Just wondering if it is. Thinking of upgrading my i7 7700 gen.
Updated (I thought it was 8th gen).
Also looking at my Solid State v NVMe M.2 storage options for speed.
I believe it’s more GPU-loaded. But CPU upgrades won’t hurt it.
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I recently upgraded to a 2080 TI FE and its really just a partial graphics processing boost. The world lag and random system crashes still happen. I am struggling to see what the cause of this is aside from world population. Therefore I think its a back end loading issue and not a graphical loading issue.
I would post this is the technical forum, they can help a lot more than general I bet.
Perhaps. Thanks
WoW is more CPU intense than GPU intense; unless you’re got a very strangely built system, you’ll hit CPU throttling way before GPU.
With that said, if you’ve got a 8700k and a 2080ti your machine is far beyond what’s necessary to play the game. If you seeing major crashes and lag, either your system is significantly underpowered, has absolutely no heat-sinking capabilities, or it’s not your hardware.
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I still run a 3960x. Its not your cpu.
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+1
You might see minor improvements (e.g. fewer frame drops/more consistency) from upgrading your CPU but it’s not going to be hitch-free until Blizz properly optimizes the game for multiple cores.
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So perhaps I need a stronger core rather than a multi core processor?
My i7 4790 plays WoW pretty well still. Quad core. 3.6 - 4 Ghz.
You’re already very close to having the best possible IPC (individual core performance) with your 8700k. Upgrading won’t do much.
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I am wondering what if I get the i9 the boost clock to 5.0 per core might do the trick.
An i9 is wasted on pretty much any gaming, WoW or not. The main advantage of an i9 over an i7 is that it supports hyperthreading. The problem with that is that the nature of gaming makes it difficult to offload too much to other threads, so hyperthreading is generally a complete waste for it.
You’re already well beyond what’s necessary to play WoW with an 8th gen i7. Unless the CPU is physically damaged, it’s not your problem (and then you entire system would be konked). Throwing hundreds of dollars onto an i9 isn’t going to fix your issue.
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Which is why I wonder maybe a better motherboard would help.
Great for streaming or running emulation though 
really wish I had more cores… my 9600k lags the hell out whenever i fire up multiple emulators.
You seem pretty fixated on this being a hardware issue. Are you having similar issues with anything else? Is your entire system crashing/BSODing or just WoW?
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I think someone has already figured out how to blow their stimulus check.
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I used to be told all the time that WoW was CPU heavy, and I still believe it to this day, but before I built this new PC my Graphics Card drivers would crash every time I played the game with shadows higher than 1 basically.
The higher the setting, the more likely it would be to crash, it seemed.
Not sure why, or if that is even WoW’s problem, but even now with an insane build I struggle to get more than 60 FPS in dungeons and raids.
CPU isn’t maxing out. Not even close.
So what would be causing it?
In the end, I solved the problem by buying more power than I need, but I’m sure that’s not an option for everyone.
I have to imagine at some point the pendulum changed directions from CPU to GPU.
Maybe around the time the DirectX12 thing happened?
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CPU = Number of things on screen (Raids, 40-man BGs). Someone with a lousy CPU can get by questing but it will slow to a crawl in large instanced content. Draw distance can be CPU intensive as more things are happening further away.
GPU = Pixels (4k display), partical effects, lighting, shadows, anti-aliasing etc.
WoW is super scalable but it is a CPU-first experience because so many laptops and Macs and other popular consumer PCs often ship with a high quality CPU and integrated graphics. Follow the money.
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WoW shadows are coded horribly or something, nothing affects my PC besides freaking shadows.