I am debating on whether to upgrade my GPU or my CPU for a better performance in wow, my GPU is NVIDIA gt 520 and my processor

[Ivel_brocksmith]

I am debating on whether to upgrade my GPU or my CPU for a better performance in wow, my GPU is NVIDIA gt 520 and my processor Is AMD athlon II quad core 640 3.0ghz

 

[pearcenc]

gpu, that thing is way more garbage then your cpu

 

[lazyboy947]

The quad core is more than enough, i loaded wow up on a old Celeron with on board graphics, with a usb with draenor and was able to play on low but smoothly, but point is while the game can be cpu intense, lately its more gpu intense and at some points actually gets my 7970 up to 85% use on ultra 1080p, no steadily but peak.

You can get a fairly cheap card to play high/ultra such as the 750 ti if ur psu isnt a good one, or you can get a used gtx 670 for around the price of the 750ti and same with some 7970s off ebay or the forums deals section, but prob more towards 150+. My friend just sold his gtx 760 for $150, and i recently bought a 7770 for $40 used of course.

 

[Ivel_brocksmith]

Alright thank you guys. Would I be able to run high/ultra you think with the 750ti?

 

[lazyboy947]

most likely high at 1080p to be on the safe side since i do no own this gpu, a quick google search some say they play on ultra, but gonna stick to high for 1080p.

Also look at the radeon R7 265 or 270/270x or 280, matters on ur budget. I think the 265 is near the 750 ti in price and i believe the r7 265 performs beter

 

[mdocod]

IMO, Time for a CPU/MOBO/GPU overhaul, and if you're using DDR2 (the Athlon II supported both DDR2/3) then it's time for new RAM also.

A GPU upgrade will help a lot as you'll be able to run nice visual quality with smooth FPS in many conditions, but you're still going to be stuttering at <10FPS in congested areas and on raids with an Athlon II no matter what GPU you use. The standard high value hardware combo for WoW is an i3-4150 on H81/B85/H97 w/GTX750Ti and the usual 2x4GB. If you already have DDR3 you could do the whole upgrade for <$300.

I advise against an AMD GPU for WoW, the driver/API implementation isn't as well optimized for this type of game. You'll get higher FPS minimums on the Nvidia driver stack.

 

[st3v30]

WoW run better on Nvidia cards as you can see from this benchmark
http://i.imgur.com/De6RgZi.jpg
and as mdocod wrote WoW also like intel more cuz of higher single core performance and i3 is perfect for it.With your current gt 520 i can just imagine how low fps you had in raids.So if you can get 750 TI or even new GTX 960 you will see huge performance boost.750 Ti will be safe side since we donno what kind of PSU you have for GTX 960 you need around 450W quality PSU to run without problems.

 

[Ivel_brocksmith]

I have a Ecs motherboard, that's amd right, so an Intel processor is out of the question, right? I also have 8g of ddr3 ram so I think that should be plenty for wow, my psu says its average is 450w.

 

[mdocod]

Like I said, you'd have to do a CPU+motherboard+GPU overhaul here for good results.

If your case supports an ATX size motherboard, you can get a Biostar Hi-Fi H81S2 for like $50, put an i3-4150 on it for another ~$110, then snag a GTX750Ti for ~$120-140.

If you have a decent power supply with 2 X 6+2 pin PCIE power connections go for a GTX660 for ~$140 instead.

If you can afford more, i5-4590 and GTX960.

 

[Ivel_brocksmith]

I really not looking to do that much exchanging (can't afford it) I will have time to play in the spring, so I will update this post with my results. I think I'm going to go with the sapphire r7 265, after the research. Thank you everyone.