Upgrade advice

[Deleted]

Hi there,

I built the following 4 years ago;

- [Mobo] AMD Asrock 970 Extreme3 AM3+
- [CPU] AMD Phenom II X4 970 AM3 Black Box
- [GPU] XFX Radeon HD 4650 1GB DDR2
- [PSU] Corsair PSU Builder V2 CX500
- [RAM] Corsair 2x4GB DDR3 1333

And the usual stuff that's not relevant for my question imo. Question is, would it be enough to just upgrade my GPU to something more recent or is it a lost cause and should I upgrade it entirely?

Going on some information I read on some forums regarding the CPU, it would be decent enough to play WoW. The goal for me is to be able to play WoW and possibly Overwatch on High (Ultra would be nice, but not neccesary) settings. I don't really raid anymore, just some PvP, achievement hunting and messing around.

If I would upgrade the GPU, I was thinking about either a GTX 750 Ti 2GB GAMING or a Radeon HD7950. Might toss in a SSD for the faster loading times.

I would like to hear if you think it would be enough to get a decent GPU or just built a new system?

[Deleted]

If you don't raid then your cpu will be okish. You should definatly upgrade the gpu, try to grab a gtx950/960/r9 380. You should know tho, that those high fps drops you might see in raiding or any short of congested areas, think 25-40man pvp, is the cpu.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the reply. Is the AMD FX-8320 (Black Edition) CPU a good upgrade CPU wise? Kinda stuck with AM3+ CPU's. I'll upgrade the GPU as well obviously, thanks for the advice on that one!

[Deleted]

Well deal is even an i3 4170 has has higher single core performance than any amd cpu atm. And you will ask does it matter? It does as i mentioned in games that are very cpu intensive like wow that use 1-2 cores and most games only use 1/2 cores unfortunately.

[Deleted]

Okay, thanks again. I've come the conclusion it would be better to upgrade my entire build instead of trying to make some old crap work decently. Thanks again!

[Deleted]

The 970 is a decent CPU. You will notice a significant change when switching to say a 4690k/6600k.

But what I would change first would be the GPU and PSU. That would be a first big step. And then afterward change the CPU/mobo/ram.
But that also depends on your budget.

[Deleted]

I can get the GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB GAMING for a nice price from a friend, so I'm gonna go with that I think and see how it works out. It doesnt need the extra power from my PSU and I'm reading good stuff about that card. Again, I don't need it to run on Ultra with shadows on max and all that, just High would be fine for now. Like suggested, I can still upgrade later if I decide to. However, since our daughter was born I'm spending a LOT less time playing games, so it doesnt need to be top of the line. Having more fun spending time with my family then spending it on WoW, those days of endless wiping on M'uru are long gone

[Lathais]

I can get the GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB GAMING for a nice price from a friend, so I'm gonna go with that I think and see how it works out. It doesnt need the extra power from my PSU and I'm reading good stuff about that card. Again, I don't need it to run on Ultra with shadows on max and all that, just High would be fine for now. Like suggested, I can still upgrade later if I decide to. However, since our daughter was born I'm spending a LOT less time playing games, so it doesnt need to be top of the line. Having more fun spending time with my family then spending it on WoW, those days of endless wiping on M'uru are long gone

Upgrading to that GPU may raise your Max FPS, but will not really raise the Min FPS. Unless you get out of AMD CPUs, you will likely not raise your Min FPS at all. It will still tank in populated areas, garrison and raids. Even a Pentium G3258 will perform better.

[Deleted]

Hmm, getting/reading a lot of mixed reactions regarding the CPU and GPU. Some people say the CPU is decent enough, if I upgrade the GPU but some say the CPU is shit and the GPU wont change a lot. Kinda on the fence now, leaning towards upgrading the entire system...I know AMD isn't the best for gaming, then again, I'm not looking for some high end performance, just High is good enough, I'm not even using the Shadows and stuff. Got a laptop from work that has an i5 and 8gb ram, dont even know the GPU, but it can run wow at least on Medium/High. Maybe I'm better off just getting a new board, cpu and gpu. Anyways, not gonna bother you guys with my thoughts, thanks for the replies so far!

[Lathais]

Hmm, getting/reading a lot of mixed reactions regarding the CPU and GPU. Some people say the CPU is decent enough, if I upgrade the GPU but some say the CPU is shit and the GPU wont change a lot. Kinda on the fence now, leaning towards upgrading the entire system...I know AMD isn't the best for gaming, then again, I'm not looking for some high end performance, just High is good enough, I'm not even using the Shadows and stuff. Got a laptop from work that has an i5 and 8gb ram, dont even know the GPU, but it can run wow at least on Medium/High. Maybe I'm better off just getting a new board, cpu and gpu. Anyways, not gonna bother you guys with my thoughts, thanks for the replies so far!

There are a LOT of people out there, some that claim to be experts, that simply do not understand IPC and how it affects certain games, mostly MMOs. They look at the gHz and that's it, which is not a fair comparison when looking across brands or even across generations. For most single player games, it does not really make a difference either. As soon as you throw a CPU bound game like WoW in the mix though, that changes drastically and many can not get over that. That or they bought AMD and are trying to justify it as well. The simple fact of the matter is though, and there are benchmarks that prove this, a Pentium G3258 blows the socks of AMD chips at IPC, which is all WoW cares about.

To put it simply, WoW runs primarily on a single thread that can not be hyperthreaded. AMD excels at Hyperthreading, but not at IPC. They went the route of more cores that are weaker individually. This thread also must be done in order. So the chip that can handle more Instructions Per Cycle will win hands down for WoW.

Compounding the issue, you GPU is pretty crap too. Your assessment of being better off replacing everything is pretty spot on. I mean it's got 1GB of DDR2 RAM. Your system RAM is faster than that.