CPU upgrade for World of warcraft!

Danny96s · May 3, 2017

Hi, Im new to PC building but im getting there.
My current PC is prebuilt.
AMD FX-4300 3.80 GHz Quad-Core CPU
ASUS GeForce GTX950-M-2GD5 GPU
Mobo: MSI 760GM-P23 AMD 760G Chipset DDR3 Socket AM3+ Micro ATX
1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
8GB (2x4GB) DDR3/1866mhz Dual Channel Memory (HyperX Fury
w/Heat Spreader)
This setup served me well for 2 years until a fault in my PSU caused me to send off for repairs. Now I know a bit more about PC components I see that the motherboard and processor are not ideal, Lately I experience about 40-60 dps idle and 20 and below in raids in world of warcraft at lowest settings. I was able to play BF4 and GTA V at 60 fps with medium to high settings fine but as soon as it comes to wow i assume my CPU isn't up to par. Only CPU in my price range is the Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor which would lead to me potentially buying Gigabyte GA-H170-HD3 DDR3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard if the CPU is worth the upgrade which leads to an upgrade price of £240 gbp including the CPU fan I must buy which is far beyond what I was happy to pay but it can be arranged as long as It will allow me to play my favourite game at a smooth FPS, Im happy with my GPU for now as i barely go over 45c during raiding in wow. Is there a cheaper and/or smarter alternative to my option? if so please let me know as it would be of great help.

chemmajorp53 · May 3, 2017

I wouldn't buy the 6400, either get an R5 1400 with a B350 motherboard and overclock a little bit, spring for an i5 7500, or get a pentium G4560. The 6400 is too slow for how much it costs. I would honestly lead towards the Ryzen system at this point and try to OC to 3.8-3.9GHz+ if you can. That will give you the best value.

jaslion · May 3, 2017

Danny96s :

Hi, Im new to PC building but im getting there.
My current PC is prebuilt.
AMD FX-4300 3.80 GHz Quad-Core CPU
ASUS GeForce GTX950-M-2GD5 GPU
Mobo: MSI 760GM-P23 AMD 760G Chipset DDR3 Socket AM3+ Micro ATX
1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
8GB (2x4GB) DDR3/1866mhz Dual Channel Memory (HyperX Fury
w/Heat Spreader)
This setup served me well for 2 years until a fault in my PSU caused me to send off for repairs. Now I know a bit more about PC components I see that the motherboard and processor are not ideal, Lately I experience about 40-60 dps idle and 20 and below in raids in world of warcraft at lowest settings. I was able to play BF4 and GTA V at 60 fps with medium to high settings fine but as soon as it comes to wow i assume my CPU isn't up to par. Only CPU in my price range is the Intel Core i5-6400 2.7GHz Quad-Core Processor which would lead to me potentially buying Gigabyte GA-H170-HD3 DDR3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard if the CPU is worth the upgrade which leads to an upgrade price of £240 gbp including the CPU fan I must buy which is far beyond what I was happy to pay but it can be arranged as long as It will allow me to play my favourite game at a smooth FPS, Im happy with my GPU for now as i barely go over 45c during raiding in wow. Is there a cheaper and/or smarter alternative to my option? if so please let me know as it would be of great help.

A pentium g4560 would be a great choice or even the i3 7100. Wow uses 2 cores and the faster the first 2 cores the better.

chemmajorp53 · May 3, 2017

The Pentium will be fantastic for WOW, but considering that it sounds like he also plays AAA titles, I feel like the extra cores would be a sound investment to be honest.

I would get something like this and plan on adding another 8GB of RAM and possibly a better CPU cooler at some point down the line. You can also sell all your current stuff to mitigate the cost a bit.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/x4rR6X

Danny96s · May 4, 2017

wont duel core cpu's be slower then quad core? most other posts recomend quad core as wow is so CPU intensive? Id be willing to get the i5 7500 kaby lake but then the problem of a pricey Mobo arises which I dont know much about, can anyone tell me a cheap but reliable mobo that will work for kabylake that wont set me back so much?

LucoTF · May 4, 2017

Good price on a 6500 here, comes boxed with a fan

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£153.47 @ BT Shop)
Motherboard: MSI H110M PRO-VD PLUS Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£42.30 @ Novatech)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£50.10 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £245.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-05-04 10:56 BST+0100

Danny96s · May 4, 2017

I see about 3 options ahead of me all reasonably similar prices, ryzen5 1400, i5 6500 and i5 7500, my point still remains, which would be best for wow, however im now wondedering if the 7500 is worth it simply because its intel and part of the kaby lake, as i said im new to all of this so would like some more input.

LucoTF · May 4, 2017

Strictly for WoW intel is king because of the higher single core performance. Warcraft only really uses two cores

Danny96s · May 4, 2017

So an i3 7350k for example could be an improvement over all the others ive talked about? if wow uses 2 cores this should do more the fine as an upgrade over my quad core fx 4300? Its once again similarly priced as the others but I just want to be sure

LucoTF · May 4, 2017

Danny96s :

Yes, BUT the two other games you've mentioned (BF1 & GTA5) will happily run on as many cores as you give them, and it's a little short sighted to build around 1 game

jaslion · May 4, 2017

Danny96s :

I would say get a ryzen 1500(x) or up an give it a little oc.This way wow will perform great and the other games will to. Bf1 struggles on pentiums and i3's and also has problems in big matches on i5's.

superninja12 · May 4, 2017

you guys are forgetting, he also needs a new windows lisence + he needs to erase his harddrive.

would to be honest look on ebay for a used fx 8350,+New cpu paste+a used gtx 1060 6gb + a new psu.
less trouble and would play wow with ease.

jaslion · May 4, 2017

superninja12 :

Just go and call/message ms to have it unbound from that pc and he can use it again on the new one. For a new install he just needs to backup his data and wipe it when he installs the new os.

LucoTF · May 4, 2017

In addition to the above, i would not put a 125w cpu in that motherboard as it will likely throttle to all hell and back

jeffredo · May 4, 2017

For WoW all you really need is a PC with a G4560 and a GTX 1060 3GB. That should net you an 8 or 9 (out of ten) on the graphics preset slider. It would absolutely wipe the floor with your current setup. Even if you kept the GTX 950 you should still get a solid "7".

I've assembled a lot of PCs the last few years for family members and usually test them out for a month before they get them. Since WoD and now Legion I've played the game on an FX-4130 @ 4.5 Ghz + GTX 950, Pentium G3258 @ 4.5 Ghz + GTX 960, an FX-8320E @ 4.4 Ghz + GTX 960 4GB x2 in SLI, an i5-4690k + GTX 970 and now with a GTX 1060 6GB and an i7 4790k + GTX 1070. These are all on 1920x1200 monitors. I have a pretty good guess of what a class of CPU + GPU get in the game. The G4560 with a GTX 1060 3GB would do great @ 1080p.

superninja12 · May 4, 2017

hmm i would get a 50 dollar fx 6300 and run it.

or get a complete new pc.

jaslion · May 4, 2017

superninja12 :

A 6300 would make wow run even worse because it's clocked lower.

superninja12 · May 4, 2017

jaslion :

you're right , ignore my advise op.
sorry gentlemen

EpIckFa1LJoN · May 10, 2017

TL;DR

For WoW you want the fastest per-core speed processor you can afford...

WoW is terrible at utilizing multiple cores so in theory a 5.5GHz duo core processor will outperform 2 6950X's.
In fact, strictly speaking for WoW a $100 i3 7100 will beat out AMD's flagship $500+ RyZen 1800X because of per core speed.

My suggestion is get the fastest duo/quad core you can afford if all you're doing is playing WoW. There's absolutely no sense in spending $500 plus dollars for a 8 or more core processor when it won't even outperform a $300 7700K.

And right now, the 7700K is still the best gaming processor on the market. If you can afford/are willing to pay for it.

I'm waiting on 8th gen or even I would upgrade from the 6700K to that just for WoW. I have a $6,000 system and I can only get like 45fps (on 7 for graphics) in big raids because the game relies too heavily on a single core, and barely utilizes 3 more, and doesn't even use the other 4 cores/threads.

Faike · Jun 10, 2017

This is late but try opening WoW from the WoW folder not the battle.net client.
I got like so many more frames doing this than using battle.net (8 during a raid - 90)

jdredmond · Dec 22, 2017

So what IS the fastest per-core speed processor for WOW that you would recommend?

EpIckFa1LJoN :

TL;DR

For WoW you want the fastest per-core speed processor you can afford...

WoW is terrible at utilizing multiple cores so in theory a 5.5GHz duo core processor will outperform 2 6950X's.
In fact, strictly speaking for WoW a $100 i3 7100 will beat out AMD's flagship $500+ RyZen 1800X because of per core speed.

My suggestion is get the fastest duo/quad core you can afford if all you're doing is playing WoW. There's absolutely no sense in spending $500 plus dollars for a 8 or more core processor when it won't even outperform a $300 7700K.

And right now, the 7700K is still the best gaming processor on the market. If you can afford/are willing to pay for it.

I'm waiting on 8th gen or even I would upgrade from the 6700K to that just for WoW. I have a $6,000 system and I can only get like 45fps (on 7 for graphics) in big raids because the game relies too heavily on a single core, and barely utilizes 3 more, and doesn't even use the other 4 cores/threads.

EpIckFa1LJoN · Dec 24, 2017

there are a number of CPU's that can hit 5.0 GHz. The 7600k/7700k can get close, as well as the 8600k/8700k. And when I say close I mean 4.8-4.9GHz if not at or above 5.0GHz which they are all capable of if the chip is better than average. The 8350k is probably the cheapest one that is capable of getting close to 5.0GHz if not all the way to 5.0.

At stock, the fastest is the 8700k with a Turbo boost of 4.7GHz on a single core. (Need to verify it will only Turbo one core with WoW. If not the fastest actually might be the 7700k at stock.)

CPU upgrade for World of warcraft!

Prominent

Dignified

Splendid

Dignified

Prominent

Splendid

Prominent

Splendid

Prominent

Splendid

Splendid

Glorious

Splendid

Splendid

Distinguished

Glorious

Splendid

Glorious

Admirable

Notable

Prominent

Admirable

Share this page