Need help choosing upgrades.

[Odobo]

Hi all. I'm interested in upgrading a few elements of my system and don't know what I should do. WoW is basically the only game I play, but I would like maximum performance whenever possible. I built the system about 2 years ago, so most of the parts are a bit dated, but I've included NewEgg links for everything relevant in my case.

I run at 1920x1080 resolution with everything maxed except shadow quality (at high). I get 60 fps in most places, but notice some stuttering when i fly places with a lot of trees. Occasionally, my system will also drop down to 30 fps, but that's always fixed by refreshing my graphics settings (changing a setting, changing it back, and clicking Apply). I also notice lower fps than I'd like in most zones in the MoP beta (around 40 with a good deal of stuttering).

What would you recommend updating? I've been doing a good deal of research, but I'm a little overwhelmed. I'm looking to spend somewhere in the range of $300-$400.

Specs:

Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Desktop Processor

GIGABYTE GV-N460OC-1GI GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16

ASUS P6X58D Premium LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory

Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive

CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-1000HX 1000W Power Supply

COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced Blue Edition

SAMSUNG P2450H Rose Black 24" 2ms(GTG) HDMI Widescreen LCD Monitor

The rating on many of these parts fell considerably from the time that I made my purchase (especially the video card).

Any help/feedback you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

You could get an i5 3570K and an AsRock Z77 Extreme4 for about $340, 50 dollars less if you go to a microcenter and buy them in store there. Or just reduce your AA, multisampling (if not already at 1x) and shadows by 1 notch

[Yohassakura]

You could get an i5 3570K and an AsRock Z77 Extreme4 for about $340, 50 dollars less if you go to a microcenter and buy them in store there. Or just reduce your AA, multisampling (if not already at 1x) and shadows by 1 notch

For just / mainly WoW, I agree with this.

Atm, your CPU will be powerful enough to push most games over, but with more GPU intensive games, you may well hit a bit of a wall.

Perhaps a little further down the line, you could buy a better GPU.

[Odobo]

Thanks for the input. It sounds like (for just WoW) you agree that CPU and maybe motherboard is the way to go?

I don't know if I'm using the right tools (Windows Resource Monitor), but when my FPS start to drop (like in Ashenvale/Azshara), my CPU usage is always below 50% on all cores and usually below 25%. From what you see in my specs, though, it looks like CPU should be the bottleneck? I feel like I might just be doing something wrong, but I don't know what.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Have you tried simply turning down options like shadows, anti-aliasing, view distance and multisampling?

[n0cturnal]

Have you tried overclocking? A Socket 1366 I7 running at 4GHz or more is still pretty powerful.

[Odobo]

Have you tried simply turning down options like shadows, anti-aliasing, view distance and multisampling?

Yes, and performance definitely increases by doing that. I'm just being greedy and would like to be able to max out everything now and into Mists, so since i have a little extra money now, I'm trying to see where I could invest that to get a little more out of my system.

Have you tried overclocking? A Socket 1366 I7 running at 4GHz or more is still pretty powerful.

I have not, and while I was comfortable assembling my system, overclocking is something that's slightly outside of my comfort zone. I think I'll look around for some guides on that and give it a shot before I invest in a newer processor.

Edit: I've now overclocked to 3.80GHz, but I don't see any noticeable difference. FPS still drops when I fly out into places like Ashenvale and Azshara.