i3-3225 to i5-6400

[Exiztence]

So I guess time has come for some upgrades, FPS drops especially at pulls reached unbearable level and as consequence I am in market for some upgrades.
Current setup:
i3-3225
Gainward GTX 650 1GB DDR5
Corsair Vengeance Black 4GB DDR3 1600
GIGABYTE H77N-WIFI

So I guess my question would be, what would be the most efficient upgrade, was thinking of getting i5-6400 with 8 gigs of DDR4. I play only WoW on this computer so any pointers are welcome.

[Deleted]

While the CPU is important, you're going to spend a lot to upgrade, the i3 isn't super fast at 3.3 but still decent enough IMO. I'd probably start with a GTX 960 or 970, your current one is lacking behind quite a bit.

[WarBringerPT]

While the CPU is important, you're going to spend a lot to upgrade, the i3 isn't super fast at 3.3 but still decent enough IMO. I'd probably start with a GTX 960 or 970, your current one is lacking behind quite a bit.

His issue is cpu, not gpu, and given he only plays wow on that pc means that having a better cpu is a far better upgrade than a better gpu.
Though, that i5 will probably not be a major upgrade , 2.7ghz with turbo to 3.3ghz. You really want more ghz.

[Ghâzh]

There's no cheap logical upgrade path for you I'm afraid. The i3-3225 to i5-6400 is not an upgrade. You are trading 2 core with Hyper Threading to 4 real cores so nothing major for WoW, both clocked at the same 3.3GHz. You'd want i5-6600 as a minimum to be worthy upgrade in my opinion (and even edging towards 6600K for overclocking potential). On top of that your GTX 650 is weak at the best and will most likely hold you back if you want to play at anything else than low settings.

[Exiztence]

Thanks for comments, I suppose that buying GTX960/70 would make bigger difference ? I guess tossing extra 4 gigs of RAM for pesky chrome tabs on 2nd screen wouldn't hurt matters ?

[Artorius]

Definitely have at least 8gb of ram. 16 is already at the just in case category, 8 is still fine. But 4 is not enough.

[WarBringerPT]

Thanks for comments, I suppose that buying GTX960/70 would make bigger difference ? I guess tossing extra 4 gigs of RAM for pesky chrome tabs on 2nd screen wouldn't hurt matters ?

The component upgrade that will be more noticeable is cpu. I agree with Ghâzh, in that he finished my 1st post. You need more ghz on your cpu to have a better experience in wow. I bought last year a g3258, oced it to 4.2ghz and it ran mythic fine (was even able to stream, albeit with some hiccups to the stream due to the pentium being a dual core).
Savee up for a bigger upgrade, if it's just for wow you may consider haswell, I recently bought a i5 4690k, compare prices of buying a haswell + mobo + 4gb ddr3 vs skylake + mobo + ddr4.

About the 4gb you have, if you only have wow open it won't consume more than 2gb (unless you're abusing on addons). If you start to open n tabs on chrome or n quantity of programs, all running at the same time, you will spend all your ram. 4gb is fine for having ONLY wow open.

[Ghâzh]

Thanks for comments, I suppose that buying GTX960/70 would make bigger difference ?

GTX 960 or 970 would make a big difference in basically every other game but WoW. You'd still be held back by your CPU.

[Denpepe]

GTX 960 or 970 would make a big difference in basically every other game but WoW. You'd still be held back by your CPU.

It's a bit of a catch 22 situation, a CPU might help more then a GPU, but a GTX 650 is pretty dated too and will hold the game back, minimum fps might improve with a stronger CPU but not sure it will resolve low fps, ofc this also depends somewhat on resolution.

[Exiztence]

Thanks for all help, got 960 and extra 4 gigs of RAM, gameplay seems tons better.

[Deleted]

Thanks for all help, got 960 and extra 4 gigs of RAM, gameplay seems tons better.

I'm happy you're seeing a performance gain.

I know Warbringer touched on the "it's the CPU..." and I do agree that a better CPU is advisable. The main issue as I was trying to point out in my first post was, that in the long run, starting with the GPU as it's lacking behind quite a lot in comparison would be the smarter choice right now. Upgrading the CPU would require a new motherboard AND new RAM which would run you a lot more right now. Your RAM and motherboard were already perfectly fine so in a sense, it was waste money if you had to choose between upgrades.

It's not that there was really a 100% right or wrong choice so I let you know what I would do, thinking long term and a cost to performance ratio.

[Denpepe]

Good to hear

[WarBringerPT]

I'm happy you're seeing a performance gain.

I know Warbringer touched on the "it's the CPU..." and I do agree that a better CPU is advisable. The main issue as I was trying to point out in my first post was, that in the long run, starting with the GPU as it's lacking behind quite a lot in comparison would be the smarter choice right now. Upgrading the CPU would require a new motherboard AND new RAM which would run you a lot more right now. Your RAM and motherboard were already perfectly fine so in a sense, it was waste money if you had to choose between upgrades.

It's not that there was really a 100% right or wrong choice so I let you know what I would do, thinking long term and a cost to performance ratio.

Given that OP said he only plays wow, a cpu upgrade would be far better than a gpu upgrade, since you can play at low settings + smooth fps with a cpu upgrade, but you cant play smooth with high settings(nor low settings) with the gpu upgrade.
If he stated that he would play other games sure, gpu upgrade > cpu upgrade. WoW only, cpu > gpu.

I mean, if you stutter now with low graphical settings, upgrading the gpu will bring you stutter with better graphics.

It's like tomb raider (2013), gpu-bound game. The game has the same fps with a dual core, quad, hexa, octa-core. It will run shitty on either if you have a shitty gpu. It will work smoothly if you have a good gpu.
WoW is nearly the same, only you can play smoothly with low settings.

[Deleted]

Given that OP said he only plays wow, a cpu upgrade would be far better than a gpu upgrade, since you can play at low settings + smooth fps with a cpu upgrade, but you cant play smooth with high settings(nor low settings) with the gpu upgrade.
If he stated that he would play other games sure, gpu upgrade > cpu upgrade. WoW only, cpu > gpu.

I mean, if you stutter now with low graphical settings, upgrading the gpu will bring you stutter with better graphics.

It's like tomb raider (2013), gpu-bound game. The game has the same fps with a dual core, quad, hexa, octa-core. It will run shitty on either if you have a shitty gpu. It will work smoothly if you have a good gpu.
WoW is nearly the same, only you can play smoothly with low settings.

You're still missing the entire point. We are not debating if the CPU or GPU would net the biggest performance increase. Reread my reply and you'll see.

[WarBringerPT]

You're still missing the entire point. We are not debating if the CPU or GPU would net the biggest performance increase. Reread my reply and you'll see.

I didn't miss the point. He would have spent more money on cpu + mobo + ram, but would net more performance in wow, which is the only game he plays. OP had an upgrade in fps, ok, but he will still have the shitty performance in raids/pvp.
OP stated that he only plays wow, I gave what would be the biggest increase(cpu). He didn't state budget nor that he would only buy cpu or gpu. So, I didn't miss any point. Cpu upgrade was the best choice.
But good on op for having noticed an increase in performance, just dont try to raid mythic, else you'll see the same performance as when you had the gtx 650 (but with better graphics).

[Artorius]

i3s and Pentiums are completely fine for WoW. Even a single core CPU with HT would be fine. The GTX960 was a good upgrade.

[Deleted]

The point is, the i3 is more than capable, so, in the long run, there is a bigger benefit from replacing the lacking GPU. Which cost him much less than replacing CPU+MB+RAM, current board and RAM was fine.