I can't tell what component in my computer needs upgrading for this game?

[OhMrSandman.4165]

Hello all! I had just recently updated my graphics card with the expectation that I would run games much faster but came to a disappointing result with Guild Wars 2. After doing some research I found out that the game is very CPU heavy more than it is GPU heavy and so I started to look at my specs and can't figure out if I just need to upgrade my RAM or my Processor or if I'm just completely off the mark all together. May I bother someone for some assistance? I currently run the game at about 41-58 FPS on the lowest possible settings and between 31-48 FPS on autodetect.

 

My Computer Specifications:

Processor: AMD FX-4300 Quad-Core Processor 3.80 GHz

Installed RAM: 8.00 GB

Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660

 

If there's any other computer specs I should include or you have questions about, please let me know! I would love to play this game with higher performance.

[Infusion.7149]

I would change the CPU first no matter what. GW2 is a CPU bound game and even at launch the AMD bulldozer-based FX series was severely behind the 2nd gen Intel Sandy Bridge parts, let alone after overclocks. (see https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/guild-wars-2-performance-benchmark,3268-7.html) The FX-4300 is actually "dual core" with two modules where the two integer cores share resources in each module and each module only has one floating point unit. (Up until AMD's Ryzen , Intel CPUs since Core series were ahead due to the focus on power efficiency after Pentium 4 (Netburst) which was not competitive versus Athlon 64.)

 

1st gen Ryzen already boasted a 40% per clock improvement over Bulldozer series AMD CPUs which cut the gap to Intel's 7th gen quadcore CPUs while offering more cores. In addition, each core has floating point and integer units and simultaneous multi-threading (SMT) functions similar to Intel's "Hyperthreading" so software that runs better on Intel in the past is much more likely to run well than on the clustered multi-thread (CMT) layout of a Bulldozer chip.

 

edit: on userbenchmark for GW2 they have the FX-8320 as 44% for GW2 @ 1080p , FX6300 at 42% for 1080p, FX-4300 at 40% , i7-2600k at 63%, i5-3570K which is still DDR3 at 68%, i7-4790 which is DDR3 at 70%, i7-6700 which has low clocks at 69%, i5-4690 with DDR3 at 70%, Ryzen 5 1600x hexcore at 73%, i7-4790k at 79%, i5-7600k at 82%, i5-8400 hexcore at 79%, Ryzen 5 2600x hexcore at 80%, a Ryzen 7 2700x octocore at 82% , and i7-7700k quadcore hyperthreaded at 87% , i7-8700k hexcore hyperthreaded at 93%, Ryzen 7 3700x octocore at 93% , i9-9900k octocore at 99%.

 

If you're on the market for a new CPU, any Ryzen 3rd gen 7nm hexcore or octocore CPU is worth looking at. Intel 9th gen i7/i9 CPUs are slightly faster but much more expensive and are still on an older process node (14nm) without PCIe 4.0 for future-proofing for the drop in price on next gen NvME drives. I would not dump any money into older DDR3 memory or an AM3 / AM3+ board for a FX bulldozer series CPU.

 

There's no way you should be playing on low settings with a GTX 1660 unless you're on 4K resolution. GTX 1660 is capable of 1080p high or 1440p medium even with more recent graphics intensive titles.

[OhMrSandman.4165]

That’s what I was fearing and I noticed that it only has two cores last night when I saw the amount of cores running to be two. Odd that it says it’s a Quad-core. This is incredibly helpful though, thank you!