Looking to upgrade my system for WoW @ Ultra

[FNM]

Hi all, hope you are well.

At the moment my system will run WoW reasonably well, with most settings either at good or high. Shadows are on fair.

I don't really have a budget so price isn't too much of an issue, but obviously I'd like to get the best bang for buck. What do you guys think is the best thing(s) to upgrade? Was thinking of maybe upgrading my Graphics Card to a 2GB HD7850, might that be a good idea or do you think something else is bottlenecking? Here are my specs:

Processor: Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard: ASUS® P8Z68-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory: 8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card: 1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6770
Power Supply: 450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor Cooling: SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)

Any advice would be brilliant, thanks.

[Quintana]

Your GPU is obviously the weakest piece you have right now. If you did upgrade to a 7850 you would be able to play on ultra without issue. You're not going to get 60 FPS everywhere but it will run good. Honestly though the visual difference between high and ultra is so small, it's hardly worth the performance hit.

[Zatie12]

WoW is often considered to be CPU bound, and that's certainly the case in raids especially 25man. Outside raids, often it's GPU limited and your weak GPU is probably the bottleneck right now. Upgrading your GPU may require a more powerful PSU too, seeing as it's only 450W. You'll need to do some investigation on that one, it depends how much your system is currently drawing. Since Pandaria, WoW High and Ultra graphics isn't so much of a pushover as you may think.

[shroudster]

bit more overclocking would help allot aswell for fps during raiding (25man mostly)
however that would mean another upgrade in addition to the gpu mentioned above me. (i'd personally pick a gtx 660Ti to run in the 50+ fps range minimum at full ultra)
got a budget? (you could also try to resell old parts in order to fund new ones )

[FNM]

Thanks all for the replies so far, very helpful.

Shroud, I am not on a budget as such, but would obviously like to not pay too extortionate amounts, especially seeing as I'm not concerned with running hugely demanding games like Crysis, Dirt etc.

I have never overclocked and have no experience with it. I am not a tech savvy/knowledgeable person by any means. Is it safe/easy to do?

[shroudster]

Thanks all for the replies so far, very helpful.

Shroud, I am not on a budget as such, but would obviously like to not pay too extortionate amounts, especially seeing as I'm not concerned with running hugely demanding games like Crysis, Dirt etc.

I have never overclocked and have no experience with it. I am not a tech savvy/knowledgeable person by any means. Is it safe/easy to do?

well oc'ing has become rather easy/safe with current generation of cpu's/gpu's , only side note is that you do not have a "K" series chip.(only minor tweaking possible iirc)
i'd still stick with a 660Ti if truly talking ultra at good/high fps, else radeon options work fine aswell.( albeit with some eye-candy turned off)

[Zatie12]

I wouldn't personally go down the overclocking route without a K series CPU, and definitely not if you're not tech confident/entuiastic. The locked multiplier will require FSB overclocking too, and might restrict your success and potentially introduce other system instabilities too. That said, we always used to overclock the FSB before unlocked multipliers arrived. My advice - don't do it unless you fully understand the consequences and you're sure you know what you're doing and how to diagnose/recover from potential problems caused by it.

[FNM]

From what I have read, WoW is more CPU intensive than GPU intensive. Is this true? Would this make a GPU upgrade somewhat redundant?

[shroudster]

From what I have read, WoW is more CPU intensive than GPU intensive. Is this true? Would this make a GPU upgrade somewhat redundant?

well it is more that a;
high end cpu + mid tier gpu = works for ultra
mid end cpu + high end gpu = gpu will be not be used 100%

all depends on what parts are used together because it happens quite often that people toss in a high end gpu on a old/low end cpu and still wonder why their performance isn't as high as expected.
your current gpu is low end on the scale of hardware so a gpu upgrade would be well worth it because you got quite a powerfull cpu.

[Zatie12]

Your graphics card:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gp...HD+6770&id=284

[n0cturnal]

Your graphics card:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gp...HD+6770&id=284

Passmark is really not a good benchmark when it comes to gaming performance. It is pretty much horrible. Look at how it list GTX 580 as equal to a 7970.

