My computer is about a decade old. It struggles to run WoW and a single Chrome tab at the same time. I am looking at the hardware requirements for Dragonflight and it appears I will not be able to play unless I make some upgrades. I am planning on just building a new machine. The minimum requirement listed for a CPU is one that has 4 cores and a clock frequency of 3.0 GHz. Similarly, the recommended requirement is one that has 6 cores and a clock frequency of 3.5 GHz.
I am leaning towards getting a CPU with 6 cores since I usually multitask while I play. However, I am finding that older generation CPUs recommended by Blizzard that meet the minimum and recommended requirements are much more expensive than some of the newer generation CPUs that don’t seem to meet these requirements.
In particular, the Intel Core i5 12400F is within my price range and is cheaper than some older generation CPUs recommended by Blizzard and cheaper than the Ryzen 5 5600X. However, it is quoted as having a base core clock of 2.5 GHz with an automatic boosted clock of up to 4.4 GHz under certain operating conditions.
If I don’t do any overclocking, is this CPU likely going to be a problem? I’m not sure how the automatic clock boosting works. If Dragonflight demands at least 3.0 GHz, will all of the CPUs used by the game boost up to 3.0 GHz?
As a general rule with gaming: never go for the minimum unless you’re fine with running a game at the lowest setting while it potentially struggles to maintain 30 FPS. It’s the minimum for a reason. Will it run? Sure. Doesn’t mean it will run well.
I’d myself would stay away from anything that runs at a lower base core clock and boosts up when needed. I’d rather know I’ve got the full power of my processor ready at a moment’s notice than rely on the processor suddenly deciding that it is time to go from 2.5 to 4.4 GHz.
I’m more of an AMD guy myself on processors. I’d say go with a Ryzen 7 as those are eight core processors and would provide a bit more future proofing, especially with how stupid some of the more recent requirements for games have gotten. However, if budget is an issue (or if all you really do play on the PC is WoW), then there’s nothing wrong with a six core processor such as the Ryzen 5. Doesn’t have to be the most expensive one, but at least make sure you’re hitting that 3.5 GHz mark. WoW is far more CPU reliant anyway, so by all means make sure you’re hitting that recommended mark. I myself would suggest any of the Ryzen 5 5600 series models. The standard 5600 will his 3.5, the 5600X will hit 3.7, and the 5600G will hit 3.9 GHz. Don’t be afraid to shop around and compare prices either. For example, one shop might have the 5600G as their most expensive processor, but another might have it on sale and lower than the others.
As far as GPU goes? Well, as I said, WoW is more reliant on a good CPU. So long as you already have something like a GTX 900 series, I wouldn’t be in a rush to get that replaced, especially since prices might still be a bit up there and take a little time to start coming down. The only issues I see with such an old card at this point would be in trying to run WoW ultrawide, multi-monitor, or at 4K. If any of those apply to you, you might need to dial it back a tad and tweak things until it reaches the point you consider to be acceptable. Granted, you might not be doing max settings at a constant 60 FPS, but you SHOULD be able to hit that mark somewhere down on one of the lower settings. Make sure you’re testing that in real gameplay situations however. Hitting 60 FPS alone in the middle of nowhere means nothing if you can’t maintain that once spells start flying, or you’ve got 80 people in one small location fighting (such as in AV, or Southshore/Tarren Mill when that’s active).
Personally, I say hit the 16 GB of RAM as RAM upgrades tend to be one of the cheapest things you can do to improve performance in a PC. Don’t go below 8 GB at this point as that’s the current minimum and you don’t want to potentially create a bottleneck. 12 GB would be a good compromise if you don’t want to shell out for 16 but also want to at least be above the minimum level.
Based on prices usually i5 12400F is the best pick right now in the “best price” while surpassing mid-range Ryzens. If someone has AM4 platform then 5000 Ryzens are ok with best being 5800X3D that may get discounted like the rest of 5000 series soon.
Depends which 900 GTX exactly as some modern zones are GPU heavy - like Ardenweald. with increased draw distance on higher settings for Dragonflight it can have even greater impact (or the need to lower the settings).
Depending on system some zones like Oribos will stutter severely on 8GB systems and require more RAM to work properly.
Aside of laptops AFAIK you can’t pair uneven capacities of RAM sticks. It’s either 8 of 16 and with DDR4 prices being really low there is no reason to talk about 8 or less GB of RAM. And of course dual channel so two sticks instead of one, inserted in proper slots for 2x stick configuration.
both CPU will be fine. i think the intel one will use more power since it has to turbo boost, so if you’re sensitive to that maybe the 5600x is the one you want.
get at least 16GB of ram. since your old PC is 10 yrs old i’m guessing the game is not on a SSD? get SSDs to put the OS and game; preferably put them on separate drives. if you can get one of em fast M.2 ssd for the OS so your swap memory is at least fast, it’ll be great.
I am looking at either getting a Ryzen 5 5600X or a Ryzen 7 5800X. I am leaning more towards the 5600X. The minimum 3.7 GHz clock frequency exceeds Blizzard’s recommended 3.5 GHz clock frequency. The 5800X is only 100 MHz faster. I can purchase a cheaper cooler to maintain boosted clock frequencies when I need it. Given my general usage, 8 cores seems excessive. Also, the need for more cores seems to be trending upwards very slowly.
