CPU Upgrade even worth it?

[Doylez]

Right now I still have a Phenom II X4 955BE @ 3,7Ghz. I'm actually pretty happy with its performance in most games, except when I'm doing 25man raids in WoW. Performance there is pretty lousy, dropping under 30FPS pretty often, sometimes even below 20FPS. So atm I'm considering upgrading to a Core i5-3570K.

Question is, would this actually improve my FPS in a 25man raid by a lot? The new CPU + MB costs something like 300€+ so if I just get like a 10FPS improvement out of it it's probably not worth it for me. Like I said, I don't even need the extra performance for all the other games I'm playing, only gonna upgrade if it's going to be a big performance increase for WoW.

My GPU is a GTX560Ti btw.

[crazymack]

Isn't the GPU the main determinate of FPS? Also if you decided to change anything make sure your motherboard supports it.
sorry for not being much help.

[vesseblah]

You can expect extra 15-25fps in 25man raids with i5-3570K. Pushing the big quality slider to "high" will let you run 25man raids at 50-60fps with occasional spikes below 40.

Real question is if you can deal with it bit longer and buy into Intel's next gen in about 5-6 months. Changes from SB/IB are expected to be pretty major.

Isn't the GPU the main determinate of FPS?

Not for 25man raids.

[Doylez]

You can expect extra 15-25fps in 25man raids with i5-3570K. Pushing the big quality slider to "high" will let you run 25man raids at 50-60fps with occasional spikes below 40.

That sounds pretty good actually.
If my PSU can handle the Phenom II X4 right now it should be able to handle the Core i5 as well, right? It's a Cougar SE 400W.
Any Mainboard recommendations? Anything else I'm going to need for the upgrade other than the actual CPU+MB?

[Lolkrayd]

Never heard of that brand but 400w is pretty low, I would invest in a 500watt 80 certified PSU as well
Corsair/PC power and cooling/ seasonic would be the brands I recommend. Should aim for a modular to help make life easy.

You will most likely OC your cpu anyways.

[Lathais]

Isn't the GPU the main determinate of FPS? Also if you decided to change anything make sure your motherboard supports it.
sorry for not being much help.

For most games, yes, for MMOs, sort of. CPU does a lot to determine FPS in MMOs simply because there is so much going on that has to be handled by the CPU. If the CPU gets bottlenecked, your FPS drops because the GPU is not getting the info it needs from the CPU to render what it needs(to oversimplify it).

Basically, in most MMOs, WoW and RIFT for sure, most likely SWTOR and many many others as well, CPU determines minimum FPS, GPU determines Maximum.

[yurano]

Cougar is the brand that makes those black and orange case fans.

The Cougar SE 400 is in the list so it should be OK. http://www.overclock.net/t/183810/fa...power-supplies

The handy dandy PSU calculator http://www.overclock.net/t/1045231/p...psu-calculator says a i5-3570K + a 7950 will only draw 375W.

[Lolkrayd]

Going to add that list to my bookmark huehuehue.

[vesseblah]

If my PSU can handle the Phenom II X4 right now it should be able to handle the Core i5 as well, right? It's a Cougar SE 400W.

Ye. Power draw of IB/SB is 50W lower than PhenomII's.

Anything else I'm going to need for the upgrade other than the actual CPU+MB?

RAM if your current is DDR2.

[superdooper]

Right now I still have a Phenom II X4 955BE @ 3,7Ghz. I'm actually pretty happy with its performance in most games, except when I'm doing 25man raids in WoW. Performance there is pretty lousy, dropping under 30FPS pretty often, sometimes even below 20FPS. So atm I'm considering upgrading to a Core i5-3570K.

Question is, would this actually improve my FPS in a 25man raid by a lot? The new CPU + MB costs something like 300€+ so if I just get like a 10FPS improvement out of it it's probably not worth it for me. Like I said, I don't even need the extra performance for all the other games I'm playing, only gonna upgrade if it's going to be a big performance increase for WoW.

My GPU is a GTX560Ti btw.

Core speed of the processor is extremely important - so make sure to overclock the i5 to at least 4.6GHz. I'd suspect 40+ FPS no problem.

[Jinto]

It is both your CPU and GPU holding you back. Raids are pretty GPU intensive with all the spell effects flying around.