[rauta]

I can't see how that comp can't run wow ultra. I have q9550 8gb ram and ATI radeon hd4870 and I can play ultra and fraps. Maybe it's SSD drive that helps.

[n0cturnal]

I can't see how that comp can't run wow ultra. I have q9550 8gb ram and ATI radeon hd4870 and I can play ultra and fraps. Maybe it's SSD drive that helps.

Your card doesn't support DX11 which makes some of the new settings disabled, there is also a question of resolution.

[shroudster]

I can't see how that comp can't run wow ultra. I have q9550 8gb ram and ATI radeon hd4870 and I can play ultra and fraps. Maybe it's SSD drive that helps.

i'd love so see some proof of that.
im guessing low screen resolution/settings downscaled/solo areas only.

[Toffie]

I can't see how that comp can't run wow ultra. I have q9550 8gb ram and ATI radeon hd4870 and I can play ultra and fraps. Maybe it's SSD drive that helps.

Yeah, thats a big lie.

[Zatie12]

Passmark is really not a good benchmark when it comes to gaming performance. It is pretty much horrible. Look at how it list GTX 580 as equal to a 7970.

I think you're missing my point. It may not be precisely accurate but we're not comparing the finer differences between the 580 and 7970. It illustrates roughly how the OPs graphics card compares to the latest stuff and how it may be the limiting factor while running WoW.

[Pancha]

I really do not understand how people are unable to run WoW at ultra at this time and age. My old computer, which I bought back in 2007, an Acer 5920g, works perfectly fine on Ultra. Even today. A cheap stationary should be able to run WoW easily. As long as you keep your system clean, pretty much any* computer can run WoW at Ultra today.

I've personally gone more towards laptops as of a couple years back, mostly due to a lot of traveling days, but my Lenovo Ideapad Y580 works perfectly. Even runs Far Cry 3 at max settings, which I'm pleasantly surprised about.

I would personally think ahead of only WoW. But upgrading both the CPU and GPU seems like your best bet. 8 GB memory should be enough for now, even though upgrading for 16 GB is cheap and improves overall performance.

[shroudster]

I really do not understand how people are unable to run WoW at ultra at this time and age. My old computer, which I bought back in 2007, an Acer 5920g, works perfectly fine on Ultra. Even today. A cheap stationary should be able to run WoW easily. As long as you keep your system clean, pretty much any* computer can run WoW at Ultra today.

I've personally gone more towards laptops as of a couple years back, mostly due to a lot of traveling days, but my Lenovo Ideapad Y580 works perfectly. Even runs Far Cry 3 at max settings, which I'm pleasantly surprised about.

I would personally think ahead of only WoW. But upgrading both the CPU and GPU seems like your best bet. 8 GB memory should be enough for now, even though upgrading for 16 GB is cheap and improves overall performance.

keep spreading fairytales , ultra/max on such laptops aren't an option. (unless you like 800x600)

[n0cturnal]

I think you're missing my point. It may not be precisely accurate but we're not comparing the finer differences between the 580 and 7970. It illustrates roughly how the OPs graphics card compares to the latest stuff and how it may be the limiting factor while running WoW.

Every time I see someone link to passmark I throw up a little in my mouth, it is so inaccurate that you can't take any number seriously. The GTX 690 is ranked below a GTX 580. GTX 590 is ranked below GTX 480.

My point is that this site should be buried in one of the dark corners of internet and never ever see the light of day again.

[Conzar]

Note that just saying "Ultra" isn't really specific enough. A toaster could pretty much run WoW on Ultra if you lowered the resolution enough. You need to let us know what your resolution is - 2048x1536 is four times as many pixels as 1024x768 and would want that much more power to shift it.

What is your monitor's native resolution? From your specs it seems a reasonable system already - if the monitor is in line with the other gear you may have an addon erroring in the background or something causing poor performance.