I am planning on getting 16 GB of RAM (2x 8 GB) and a motherboard with 4 RAM slots so that I can upgrade to 32 GB in the future. When I noticed my computer getting slower over the years, the memory usage seemed to be the culprit. I also plan on getting an SSD with at least 1 TB of space. They seem to be very affordable now compared to 10 years ago! My current computer has an HDD with only 465 GB of space. I have had some problems in the past allocating enough space for virtual machines for software development. An SSD will definitely help with the noticeably slow loading performance seen in WoW and other applications.
I am trying to decide between a Radeon RX 6650XT or a Radeon RX 6700XT graphics card. I can get one of the former for less than $295 or one of the latter for less than $385. Both meet Blizzard’s recommended requirements and some other more graphics intensive games that I would like to play. I am happy to play games at 1080p on maximum settings. In the future, I may want to upgrade to 1440p and would be fine with playing newer games on lower settings. With this in mind, the 6650XT seems like it is enough and I can save some money, but the 6700XT seems like a much safer option.
CPU:
5600x or 5800x really just comes down to pricing and needs. At the time of typing this, if you can find a 5700x or even a 5800x for $200 I would jump on that.
Again I wouldn’t worry TOO much about clockspeed especially if you’re buying anything mid tier and above. Unless you set your cpu to never go above a certain temp or power limit, it will clock itself as needed.
For example my ryzen 9 5900x drops down to 2Ghz sometimes when not much is going on, but it can upwards to 4.9Ghz on a single core when needed.
Ram:
No real comments. If you want my 2cents, Id just go for 32 since prices are dipping at this time.
GPU:
Not really much to say. Again if you want my 2c, I’d go for the 6700xt if you plan to go towards 1440p and don’t want to upgrade your gpu anytime soon. It’ll give you good bit better experience.
ryzen 7 2700
16 gb ddr4 3200
os drive is m.2 pcie 3x4 ssd
game drive is sata3 ssd
gpu is radeon rx 6600 xt
with vsync on and graphic setting at 10, i’m averaging 55-60 fps in the world and 45-50 in raids. my setup is about a couple of years old besides the gpu. newer stuff will get you better results
You really got me thinking now. I am currently running a r5 3600, a GTX 1650 super, 16 GB 3200 Mhz memory and a 165hz monitor…I am running the game at 1080P max settings, it seems that the average frame rate at this setting is 80+
Once in a while it will briefly drop to 60fps then go right back up to 100+ within less than a second or so. GPU is usually at 98% CPU around 25-30%
I am just wondering if this is ok or if I should drop some settings, any help is appreciated.
is the visible screen tearing? try enabling vsync in game and see if that helps makes things smooth. you can also set the max foreground fps to like 70-80.
if you want to hit thar 165 hz i would get a better card
No screen tearing, or glitches…matter of fact, it runs surprisingly smooth. Just curious if my rig is really suited for 1080P on max settings or should I not run it on max settings until I get an i7 12700k or i7 13700k and a GTX 3080 10GB GPU…I guess if I have no issues its good?
i think the fps drop can also be contributed to assets loading from the SSD. also if you find the performance rather unsatisfactory on current hardware when dragonflight comes out, try lowering the viewing distance from 10 to like 5 to ease off the CPU load
Thank you for that, that’s good to know, I’m not really in a position to get another PC at the moment and was really hoping that my current setup is good enough.
CPU clockspeed is not the main metric of CPU performance and has not been for a very long time now. I was hitting 5Ghz with my Intel 2500k 10 years ago. Most modern CPUs have slower clocks than that yet are still much faster.
Also consider one of the fastest CPUs for WoW at the moment, the 5800X3D. Compared to the regular 5800X, the 5800X3D actually has slower clockspeeds, but because it has so much more L3 cache, it’s still MUCH faster than the 5800X in WoW.
Even though you are probably GPU limited, right now is a terrible time to buy a new GPU. Both AMD and Nvidia are in the middle of launching their new cards now. Wait for the dust to settle with all of that… then pick up something like a cheap used 3080 as people who are buying into the new generation begin to sell off their old cards.
So, a R7 5800X3D and a 3060 12gb GPU would be the next step up with an additional 16 GB memory?
I am looking at a build, and can get it in a few months by payments, i7 13700K, a 3080 10GB GPU, 32 GB DDR4 memory and can’t help thinking that this would be too much of a build to run WOW and SWTOR on ultra settings @ 1080P. The only R7 available from this company is the 5800X…I don’t know…I feel that I need a better PC but can’t shake the feeling that what I currently have is good enough.
It is the same feeling one gets when they just ate a decent meal and then smells a steak grilling off in the distance…
You really only need a better gpu. You’re going to have to accept that you won’t get 100+ fps in all scenarios.
Both my 5900x/3080ti and 10850k/6800xt dip down to the high 40s in extreme situations. With everything crank up to max settings on 3440x1440 I dip down to the 70s staring at the leaves in the alliance garrisons.
I don’t think that most people truly understand how amazing of a CPU the 5800X3D is for WoW. It would be silly to buy a new system with an i7-13700k when the 5800X3D is way faster and would likely fit into your existing motherboard. An i7-13700k + motherboard + DDR5 is going to cost 3-4 times more than what it would cost to drop a 5800X3D into your existing setup. Not having to buy a new motherboard and new RAM would give you more money to put toward your GPU budget.
My point is there will be scenarios where fps will dip. I understand the 5800X3D is amazing for games like WoW.
I’ve been tempted to make the switch to the X3D but can’t justify giving up the extra cores for when I need to run VMs.
Regardless, in terms of the best value for Fuzzypits, it is probably better if he grabs a GPU upgrade and in the future find a used or a heavily discounted 5800x3d and pop it in his board. The R5 3600 is still a good enough cpu. His 1650 is a little less desirable
