CPU upgrade or just more RAM?

[nofear90]

Hi,

I mostly play WoW and have recently upgraded my graphics card from a GTX 460 to GTX 1060. Whilst this has improved frames, its still not smooth when i play with 2 WoW's open at the same time.

My PC spec is as follows:

CPU: Intel i7 950 OC'd @ 3.8 GHz
Motherboard: Asus P6X58D-E
GPU: MSI GTX 1060 6GB ARMOR OC
RAM: 6GB DDR3 Triple channel
PSU: Corsair 750TX

So my question is, to run two WoW's at the same time with a dual monitor setup, would a simple upgrade to more RAM do the job or is it time to upgrade my CPU?

The CPU's I have been looking at are the i7 6700K and i5 6600K, which would mean new mobo and RAM too ofcourse.

Any help or comments are appreciated

Thanks

 

[HEXiT]

that game should be buttery smooth running on them specs mate.
wow only needs a 2.6 dual core and a gtx 440 and 2 gig of ram to max it out. so i would assume its either the stuff you have running in the background. or you have unlimited fps enabled rather then vsync on.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Check your ram usage with Resource Monitor, pagefile usage with Performance Monitor.
Post screenshots.

6GB is rather low for gaming computer nowadays. You could upgrade to 12GB(6+3x2) or 18GB(6+3x4).

 

[grimakis]

that game should be buttery smooth running on them specs mate.
wow only needs a 2.6 dual core and a gtx 440 and 2 gig of ram to max it out. so i would assume its either the stuff you have running in the background. or you have unlimited fps enabled rather then vsync on.

He's running 2 instances on 2 monitors. With 6 GB of RAM, that means 4 are going to WOW. What about the OS and services? That could be 2 easily.

 

[nofear90]

@HEXiT

I want to be able to run two instances of WoW at the same time on two monitors. Aswell as background programs like chrome, spotify etc.

Check your ram usage with Resource Monitor, pagefile usage with Performance Monitor.
Post screenshots.

6GB is rather low for gaming computer nowadays. You could upgrade to 12GB(6+3x2) or 18GB(6+3x4).

Hopefully this is what you're looking for:

http://imageshack.com/a/img924/5671/OHDx2S.png
http://imageshack.com/a/img922/2006/chfqEl.png

That is with one instance of WoW running, chrome with a couple of tabs and a few other small things.

 

[grimakis]

@HEXiT

I want to be able to run two instances of WoW at the same time on two monitors. Aswell as background programs like chrome, spotify etc.

Check your ram usage with Resource Monitor, pagefile usage with Performance Monitor.
Post screenshots.

6GB is rather low for gaming computer nowadays. You could upgrade to 12GB(6+3x2) or 18GB(6+3x4).

Hopefully this is what you're looking for:

http://imageshack.com/a/img924/5671/OHDx2S.png
http://imageshack.com/a/img922/2006/chfqEl.png

That is with one instance of WoW running, chrome with a couple of tabs and a few other small things.

I am one hundred percent sure that your RAM is your bottleneck. Having more than 6 GB is very useful. Some games take a minimum of 8.

I would push to at least 16GB of RAM.

 

[logainofhades]

Your CPU is a bit old, and the requirements for WoW go up every expansion. Are you running each instance, off of a different hard drive? Trying to run 2 instances, from a single drive, can be problematic.

 

[nofear90]

@HEXiT

I want to be able to run two instances of WoW at the same time on two monitors. Aswell as background programs like chrome, spotify etc.

Check your ram usage with Resource Monitor, pagefile usage with Performance Monitor.
Post screenshots.

6GB is rather low for gaming computer nowadays. You could upgrade to 12GB(6+3x2) or 18GB(6+3x4).

Hopefully this is what you're looking for:

http://imageshack.com/a/img924/5671/OHDx2S.png
http://imageshack.com/a/img922/2006/chfqEl.png

That is with one instance of WoW running, chrome with a couple of tabs and a few other small things.

I am one hundred percent sure that your RAM is your bottleneck. Having more than 6 GB is very useful. Some games take a minimum of 8.

I would push to at least 16GB of RAM.

I had a feeling it might be the RAM. I will try to borrow some RAM from a friend to test it as I don't want to buy it to later find that my CPU also needs replacing. As I assume the new mobo's use DDR4 over DDR3, thus rendering the purchase useless.

@logainofhades

My PC is around 6 years old now that is why I was asking about CPU aswell. I am running both instances from the same SSD (same installation). It works, and can be fine if I'm not in a major city, but when both characters are in the city its not smooth at all.

 

[SkyNetRising]

As you can see in those screenshots, with 1 wow instance (it uses 3.6GB ram alone)
85% of your ram is used up,
15% ram in standby mode,
pagefile gets used up to 30%
and there is no free ram left.

You're short of ram even with 1 instance running. With 2 instances everything will slow down considerably.
What's your pagefile size, btw?

I'd say 12GB of ram is minimum for your pc usage scenario.
Fire up 2 wow instances and post those screenshots.

 

[logainofhades]

I would say it is time for a new CPU. An i7 6700k would be quite a bit better, than what you have, but I would honestly consider stepping up to an x99 platform, with a 5820k, or 6800k.

 

[nofear90]

As you can see in those screenshots, with 1 wow instance (it uses 3.6GB ram alone)
85% of your ram is used up,
15% ram in standby mode,
pagefile gets used up to 30%
and there is no free ram left.

You're short of ram even with 1 instance running. With 2 instances everything will slow down considerably.
What's your pagefile size, btw?

I'd say 12GB of ram is minimum for your pc usage scenario.
Fire up 2 wow instances and post those screenshots.

Here's the screenshots with two instances running:
http://imageshack.com/a/img922/9806/fh4xin.png
http://imageshack.com/a/img923/3273/5LFSPU.png

and the pagefile size:
http://imageshack.com/a/img922/1595/1UtztI.png

So if I was to keep my current CPU and just upgrade RAM to say 16GB, will it run smooth with two instances of WoW on dual monitors with background programs like chrome and spotify? Or would it be best to just upgrade everything.

@logainofhades

I am considering an i7 6700K, but I think the 6800K is beyond my needs

 

[SkyNetRising]

Yes - ram is the main problem in your setup.
You can also check cpu/gpu usage with MSI Afterburner, but I expect your gtx 1060 can handle the load with no problem.

 

[nofear90]

Just an update to help anyone with the same query I had:

I upgraded to 16GB RAM and my usage with two instances (with chrome, spotify etc) is just over 8GB so I think it's safe to assume the RAM was bottlenecking it.

The game now runs as smooth as I need it to.

Thanks for all the help provided in this thread!