Upgrade or new Rig?

[Cigs8]

Hi all. I'm looking for advice on an upgrade path for this configuration - or a new purchase.

Intel Core i7 870 Processor (2.93GHz) Overclocked to 3.6GHz
Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler
Asus P7P55D-E LX Motherboard with USB 3.0
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 Memory
Radeon R9 270X
OCZ 600W StealthXtreme PSU
1TB Hard Drive.

The Rig is 5yrs old, the Graphics card is a recent upgrade as i felt the system was starting to struggle and i feel it more every day. Main problem is frame rates. I mostly play WoW and frame rates are a struggle during a lot of content. Mainly raiding, but also in the real world (The new Zone Tannan Jungle for example i'm down to 15-20 fps in busy areas.

With any raid of over 16-17 people, i start to to suffer. A 20 man Heroic raid on Operator Thorgar with all the adds can bring me down to 10 fps on parts.
Other games Dragon Age Inquisition, at best i have 30fps.

I don't stream, video render or do anything else, but just wish to try to either to bring this PC up to spec, or move on and purchase and new PC.

Ideas or advice is much appreciated.

Oh, i a couple of random tests i carried out.
Furmark was able to run the 1080 test at 41fps and GPU temp maxed at 79 DEg C after 5 mins.

[Pterodactylus]

I'd get a brand new rig if I were you. I was in the same spot - I mapped out my upgrade path and almost pulled the trigger. Than I said, eff it and bought all new stuff. Did I need all new stuff all at once? No. Am I happy I did? You bet! That being said, some of your stuff is pretty decent. You could likely eek out a lot of performance with a new CPU upgrade - especially with WoW.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($82.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $312.97
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-29 19:54 EDT-0400

[Sorshen]

i7 870 is still a strong cpu (lacks AVX tho)- however, WoW mostly cares about clock speed. So you can either upgrade the cooling and push the OC to the limits or go for the 4690k+Z97.

[Cigs8]

Many thanks for your comments. I like the processor upgrade idea.

After i posted, i ran some further PC checks and found out that my processor temp was 80 deg C on Idle and 96-99 Deg C while running wow!!! Pulled the side and found the CPU cooler vanes completely chock a block with dust. (rest of the PC was fine as i clean it regularly, but had missed re-checking this)

It was midnight, so too late to pull the hoover out and clean it up but will do when i get home tonight. I'm hoping this helps a lot and perhaps explain why it was struggling more of late - summer and ambient temperatures are going up.

[fixx]

The answer is somewhere between new and upgrade. You can keep old case, RAM and graphics card initially and get just motherboard+CPU and then new graphics card later when you can afford it.

i7 870 is still a strong cpu (lacks AVX tho)- however,

Not really. Modern i5-4690K is nearly twice as fast.

WoW mostly cares about clock speed.

Not really right on that either. WoW mostly cares about IPC, which is about double in current i5 when you look at the single thread benchmark above.

[Sorshen]

Not really. Modern i5-4690K is nearly twice as fast.

I don't stream, video render or do anything else,

Synthetics mean nothing to op.


And that's a pretty bold statement.
Check this out:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2257414

[fixx]

Synthetics mean nothing to op.

You need to learn to read and research. As I said, IPC is what matters.

WoW's minimum and average FPS is widely known to scale almost 1:1 with single thread IPC test like Cinebench. Random 3D Mark runs show only max FPS which is irrelevant.

[Sorshen]

Did you even check the link?

[fixx]

Did you even check the link?

Yes.

Do you have problems reading or understanding? SuperPi 1M results on i7-860 vs i5-4690K at 4GHz has about 40% difference and the rest of the thread with GPU tests is irrelevant, although 3DMark11 physics score give some indication of the power of the CPU alone. Also people don't really use SuperPi for benchmarking purposes anymore because the official version doesn't support SSE.

WoW and all other MMORPGs act very differently from general gaming or gaming benchmarks. While raiding or in big cities, WoW and all other MMORPGs are CPU capped. IPC determines minimum and average FPS, GPU only matters for the maximum FPS as long as it's midrange or better.

[Cigs8]

Just to close the thread. Root cause was the cooler clogged with dust. I knocked 20 deg C of the CPU temps by cleaning it and of course fixed the FPS chugging.

Thanks for the suggestions though. I will look into the processor upgrade and will carry it out if i feel comfortable with the upgrade process.