Videocard Upgrade Questions!

[Auberdeen]

Looking to upgrade my ancient Radeon HD 7700 video card to something a little more up to date for Legion. Ultra setting aren't looking to hot, and I can only assume it's the video card that needs an upgrade.

Curious on:
- what is current these days with Videocards in terms of specs, and wondering what is preferred or needed in terms of Memory Size (2/4/6/8GB?) Memory Interface (128 or 256-Bit or ?) and core clock/boost clock speeds.

- sure the card is compatible as well with my build and Windows 10, and make sure I don't cause any possible bottlenecking

- any features that are card specific? I read that some cards are better for streaming or have certain perks

The cards I am really considering are the GeForce GTX 1060 ($250), Radeon RX 470($200), Radeon RX 480 4GB or 8GB matter?($245), Radeon R9 380X ($220), but also curious how these GeForce GTX 960($170), GeForce GTX 970 ($250) differ from the others, because the GeForce GTX 960/70 test well against GeForce GTX 1060 on benchmark charts.

Any other cards I should be considering in the $170-250 USD range?

Current Setup:
OS - Windows 10 Pro
CPU - AMD FX-8350
Mboard - ASUS M5A97
RAM - Ripjaw 16GB DDR3
Videocard - AMD Radeon HD 7700
Storage - Corsair 480GB SSD, 1TB HDD
PSU - Corsair CX600M
Cooler - Corsair H60

Thanks a lot!

[Holofernes]

the benefit of the higher cards is playing in higher resolutions with the new 4 k monitors. if u play in hd, a 960 or some rx will do fine, especially for wow. Might think about processor more in regards to wow.

[Thunderball]

GTX 1060 - slightly faster than GTX 970, cooler and less power consumption. Avoid single fan designs, if you want to OC make sure card has at least 6+6 additional power.
RX 480 8GB - couldnt find anything in stock. Slightly less powerful than GTX 1060 overall, faster in most DX12 games but hotter and consumes more power. Make sure to avoid reference designs.
RX 470 8GB - basically a RX 480 with a partially defunct GPU that had them disabled. Marginally less powerful than RX 470 and a lot better bang for the buck in my opinion.
RX 470 4GB.

RX 470 just released and are mostly on backorder. RX 480 are still not present in sufficient quantities due to cryptocoin miners buying those out. GTX 960 and GTX 970 are not worth considering.

[Auberdeen]

the benefit of the higher cards is playing in higher resolutions with the new 4 k monitors. if u play in hd, a 960 or some rx will do fine, especially for wow. Might think about processor more in regards to wow.

what wrong with the processor? I was under the impression it was a pretty good one and great for WoW....

[Holofernes]

i think your cpu is from 2012 or so, and even back than it was below the mid-tier i5s. So its not that much gaming performance, i own a similar cpu and if i compare it to a i 7 its like half the fps in heavy raid situations (its less than a 3rd in price, so its ok). A High End gfx card for Wow is not really needed, if u dont run big screen resolutions, a 960 or some amd rx (hell even the older gtx 7xxseries dont run into fps problems on HD Resolution, but i would go for a direct x 12 card nowadays). a 960 for example can run wow on hightest gfx settings on 1900 resolution without activating its cooler, and the amd counterparts are even stronger for the same price.

[Thunderball]

what wrong with the processor? I was under the impression it was a pretty good one and great for WoW....

AMD processors are bad for WoW in general. Your processor should be running very heavy overclock to justify it's existence.

[Auberdeen]

AMD processors are bad for WoW in general. Your processor should be running very heavy overclock to justify it's existence.

is that true or are you hard trolling? which CPU would u recommend that IS AMD so I dont have to swap mboards for an Intel? or do i just have to bite the bullet and go Intel....?

[Evildeffy]

CURRENT AMD processors are not the best processors for WoW.
Even though their relative strength can be good in properly optimized programmes in WoW the rules change.

Due to the nature of how WoW's engine handles everything it, by far, prefers IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) over Core Count.

That is all set to change with AMD's new ZEN architecture though but is still going to cause you to switch motherboard/RAM to do so and irrelevant for your timing.
As to give you an idea of how old WoW's engine is an Intel Core i3-6100 CPU (2C/4T) runs laps around an FX-9590 CPU (8C).

Whilst the AMD CPUs are not bad technology in general it simply cannot compete with Intel in World of WarCraft.
(ZEN as said will but too far away still!)

[Saphyron]

Get the i3-6300 cpu or i5-6600k the i3 is much cheaper and good cpu for a low to medium end build.

as for gpu get the 1060 or RX 480

Always avoid amd cpu in regards to gaming. even more so on mmo gaming.

