Should I upgrade?

[FrostyButt]

Listed below is the "meat" of my system

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5-4690 CPU @ 3.50GHz
Memory: 16GB Corsair Vengence (8GBx2 DDR3)
Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
Motherboard - Asrock B85 [4 DDR3 Memory Slots]
Power Supply - [Modular] Corsair Enthusiast Series RM650 650 Watt 80 Plus Gold

As someone who doesn't really have a clue how to build a PC. I know people say "It's just like putting LEGO together" but I'm sure there is more to it than that. I personally would like to maybe like to upgrade my graphics card, but would I need a newer motherboard for the newer cards?

[Heffladin]

Your system is perfectly sufficient for 1080 p gaming. So my question is, what do you need to upgrade for?

[Vexione]

Like what Heffladin said, what do you need to upgrade for? If you're trying to get more FPS out of WoW, you will need to do a major overhaul of your system such as getting a 7th gen i5 or i7 along with a 10 series GPU and new LGA1151 (for the 7th gen CPU) motherboard. Simply upgrading just your GPU to a 10 series, or adding more RAM will just net you minimal FPS gains, unless you're gaming on 1080P - if that's the case then a GPU upgrade alone should give noticeable FPS increases. WoW is a CPU dependent game though, so your i5 CPU will probably bottleneck your new GPU especially in raid settings.

For reference, I went from i7 4790 16GB DDR3 RAM and GTX 1080 to i7 7770k 16GB DDR4 RAM (same GTX 1080) and now get around 130 FPS in Dalaran on a 1440P monitor (got around 60-80 FPS with my previous build).

[FrostyButt]

Your system is perfectly sufficient for 1080 p gaming. So my question is, what do you need to upgrade for?

I like to stream the video games I play, so I noticed when I attempt to stream in high quality, my PC seems to take a HUGE hit in terms of performance. So I thought maybe I needed to upgrade something.

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Like what Heffladin said, what do you need to upgrade for? If you're trying to get more FPS out of WoW, you will need to do a major overhaul of your system such as getting a 7th gen i5 or i7 along with a 10 series GPU and new LGA1151 (for the 7th gen CPU) motherboard. Simply upgrading just your GPU to a 10 series, or adding more RAM will just net you minimal FPS gains, unless you're gaming on 1080P - if that's the case then a GPU upgrade alone should give noticeable FPS increases. WoW is a CPU dependent game though, so your i5 CPU will probably bottleneck your new GPU especially in raid settings.

For reference, I went from i7 4790 16GB DDR3 RAM and GTX 1080 to i7 7770k 16GB DDR4 RAM (same GTX 1080) and now get around 130 FPS in Dalaran on a 1440P monitor (got around 60-80 FPS with my previous build).

I actually get around 110-120 FPS running around Dalaran, but I think I have most settings on medium to low. In the open world by myself I run around 180FPS.. And during raids, it jumps around from 70 to 80, to 100 depending on how much is going on.

I was actually looking at the "Build of the Month" and was thinking about doing something like that.. But again, I have no clue what the fuck I would be doing when putting a PC together from scratch.. I'm just really scared that I might break something and I don't really know anyone that lives around me to guide me on my first attempt. =D

[Vexione]

I like to stream the video games I play, so I noticed when I attempt to stream in high quality, my PC seems to take a HUGE hit in terms of performance. So I thought maybe I needed to upgrade something.

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I actually get around 110-120 FPS running around Dalaran, but I think I have most settings on medium to low. In the open world by myself I run around 180FPS.. And during raids, it jumps around from 70 to 80, to 100 depending on how much is going on.

I was actually looking at the "Build of the Month" and was thinking about doing something like that.. But again, I have no clue what the fuck I would be doing when putting a PC together from scratch.. I'm just really scared that I might break something and I don't really know anyone that lives around me to guide me on my first attempt. =D

IMO you should first decide if you want selective upgrades or if you want a complete overhaul. If you could afford it, a complete overhaul would benefit you in the longer run. Check out PC Part Picker website and build your rig then post it here if you want so we could comment on it. You'll never have to worry about compatibility issues because that site will alert you to any.

[Heffladin]

Well, if you're looking for a higher framerate (and fidelity), go with a new graphics card, since your processor is fine in terms of performance.

[Deleted]

Streaming hits the CPU pretty hard from what I've heard, you may want to look at the new ryzen 1700/1700x/1800x and your GPU may struggle depending on the games you are playing and graphics settings you want to play at.

My advice would be to check out as many reviews of what you are looking upgrading to written and YouTube, it's what I did for my 7700k upgrade when I was looking at getting a 1800x.

[Deleted]

Get a RX 480 and your system is just fine!

[lloose]

Get a RX 480 and your system is just fine!

This. You can get them for well under $200 now, even without rebates.

[Nellah]

Might look into an ASIC-enabled encoder like NVIDIA ShadowPlay or OBS QuickSync to take load off the CPU when you stream. QuickSync can do 1080p 60fps encoding fairly well, ShadowPlay probably the same (not sure how the 960 performs with it) with almost no CPU core involvement. After that you should do just fine unless you're looking to hit max detail levels in which case even a relatively inexpensive RX 480 4GB will be a major upgrade.