CPU/GPU which first?

[Averos]

Hello

Atm. im running i3 4130 with radeon hd7770 and Asrock h81m and I'd like to upgrade it a bit just for WoW. The question is - should I buy i5 4460 or gtx960/r9 280 first? I heard World of Warcraft is mostly about CPU so I guess I should buy i5 then graphic card.

[Vargur]

CPU is the better upgrade for WoW, but the GTX960 should be the better upgrade overall.
Since WoW is only using 1 core, that means that your CPU is actually better with its 3.4GHz, than the 4460 with 3.2GHz, disregarding the cache.
I'd say upgrade the GPU and wait for a better CPU.

[Nuckels]

CPU is the better upgrade for WoW, but the GTX960 should be the better upgrade overall.
Since WoW is only using 1 core, that means that your CPU is actually better with its 3.4GHz, than the 4460 with 3.2GHz, disregarding the cache.
I'd say upgrade the GPU and wait for a better CPU.

Pretty certain wow uses atleast 2cores, that said I doubt you'd see a huge boost in wow regardless of the upgrade, if you ask me i'd wait and safe up till you can buy new cpu and gpu at the same time and see whats on the market then.

[moremana]

Upgrade the GPU, 7770 isnt a good card for wow.

[Vargur]

Pretty certain wow uses atleast 2cores, that said I doubt you'd see a huge boost in wow regardless of the upgrade, if you ask me i'd wait and safe up till you can buy new cpu and gpu at the same time and see whats on the market then.

Well I don't have a tool to analyse CPU consumption (other than my keyboard's LCD), although private addons exist for such purposes, such as BigWigs' creator; I just go by the ear and reasonable logic. Old engine, single core.
The 960 should be good for years to come, for mid-range setups, and it's platform neutral. A motherboard change wouldn't affect it.

[Warrax]

The i3 4130 is a good cpu with good single thread performance and the i5 4460 is a sidegrade, WoW won't benefit from it. Your 7770 is kinda weak tho, I'm sure getting a better video card will increase fps in WoW.

[Aleksej89]

CPU is the god of modern gaming, GPU is there to provide visual fluff that you can disable if your GPU is too weak.
If your CPU is too weak you are 99% fucked.

Get intel i5 4690K with an Asus/Gigabyte Z97 chipset - best value buy you can get for gaming.
You can overclock your CPU as needed... you can also go for a i7 4790K if you have lots of $.

I prefer Nvidia GPUs but ATI is still around and kicking, so choose for yourself.
For what it is worth, here is an Nvidia's benchmark of their GPUs compared to each other:
http://international.download.nvidia...ineup-full.png

[Lathais]

Pretty certain wow uses atleast 2cores, that said I doubt you'd see a huge boost in wow regardless of the upgrade, if you ask me i'd wait and safe up till you can buy new cpu and gpu at the same time and see whats on the market then.

While WoW will use more cores, the primary thread can not be split and runs on only one core. For this reason, CPU will always give the biggest upgrade for WoW and you want that CPU to be intel for the better single core performance.

[Kagthul]

He's not going to see big giant gains going from the i3 he has to an i5 or i7. The i3 is already clocked very fast and is a good modern chip. For WoW it will perform within 3-5% of the i5. No reason to waste 300$+ upgrading the CPU when his GPU is a weak-as-hell Radeon 7770 (a low-midrange card when it was introduced years ago).

[Averos]

Thanks guys for all your advices! I'll buy msi gtx960 and use it for now with my i3 4130. Nevertheless when I get enough cash for a good i5 I'll change it too.

[Warrax]

Thanks guys for all your advices! I'll buy msi gtx960 and use it for now with my i3 4130. Nevertheless when I get enough cash for a good i5 I'll change it too.

Just keep in mind that if you upgrade to an i5, get a K model and overclock it otherwise there won't be any real benefits. Also keep in mind that you need a Z87 or Z97 motherboard, otherwise you won't be able to overclock K model CPUs. So if you have to buy a new motherboard, wait ~6 months for skylake and simply go with a new graphic card for now.