I’m looking to improve my game performance but am not sure how to go about it. My game graphics is at 7 (“Recommended” setting) and I would like it to be higher, 9 or 10 ideally. I’d love to be able to play at max settings! My game runs ok at the moment but things slow down in crowded zones, like Boralus or Stormwind AH, or in Naj when there are a lot of players on screen at once. Also things slow down during raids a lot, especially during aoe moments or when lots of stuff is going on the screen at once. Id like to tank or play melee in raids but I find that things slow down too much/get choppy when I’m up close, so I’m forced to play ranged and stay far away from the action so my screen will calm down and the game speeds up. But even ranged aoe in raids just lags me up something awful.
About my computer: I have a prebuilt Asus M32 that I bought new in 2016.
My hardware:
Intel Core i7 6700 cpu
AMD Radeon R9 200 Series GPU
16gb DDR4 ram
2 TB HDD
The motherboard is model M32CD_A_F_K20CD_K31CD by ASUSTek Computer Inc.
I got all this info from running CPU-Z. About the computer itself, like I said I bought it brand new from Best Buy a few years back, I only use it for work (I’m a biologist) and the only game I play is WoW, I’ve taken good care of it (always had a paid antivirus subscription on top of Windows Defender, never any problems) but have never really done any maintenance on the system aside from Windows’ automatic updates. Aside from BFA and some small simple work applications, the computer barely gets used at all.
I’ve done some poking around online and it appears I should have better gaming performance for WoW with this rig…is there something I’m doing wrong? Is there stuff I should update? Does my graphics card suck? Any recommended hardware upgrades? I’m not much of a computer guy so kind of lost lol. Just want to improve my WoW BFA experience
I don’t have a budget for a new PC atm, just maybe $300 - $400 CAD for some upgrading.
Benchmarks tells me that my i7 and RAM are actually ok and not an issue but my Radeon R9 370 gpu absolute garbage. I should also move my OS and WoW to an ssd instead of my current hdd.
I’m looking at getting a GTX 1660 video card for around $300 and putting in a 512gb ssd to replace my hdd. I think this should help, what do you think?
I agree with the above poster - the i7 6700 is plenty for this game. I’m not an expert on the AMD side of things, but yeah, the GPU probably could use an upgrade. An SSD would improve your load times, but not really help framerate.
op Upgrading to a 9700k would require you to upgrade Motherboard too. As others pointed out 6700 is fine and should bring new life to your system when you replace it with SSD’s.
Amazon has a Evga xc black 1660 for $300, I guess you were looking at that one? They also have a Samsung 860 Evo 256gb for $45 though something around 500gb would be better if you play other games as much as WoW.
Something some over look is the cpu cooler, stock Intel usually isn’t very good so something like a cooler master Evo 212 but check the height of it since some are tall and won’t fit in some cases
Do not buy the 1660. Its a terrible proposition. You can get an 8GB RX 580 for ~170-185$ and its within 4-6% performance wise. There isn’t an nVidia card worth buying below the 2070 SUPER right now from a purely performance perspective (different story if you want RTX features, but most people dont care).
Do not waste money (especially if you’re on a budget) on a Samsung SSD. You’re paying for the name (quite a bit more) and a “performance gain” you will not notice in the real world. A cheaper SSD (even SATA III, as 99% of people wont notice a real world difference between an NVMe drive and a SATA III SSD) from TEAM, TCSunbow, Kingston or Intel will do you just fine and be quite a bit cheaper.
I dont think its a K-SKU CPU… so the default cooler is fine (if a little loud at max speed). It wont boost high enough for you to get any real benefit other than quieter operation out of an aftermarket cooler.
If it IS a K-sku… then yes, get an aftermarket cooler and OC the bejeebus out of that thing. You should be able to land a 4.5-4.8ghz OC on most 6700Ks.
After researching and shopping around I ended up getting a Zotac gtx 1660 and a cooler master hyper 212 evo. Both delivered to my door for under $340 cad, should be arriving on Saturday. I’ll let you guys know how it goes! Ive noticed over the last maybe year that the tower runs hot so thought id get a cooler to replace the intel one as it was cheap enough.
Haven’t yet pulled the trigger on an ssd. Can anyone recommend a 256g 2.5 inch for good value? There’s a bunch out there but i had someone warn me not to get one without DRAM?
Also could someone give me a brief summary of how overclocking works? Navigating GPUs was difficult because there were over 10 different gtx 1660s available on amazon.ca all within 30 or 40 dollars of each other. I ended up on a non overclocked model bc i didnt really see the point of paying an extra %15 more when the OC versions woud do 1850mhz and the non OC 1750mhz, seemed like a negligible increase imo…
I have the 6700. No that wasn’t what I was asking I dont want to overclock it… i guess im just curious how 100mhz extra on a overclocked gtx 1660 would really make much if a difference and if it was worth the extra price or not.
You can overclock the one you got. MSI Afterburner is a good app to do so with. You’ll probably want to setup a custom fan curve with the app, too. I think your card comes with software that lets you overclock fairly easily and has pretty much the same features as MSI Afterburner, but I haven’t used the Zotac version myself.
I’m running a 6700k with a 980Ti Classified and can run everything maxed at 2560x1440 solid 60FPS. It looks like the 980 Ti is about 1.6x more powerful than your R9 290 so as others noted, the problem is likely with your GPU. The 1660 should be a nice bump.
I haven’t yet overclocked mine, still running stock (4Ghz). Got an adequate cooler (DH-D15) as well a mobo that’s decent for the purpose, but I’m not really comfortable with overclocking so I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
If you’re referring to his 1660 there is no need, it’s be vastly better than the old Radeon 370. His new bottleneck is his 6700 processor. Kagthul is spot on. A 6700K would help solve his issues. The 6700 non-K is a bottleneck.
haven’t seen anybody suggest that while you’re waiting for your new parts, if you haven’t already changed your settings for the game to use DX 11, do so. There are a lot of issues with DX12 and even some of the best computers can’t make WoW run well because of it.
DX12 works fine for Radeons. Nvidia cards aren’t fully hardware DX12 capable. Turning closes the gap a lot. Blizz recommends DX12 for AMD and DX11 for Nvidia cards. They both do fine in WoW.