[Censored Dirtyword]

WoW is primarily single threaded for CPU utilization. AMD processors are poor at single thread performance.

No bias/trolling... Truth.

1060 is your best option for graphics card.

As for looking at upgrading the CPU, it will require a complete rebuild as even Zen will be AM4 socket and any intel will require a new board as well.

[Auberdeen]

CURRENT AMD processors are not the best processors for WoW.
Even though their relative strength can be good in properly optimized programmes in WoW the rules change.

Due to the nature of how WoW's engine handles everything it, by far, prefers IPC (Instructions Per Cycle) over Core Count.

That is all set to change with AMD's new ZEN architecture though but is still going to cause you to switch motherboard/RAM to do so and irrelevant for your timing.
As to give you an idea of how old WoW's engine is an Intel Core i3-6100 CPU (2C/4T) runs laps around an FX-9590 CPU (8C).

Whilst the AMD CPUs are not bad technology in general it simply cannot compete with Intel in World of WarCraft.
(ZEN as said will but too far away still!)

ok great! but i still have to buy an intel motherboard as well right? there isnt such thing as a converter or something is there?

[Saphyron]

ok great! but i still have to buy an intel motherboard as well right? there isnt such thing as a converter or something is there?

Sadly not. Good luck though.

[Evildeffy]

ok great! but i still have to buy an intel motherboard as well right? there isnt such thing as a converter or something is there?

As stated by @chaosjones ... no there is not.
For both you will have to buy a new motherboard and RAM and potentially cooler as well.

The other alternative is to live with it and pray that Blizzard adds the Vulkan Graphics API to the game in which case the CPU bottleneck becomes irrelevant.
However ... I wouldn't really wait for that to happen anytime soon.

[hellhamster]

Correct me if I'm wrong, the 470 is probably the best value per dollar card on the market right now, sitting at 200$.

[Deleted]

For WoW you may want to consider a CPU Upgrade, you won't get much out of a GPU Upgrade unless you play in a ridiculous Resolution.

[Denpepe]

Correct me if I'm wrong, the 470 is probably the best value per dollar card on the market right now, sitting at 200$.

Maybe, but not if all you play is wow or blizzard games as they run better on Nvidia hardware for some reason.

[Evildeffy]

Maybe, but not if all you play is wow or blizzard games as they run better on Nvidia hardware for some reason.

The reason is quite simple... Blizzard develops first and foremost with and for nVidia hardware.
They then adapt to AMD and Intel afterwards.

Add to the fact that nVidia's DX11 drivers are better optimised in a CPU bound game it becomes a clear picture.

nVidia will therefore always be at an advantage until Blizzard implements either DX12 or Vulkan APIs into their games (properly).
In which case both driver and CPU bottlenecks are mostly gone and 300 FPS mythic raiding encounters will actually be a possibility.

[Thunderball]

Correct me if I'm wrong, the 470 is probably the best value per dollar card on the market right now, sitting at 200$.

Specifically RX 470 8GB if you can find it for $220. 4GB version not so much.

[Auberdeen]

The reason is quite simple... Blizzard develops first and foremost with and for nVidia hardware.
They then adapt to AMD and Intel afterwards.

Add to the fact that nVidia's DX11 drivers are better optimised in a CPU bound game it becomes a clear picture.

nVidia will therefore always be at an advantage until Blizzard implements either DX12 or Vulkan APIs into their games (properly).
In which case both driver and CPU bottlenecks are mostly gone and 300 FPS mythic raiding encounters will actually be a possibility.

has Blizz made any kind of official comment on why they have not yet or if they care to implement it in the near future? what is their gripe with it? as an amateur to comp tech, whats the hold up or drawback for reason they haven't?

[Evildeffy]

has Blizz made any kind of official comment on why they have not yet or if they care to implement it in the near future? what is their gripe with it? as an amateur to comp tech, whats the hold up or drawback for reason they haven't?

It takes quite a bit of time to develop the API as it requires adaptation of WoW's engine to make it happen.
It's a lot of work as it involves creating the API, adapting WoW's engine, beta testing and rolling out.

Knowing Blizzard they generally don't do a half-assed job with such things so it will take at least a year.

Adapting an engine that is millions of lines of code and maintaining coherency and consistency is extremely daunting.
Remember stuff needs to continue working the same way as before.

Blizzard is part of the Vulkan group so I would guess that it will be here but not until it is ready.
And Blizzard is famous for it's "SoonTM" or "Not until it's ready" statements.

I guess they don't want to bring up the possible API change in WoW in case it doesn't work or work out as they planned.