend waiting for HW-E.

 

[TeknoBug]

You want to upgrade from THAT? I play GW2 on an i5 3550 and I don't have any issues with it.

It's normal to lag like a bitch in Lion's Arch, they re-enabled player culling so that's going to cause nearly everyone's system to drop to 25-40fps no matter what.

It seems your issues lies elsewhere.

 

[Unoid]

I get 90FPS+ @ 90HZ maxed on my system. (signature details)

how could you possibly need more for 1440P gaming? 4k, maybe, but not 1440p

 

[Tsavo]

It seems your issues lies elsewhere.

This.

I have a 3570k @ 4GHz and a GTX 660, and I only get lowish FPS in LA under W7 at peak play times.

 

[Slomo4shO]

It seems your issues lies elsewhere.

Finally, someone with some common sense in this thread... :whiste:

 

[nwo]

Finally, someone with some common sense in this thread... :whiste:

I guess nobody read the first response post in this thread

 

[Slomo4shO]

I guess nobody read the first response post in this thread

Seems I overlooked your post ()

 

[Yuriman]

My bro recently got a Haswell i5 + 7850 and though we haven't done any "official" benchmarking, we have noted that at the same clocks he is a few FPS ahead of my Ivy in the same areas. My Ivy has more overclocking headroom though.

AFAIK GW2 uses something like 1.5 cores so assuming you can get higher than 4.2GHz out of Haswell, it would be a marginal upgrade. But then, you can probably get higher than 4.2GHz out of your current chip anyway if you ignore your 60c rule. Are you trying to keep it for 20 years or something?

:burn:

 

[RaistlinZ]

Does GW2 even take advantage of dual GPU's? I was under the impression it didn't. I also haven't seen any reviews showing Quad channel RAM offering any advantage to GW2. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

At any rate, you can side-grade to a 4770K without costing you anything. I just don't think it'll offer the noticeable improvement that you're looking for.

 

[Yuriman]

Does GW2 even take advantage of dual GPU's? I was under the impression it didn't. I also haven't seen any reviews showing Quad channel RAM offering any advantage to GW2. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

At any rate, you can side-grade to a 4770K without costing you anything. I just don't think it'll offer the noticeable improvement that you're looking for.

Crossfire scaling is actually excellent, was close to 100% when I was using a pair of HD4870's. Can't speak for system memory bandwidth.