Hi and thanks for reading. I build a gaming computer back in 2012 and its been good but now with BFA graphics and shadowlands coming its starting to struggle. I don’t have loads of money to replace the whole thing but what could i upgrade which would make a better experience. Right now it takes ages at loading screens and I’d like to see what i could do to give the old girl another expansion.
Honestly, assuming you play only/mostly WoW an SSD would be a massive improvement.
I’ve upgraded from your CPU to a 8600k and paired it with a GTX 2070 (Non-super) and while that 100% helps too, it did very little for me in WoW as the game already ran decently without the upgrade.
The SSD loading time is amazing tho, very very swift. Even the “dreaded dalaran loading” many in Legion had due to both Allies and Horde’s being there making it very, very populated.
So I would recommend an SSD, a 128gb one is fine for WoW(And something else) and majorly impacts loading times.
You can see some comparisons in loading times from this Legion video
I’ve been using an SSD as a boot drive & a separate SSD as a WoW install drive for a good few years, now - load times are ridiculously fast.
Graphics could use an upgrade, too… that card is a good few years old, now & a 4GB part would improve things massively.
In all honesty, the whole rig is due a grass-roots upgrade - even an Intel 6th Gen./Ryzen 2nd Gen. setup wouldn’t be too ‘ouchy’ on yer wallet… but an SSD will be the biggest benefit; if you want to keep to a single drive, then a 480/500/512GB part is what I’d recommend, & re-purpose your 500GB HDD as a drive to store documents you can’t afford to lose.
I would go for a SSD 500/512 Gb, no less in size. They are quite affordable these days.
After that i would put extra 8Gb of RAM.
_Why? _ I use Windows 10 and with WoW open, plus a browser, im usually at 8Gb of ram used and sometimes above that, so it has a impact on performance.
These are the 2 most affordable upgrades that will have a impact in your playing sessions, imho.
Yeah, wouldn’t recommend running WoW with 8gb of ram anymore, even win10 will push to using the disk for virtual ram access.
Sweet spot is 16gb of ram, though I’m sure I seen one game that stated 12gb minimal specs coming out soon.
Not the norm, 16gb is the new mark to get to in a games system these days which allows a bit more breathing room for the OS and any other processes (programmes) you have running.
Agree on 6th gen Intel or Ryzen 2000 series. PCIE3 is still cheap enough and couldn’t recommend the newer boards with version 4. Too costly and not even sure what anything you would get loading times on a m.2 drive that used that bandwidth.
My 2700X and 2080ti runs wow fine at 1440p at level 7. So a 6th Gen Intel would as well be it a good i5 or a i7.
Forget the i9’s, too expensive. Bit like the Ryzen’s 9’s