Hi all!
My PC is now that
MB: AsRock z170 Pro4S
CPU: i5-6600K @4.6GHz
RAM: 16gb (8x2) Crucial Ballistix 3200 16-18-18-36
SSD: 2x Samsung 840 EVO 250gb in RAID0
GPU: Asus Geforce GTX 970 Turbo (1250MHz&7050MHz)
PSU: Thermaltake Berlin 630W
I have two alternatives:
Change CPU with: i7-6700K o al massimo i7-7700K
or
Change CPU with: GTX 1660ti 6gb
What’s the best upgrade to play WoW? CPU or GPU for my PC?
I play @ 1080
THANKS
Main question - what you want to achieve with an upgrade?
Upgrading 4/4 CPU to 4/8 has no point. GPU upgrade to 1660Ti would be good, although if you want big improvement you would also have to upgrade the CPU to at least Ryzen 5 3600 or Intel i5-9400F if cheap enough (overall AMD has better offers for the most price/performance brackets). For a long lasting upgrade you should go with 8+ core CPU.
Do you mean that I would have no improvement from a i5-6600K to a i7-7700K with WoW
Hyperthreading has very little to no effect on games (R5 3500X vs R5 3600) while BfA areas already scale FPS beyond 4 cores, so yes, there would a very limit gain with 7700K and even less in any modern more demanding game. You would gain few hundred MHz clocks if not OC but IMHO that isn’t worth it. It’s a dead platform. Are you on a tight budget?
I have not set a budget, but to change CPU I thought I would wait for the new platform with DDR5 in 1/2 years.
Now I’m looking for an upgrade that will give me an advantage especially in crowded areas where FPS drop a lot.
I could have more performance with a 1660ti instead my 970 turbo?
It always will drop to like 40-60 FPS.
I don’t expect it to be that major thing and going DDR5 early adopter you will pay the early adopter tax. And I wouldn’t expect DDR5 mainstream before 2022 or later.
Yes, just note that some scenarios like many-actors-at-once aren’t purely GPU workload (some are more CPU or network/throughput/latency related).
You can check my “old hardware” benchmarks:
https://rk.edu.pl/en/benchmarking-and-analyzing-world-warcraft-performance/6-core battle:
https://rk.edu.pl/en/ryzen-5-3500x-versus-i5-9400f-world-warcraft/Or the latest CPU roundup from Hardware Numb3rs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7vKkAlMTMsCan you really not run 60 FPS with that? Because it seems like a solid, if slightly old, set up that should be quite adequate for wow…
The gpu is a better bet though. Hyperthreading will not help you.
i run at 60 FPS always except in crowded cities and raids where it also drops below 30FPS
I have a 1060 3GB and windows is telling me it’s using <5% most of the time playing WoW (which I find odd but okay). My CPU is always around 19% (Ryzen 5 2600). If you want performance in WoW, pick something with a high single core performance.
Hmm… I mean, most people dip a little in raids. Below 30 is quite severe though. How much vram is on your current graphics card? Are you sure it’s not full of fluff and overheating, since it is rather old?
For comparison, I run with an 8700k @ 5ghz, and a 1060 with 6GB, 2560x1440 resolution. I have most settings on maximum, with the exception of shadows and particle density. Usually I run a solid 60 fps, although raids might drop me down to the upper 40s.
I stand by my feeling that the GPU is your bottleneck because a quad core at 4.6 is no slouch, but a 1660 vs a 970 is only about a 20-40% gain in benchmarks so it’s not really going to change your 30 fps minimums significantly unless the problem is a lack of vram or actual hardware problem.
Ryzen 5 1500x
8 Gb ddr 4
500gb SSD PCIe
GTX 1060 6 GB
I have most on high or near the max and never have significant drops.
The best thing you can do is to upgrade your gpu.
Isnt it better to just buy a “gamer” laptop? 
That way you can get your potato-thing everywhere you go. Its a lil hard to move a whole PC when you go to your village or vacation, etc. WoW doesnt require so much to run it.
I don’t think that needs upgrading, unless you want to play at 100fps+ on maximum settings, most of which don’t make more than 1% difference from high to very high.
Make sure you have a 120Hz monitor or better otherwise you’re capped at 60 fps as WoW and most games now are capping your fps to your monitors HZ
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