Can my current system make use of a better Radeon card?

[piranha45]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: 0-4 Weeks

USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: World of Warcraft with maxed-out graphics, especially the water graphics

CURRENT GPU AND POWER SUPPLY: ATI Radeon HD 4850 and ANTEC|TP-750 750W

OTHER RELEVANT SYSTEM SPECS: INTEL|CORE I7 860 2.8G, WIN HOME PREM 7 64-BIT, motherboard ASUS|P7P55D PRO P55 RT, 2Gx2|GSKILL F3-12800CL7D-4GBRH RAM

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: newegg

OVERCLOCKING: No

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: No

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: I want to run WoW smoothly with graphics maximized if possible. Right now I can't come close to maxing the graphics while holding a decent framerate (the water effects really hassle my pc, with water effects and ground clutter minimized and all other graphics maxed my FPS drops below 60 less often). I am assuming that upgrading my graphics card will be the most efficient means of improving the game's performance. If I am wrong, please let me know.

Is my current system still strong enough to make use of the current top-level graphics cards? if it is not, are there older graphics cards I can still upgrade to and see substantial improvement with?

 

[geekapproved]

Yes you need a better graphics card.

You can go with any single graphics card you want.

 

[asnorton44]

Budget?

 

[larkspur]

Yep as said by geekapproved, your system can benefit and will support very expensive graphics. I might point out that WoW generally plays much better on nvidia cards.

The GTX 670 may be too pricey for whatever your budget is (and overkill for WoW) but holds the sweet spot in the high-end. A 580/570/560 ti should handle what you need, I haven't looked much at prices but Tom's recommended the 560ti at its price point.

If the 7850/7870 benefit as much from Catalyst 12.7 as the 7970 did in the recent article regarding the 7970 ghz edition then those look like very nice powerful options even though they don't fare so well in these benches with older drivers: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7870-review-benchmark,3148-16.html

 

[piranha45]

~$500 budget.

It doesnt seem like the 5000 series ati cards are being sold on newegg anymore. If the 7870 is my strongest option then I'm getting excited!

From my understanding motherboards and possibly other pieces of my hardware are only compatible with ATI cards so I think I'd want to stick with ATI rather than nvidia...

 

[Symbolik]

Your motherboard supports all cards. The 7000 series radeons are your best bet price to performance. And it'd definitely make a difference, you've got a pretty beefy system that would most definitely make use of a more/most powerful card.

 

[piranha45]

fun I bought all this pc's parts in october 2009, it's exciting to see they're still holding up well!

 

[vmem]

you still have a solid system running mate. if you'd like a 7870, then go for it. for your budget you can even get a nice 7970 if you would like. sapphire gets my vote as the manufacturer of choice, but MSI is also excellent and arguable better (depending on who you talk to)

 

[bctande1]

Wow, your setup currently lies completely in the old generation. Firstly, you should put your budget.

You won't need to go that far to play WOW on Max settings

CPU - i5 3570k - Assuming you will not overclock, an i5 3570k would power every game you throw at it and will overall boost your computer speed from your last gen i7. WoW is a CPU intensive game mostly, so the 3570k would yield more improvements than a GPU

GPU - HD 7870 - This is truly a toss up, you don't need to push GTX 670 if you're not going to be running BF3 at Max 1080p settings. To be honest, with WoW, you can go as low as a 560ti an still hold a very pleasureable framerate. But, going on the condition that you will be playing other games, a sweet spot would be a HD 7870 at 320$ -- best GPU for it's price point. And contradictory to what larkspur says DO NOT purchase a 580. Right now it is EXTREMELY overpriced for its performance at 400$, whereas you could get a 670 for the same price and get about 50% extra performance.

PSU - Because your system is so old, I would assume that your doesn't break away from the fact. First off, 750w is only necessary if you are running Multi-GPU setups. With the 7870 and 3570k, a GOOD QUALITY 650w would ensure optimal performance.

Ram - You're ok

Conclusion - WoW doesn't need top of the line anything really all you need is a i5 2500k Intel processor and Gtx 560 to run it at constant 60. But for the sake of future-proofing, I'd say go my setup I recommended uptop

Good Luck !!

 

[vmem]

Wow, your setup currently lies completely in the old generation. Firstly, you should put your budget.

You won't need to go that far to play WOW on Max settings

CPU - i5 3570k - Assuming you will not overclock, an i5 3570k would power every game you throw at it and will overall boost your computer speed from your last gen i7. WoW is a CPU intensive game mostly, so the 3570k would yield more improvements than a GPU

GPU - HD 7870 - This is truly a toss up, you don't need to push GTX 670 if you're not going to be running BF3 at Max 1080p settings. To be honest, with WoW, you can go as low as a 560ti an still hold a very pleasureable framerate. But, going on the condition that you will be playing other games, a sweet spot would be a HD 7870 at 320$ -- best GPU for it's price point. And contradictory to what larkspur says DO NOT purchase a 580. Right now it is EXTREMELY overpriced for its performance at 400$, whereas you could get a 670 for the same price and get about 50% extra performance.

PSU - Because your system is so old, I would assume that your doesn't break away from the fact. First off, 750w is only necessary if you are running Multi-GPU setups. With the 7870 and 3570k, a GOOD QUALITY 650w would ensure optimal performance.

Ram - You're ok

Conclusion - WoW doesn't need top of the line anything really all you need is a i5 2500k Intel processor and Gtx 560 to run it at constant 60. But for the sake of future-proofing, I'd say go my setup I recommended uptop

Good Luck !!

dude, that's a good set-up you're recommending, but he doesn't NEED any of it... 3 years is not that old and his system would still run just about everything fine. it's worth saving $500 by simply downgrading from "ultra" to "high" and 8xAA to 2xAA. especially since haswell's coming next year, it's absolutely silly to go ivybridge if all the OP needs it for is to play WOW

oh and an ivy bridge and 7870 set up can run on a 500W PSU from seasonic or corsair just fine... don't overspend other people's money

just my 2 cents

 

[bctande1]

dude, that's a good set-up you're recommending, but he doesn't NEED any of it... 3 years is not that old and his system would still run just about everything fine. it's worth saving $500 by simply downgrading from "ultra" to "high" and 8xAA to 2xAA. especially since haswell's coming next year, it's absolutely silly to go ivybridge if all the OP needs it for is to play WOW

oh and an ivy bridge and 7870 set up can run on a 500W PSU from seasonic or corsair just fine... don't overspend other people's money

just my 2 cents

Look at my conclusion..... I said he should only go with my setup for future proofing, not for wow.. And same with the PSU, I used the word future proofing for a reason. Becauae a 670 will most likely need at least a 550w, if he ever needed to upgrade. I said that he won't necessarily need any of what I said but if he wanted to solid system that wouldn't require upgrading for a whole, he could've gone with my setup

A 4870 barely touches a 560ti so no way a 4850 could even be close
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/513?vs=547

 

[piranha45]

Best answer selected by piranha45.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey