Hodgepodge Potato

[TheTaurenOrc]

Dear mmochamps,

After years of adding bits piece meal to my rig (and not really knowing what I am doing) its starting get a bit messy in there. I am looking to make a few upgrades but I think I have reached a point where I need to switch out some major hardware. I only play WoW and recently have found raiding and Ashran just unplayable due to the FPS drop (<10fps). My drivers insist on setting the games graphics to the good preset calling it 'optimised'. Without further ado here is my current build:

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/xnDnrH

CPU:Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 2.8GHz Dual-Core Processor
Motherboard:Gigabyte GA-G31M-ES2L Micro ATX LGA775 Motherboard
Memory:Corsair XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR2-800 Memory
Video Card:PowerColor Radeon HD 6870 1GB Video Card
Power Supply:Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System:Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Full (32/64-bit)

My first thoughts are:

Replace CPU. (Will I need to replace the Motherboard too?)
Upgrade to 64bit Windows. (still on 32bit)
Add >4gb of Memory.

Spec wise I am at a loss at what I should replace them with. Budget, well lets start at $400 and see where that gets me It would be great if you could recommend a hit list of what replacements I should prioritize. I am only playing on a 1920 x 1080 22" monitor and I am quite happy at that size so nothing that would be overkill for that.

Any help would be much appreciated!

[Deleted]

You could do what you said but honestly old stuff is old and any money you throw at it will be outdated anyway, so a waste of money. And yeah you would need to replace the mobo too to get a newer gen cpu which also means new ram.

I see that you are located in Australia, given how expensive pc parts are over there you won't get far with 400aud.

I would start looking at something like the following, keeping the current gpu for now:


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($149.00 @ Centre Com)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-HD3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($109.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($90.00 @ IJK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($72.00 @ Centre Com)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($65.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Power Supply: Antec Neo Eco 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($89.00 @ CPL Online)
Total: $574.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-28 03:43 EST+1100


edit: i looked into the B85/G3258-CM evo, overclocking scenario but you would save 30bucks at best, not worth it.

edit2: you could use the power supply you got, although the corsair cx series is known to have created alot of issues but hey if it worked untill now you could keep it and change it when you get a new gpu. Will keep the above total sub 500.

[Nellah]

Luckily your video card is just fine, at least compared to the rest of the system. I've been playing on a Radeon HD 6870 on my Windows 10 Preview machine and it's just fine for WoW; gets a little choppy at Ultra settings in raids, but whatever.

You can't upgrade the RAM without upgrading the motherboard; yours only supports 4GB. You can't upgrade the motherboard reasonably without upgrading the processor, which itself is also really really out of date. You'd see a pretty phenomenal performance boost even moving to a Haswell-based Celeron.

Kostatoo's build above looks great; you can save a bit, as he said, by continuing to use your old power supply. If your case is functional you can save there as well. The only way you could get noticeably better performance is by going with a K-series i5 chip and a Z87/97 motherboard, but the i3 is just fine for games now and will be for long into the future (thanks to DX12's severely reduced CPU requirements.)

[TheTaurenOrc]

Thanks for the replys guys. I didn't realise the links were directing to the AUS site, I am actually in California. Good to know the gpu can stay for now.

I am thinking of this build, because my local store has all the parts in stock

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/tfYfjX

CPU: AMD FX-6350 Six Core AM3+ Processor 3.9Ghz
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD Motherboard
Memory: DDR3 8GB 1600MHz DUAL LP (2X4GB MODULE) VIPER3 BL

About $290. I am wondering about the AMD processor, 6 cores sounds juicy but I am not sure if it make a difference for WoW.

Again, thanks so much for the replys.

[Lathais]

Thanks for the replys guys. I didn't realise the links were directing to the AUS site, I am actually in California. Good to know the gpu can stay for now.

I am thinking of this build, because my local store has all the parts in stock

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/tfYfjX

CPU: AMD FX-6350 Six Core AM3+ Processor 3.9Ghz
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 AMD Motherboard
Memory: DDR3 8GB 1600MHz DUAL LP (2X4GB MODULE) VIPER3 BL

About $290. I am wondering about the AMD processor, 6 cores sounds juicy but I am not sure if it make a difference for WoW.

Again, thanks so much for the replys.

DO NOT BUY AMD FOR WOW!!!

A intel Pentium Dual Core G3258 outperforms the top end AMD chips because WoWs primary thread runs on a single core and intels single core performance beats AMD. 2 strong cores are better than 8 weak cores. Definitely go with intel if WoW performance is your primary focus.

This is what I would get:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($224.29 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 PRO3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($80.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($56.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $362.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-27 13:39 EDT-0400

Then, when you are ready for your next upgrade can get a new PSU and GPU and possibly an aftermarket CPU cooler to OC with.

[Deleted]

I would get a little better mobo and a new hdd ofc:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($224.29 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Micro Center)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($56.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.49 @ Directron)
Total: $424.76
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-27 14:15 EDT-0400

A think to note here. For wow only the i3 4160 will be almost similar to the i5 above if you don't overclock that i5. The difference is the i5 would help you more with multitasking, ie have more things open while gaming. If you don't care about that then you can save 100bucks with the i3.

[ovm33]

DO NOT BUY AMD FOR WOW!!!

A intel Pentium Dual Core G3258 outperforms the top end AMD chips because WoWs primary thread runs on a single core and intels single core performance beats AMD. 2 strong cores are better than 8 weak cores. Definitely go with intel if WoW performance is your primary focus.

This is what I would get:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($224.29 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 PRO3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($80.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($56.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $362.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-27 13:39 EDT-0400

Then, when you are ready for your next upgrade can get a new PSU and GPU and possibly an aftermarket CPU cooler to OC with.

I would strongly recommend going with Lathais here. Though you have enough room in your budget to go ahead and get a good after market CPU cooler such as:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 87.0 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($33.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $33.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-27 14:13 EDT-0400

Just make sure you have enough room in your case to support it. It's like 16CMs with the brackets.

[Nellah]

Again agreed with above; my server's 4200MHz quad-core A10-5800K Piledriver chip gets clocked by a stock 3200MHz dual-core Pentium G3258 even in some multithreaded benchmarks. As the owner of many Intel and AMD chips over the years, now is NOT the time to buy AMD.

[TheTaurenOrc]

Thank for all the help guys. I ended up going with an Intel core i3 processor, ended up having to replace the hard drive and the disk drive because neither had SATA sockets! Noticed a huge improvment, very happy so far.