Challange time for the pros!

Ripjaw

Ripjaw

Ripjaw

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19 Mar 2013
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Hi guys so im wanting to build a small pc for the wife for gw2 and i want her to be able to max it out. Easy? Not so much actually. Im gaming now on an intel i5 4670k and gtx770 with 8gb 1600 ram now i can max out the game fully and it looks fab but come big world boss's where theres hundreds of people it lags a fair amount and i was very supprised! Im not sure if its down to a lack of gpu grunt or cpu? Hard to belive really coz i can max out most games with ease :O The challange there in is to be able to do it for as close to 500 quid as poss ;) And if it can be on a mini itx that'd be even better! Only one must, for the HD a single 120gb ssd (the best bang for buck) Thanks guys. Waiting on a few of the regulars to see what they can do, looking at you snipes and doomedspeed :P
 
This is what i've come up with, just need to learn how to crossfire the apu with the gpu. Should be able to run gw2 maxxed out? YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7850K 12 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 8 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £131.99
1 x MSI Radeon R7 250 OC 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £69.95
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £65.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G2133HC11ADC01) £53.99
1 x Asus A55BM-E AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £39.95
1 x Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case - Black £39.95
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £37.99
1 x CM Storm Devastator Gaming Bundle - USB Keyboard & Mouse £29.99
1 x Samsung SH-118AB/BEBE SATA 18x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM £12.95
Total : £492.34 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
 
Ripjaw said:
This is what i've come up with, just need to learn how to crossfire the apu with the gpu. Should be able to run gw2 maxxed out? YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7850K 12 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 8 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £131.99
1 x MSI Radeon R7 250 OC 2048MB GDDR3 PCI-Express Graphics Card £69.95
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £65.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G2133HC11ADC01) £53.99
1 x Asus A55BM-E AMD A55 Chipset (Socket FM2+) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £39.95
1 x Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced Mini-ITX Case - Black £39.95
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020058-UK) £37.99
1 x CM Storm Devastator Gaming Bundle - USB Keyboard & Mouse £29.99
1 x Samsung SH-118AB/BEBE SATA 18x DVD-ROM (Black) - OEM £12.95
Total : £492.34 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Click to expand...

Most of the above spec wont work together, you've picked a MATX board but an ITX case, and even if it did fit I think I'm correct in saying you need the A88 chipset to work with the Kaveri APU's.

I'd personally put my money into an intel / R7 265 build like the below. This way you get the benefit of a quad core intel chip and the R7 265 should stomp all over an APU build with less issues than you would get using hybrid crossfire.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4440 3.10GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £134.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon R7 265 Dual-X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £109.99
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £59.99
1 x Asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £58.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 130 RC-130-KKN1 Mini ITX Case - Black £45.95
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX24C11T3K2/8X) £45.95
1 x EVGA 430W 80 Plus Power Supply (100-W1-0430-KR) £29.99
Total : £495.44 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
Hi Ripjaw,

The CM Elite 120 Advanced doesn't fit micro-ATX mobos.

And GW2 is apparently quite CPU bound, meaning a better CPU (i3/i5/FX-6300/8320) combined with a GTX 750Ti/R7 265 is possibly the best bet and is said to provide maxed graphics. Just from what I've read on the subject, no personal experience of playing GW2.

The (non-graphics) processing power on the Kaveri is about equivalent to an Athlon X4 750K.

EDIT: BinnsY beat me to it.
 
Last edited:
I know the lag youre talking about on big world bosses and often no matter how good your PC is you'll get this. Quite common with mmos in general sadly.
 
Some games are said to be "CPU bound" but its actually due to API bottlenecks (see Mantle) and even increasing the CPU to top of the range stuff only somewhat alleviates it (as Alex said above even top of the range CPU and GPU can't completely smooth out those scenarios) - not sure if the latest nVidia drivers have any gains for GW2 but worth using them if your not already as they have some decent updates to increase performance in CPU and API limited scenarios in many games.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 270 Gaming Edition OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £127.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £82.99
1 x ASRock B85M-ITX Intel B85 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ITX Motherboard £62.99
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £59.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX24C11T3K2/8X) £45.95
1 x Cooler Master Elite 130 RC-130-KKN1 Mini ITX Case - Black £45.95
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 550W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £35.99
1 x CM Storm Devastator Gaming Bundle - USB Keyboard & Mouse £29.99
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-221LBK DVD Rewriter - OEM £16.99
Total : £518.42 (includes shipping : £8.00).



mitx case
120gb ssd
went for the i3 instead cuz most mmos are at most dual threaded currently
giving room to bump up the gpu to a 270
changed the mobo from h81 (cuz the h81 is severely nerfed and a pig) to the h85
free shipping
 
mATX.

YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** **B Grade** MSI HD 7870 Black Knight 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card ( (BG-345-MS) £109.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £79.99
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G1600HC9DC01) £49.99
1 x Asus M5A78L-M/USB3 AMD 760G (Socket AM3+) DDR3 MicroATX Motherboard £49.99
1 x Antec New Solution Series NSK-3100 Mini-Tower - Matte Black £39.95
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 550W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £35.99
1 x CM Storm Devastator Gaming Bundle - USB Keyboard & Mouse £29.99
1 x Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £19.99
Total : £489.97 (includes shipping : £11.75).

 
Oh wow im sure it said mini itx mobo lol, read it to quick i guess. Loving the look of idlemans build actually think i'll sack the cooler for now to get a nicer case then go for the cooler later on. Cheers chaps :)

On a side note i think gw2 is poorly coded title it must be if im having dramas with my setup lol.
 
there ya go, right on budget:
YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** **B Grade** MSI HD 7870 Black Knight 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card ( (BG-345-MS) £109.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £82.99
1 x ASRock B85M-ITX Intel B85 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ITX Motherboard £62.99
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £59.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 130 RC-130-KKN1 Mini ITX Case - Black £45.95
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX24C11T3K2/8X) £45.95
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 550W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £35.99
1 x CM Storm Devastator Gaming Bundle - USB Keyboard & Mouse £29.99
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-221LBK DVD Rewriter - OEM £16.99
Total : £500.42 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
tamzzy said:
there ya go, right on budget:
YOUR BASKET
1 x **B Grade** **B Grade** MSI HD 7870 Black Knight 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card ( (BG-345-MS) £109.99
1 x Intel Core i3-4130 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £82.99
1 x ASRock B85M-ITX Intel B85 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ITX Motherboard £62.99
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £59.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 130 RC-130-KKN1 Mini ITX Case - Black £45.95
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX24C11T3K2/8X) £45.95
1 x SuperFlower Amazon 550W "80 Plus Bronze" Power Supply £35.99
1 x CM Storm Devastator Gaming Bundle - USB Keyboard & Mouse £29.99
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-221LBK DVD Rewriter - OEM £16.99
Total : £500.42 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Click to expand...

Ah nice one, itx too ;)
 
just beware that the graphics card is a b-grade aka 90 day ocuk warranty. you'll need to check if msi will deal with the remainder of the warranty (i'm not sure)
also the mobo is out of stock =x
 
Ripjaw said:
Ah nice one, itx too ;)
Click to expand...


Do you actually need the keyboard / mouse / optical drive inside the £500 budget?

If not I'd go for a hybrid of tamzzy's and my builds that would look a bit like this. We both picked the same RAM, case and SSD, and I accept the H81 mobo isnt as good as the B85, but would you actually use the extra features B85 offers? If not you can afford to step up from the dual core i3 to the quad core i5 which will make a pretty massive difference.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4440 3.10GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £134.99
1 x **B Grade** **B Grade** MSI HD 7870 Black Knight 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card ( (BG-345-MS) £109.99
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £59.99
1 x Asus H81I-Plus Intel H81 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Mini ITX Motherboard £58.99
1 x Cooler Master Elite 130 RC-130-KKN1 Mini ITX Case - Black £45.95
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX24C11T3K2/8X) £45.95
1 x EVGA 430W 80 Plus Power Supply (100-W1-0430-KR) £29.99
Total : £495.44 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
Yea she needs the parts as part of the build sadly :( I mean theres always room for upgrading come christmas/birthday and the like mind. I think itd make a decent steambox too
 
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