Upgrade question - Graphics card or processor?

[hubbs_67]

Hello,

Maybe I should be asking this on Blizzard forums, but the people here are so much more friendly and helpful!

Just wondering if someone could help me out - I play a lot of World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 (other than that just use my PC for general stuff, surfing the net, word processing, etc, nothing heavy duty)

I upgrade my graphics card last year to a AMD 6950 HD card and was getting about 58 to 60 FPS on Ultra settings in WoW, but now I'm down to about 30 FPS on "Good". Both my CPU and my graphics card are well above the "recommended" system for the game, but I would like to play on Ultra (or at least high) settings and be getting about 60 FPS (my monitor is only 60 Hz so anything more is overkill). As both parts are above the system requirements I'm not sure what is hindering performance at this point - any suggestions?

Current system
e8400 Wolfdale @ 3.0 Ghz
Asus P5QL-E MB
4 gigs ram
AMD 6950 HD video card
Intel 520 SSD (120 GB) (OS and games are on this drive)
Windows 7 Home (64 bit)
Seasonic 760 W gold PSU

Thanks in advance!

 

[rolli59]

It could be ram since you have 64bit OS and maybe some other things hogging it in the background.

 

[Ubrales]

I agree with rolli59; you are currently getting about 3.5 GBs of RAM available to programs (and games). Depending on your motherboard capability upgrade the RAM to 8 GBs or even 16 GBs (RAM is inexpensive these days).

With upgraded RAM you should see an overall performance increase for all your programs.

 

[GhislainG]

I agree with rolli59; you are currently getting about 3.5 GBs of RAM available to programs (and games). Depending on your motherboard capability upgrade the RAM to 8 GBs or even 16 GBs (RAM is inexpensive these days).

With upgraded RAM you should see an overall performance increase for all your programs.

DDR2 RAM still is expensive.

 

[Ubrales]

I agree with rolli59; you are currently getting about 3.5 GBs of RAM available to programs (and games). Depending on your motherboard capability upgrade the RAM to 8 GBs or even 16 GBs (RAM is inexpensive these days).

With upgraded RAM you should see an overall performance increase for all your programs.

DDR2 RAM still is expensive.

Yes. I bought some for my Q9550 and upgraded the RAM to 8 GBs. The RAM cost me $120 on sale, and I am very pleased with the performance boost.

 

[hubbs_67]

Thanks for all the answers! I never really thought of it being a RAM issue, thanks for the tips!

I had looked into some RAM, and DDR2 is much pricier than DDR3. Had been debating an upgrade to Haswell this fall so maybe I'll just hold out until then and do a full system upgrade, and make sure to get more than 4 Gigs of RAM then!

 

[rolli59]

Sounds like a plan to me!

 

[Ubrales]

Thanks for all the answers! I never really thought of it being a RAM issue, thanks for the tips!

I had looked into some RAM, and DDR2 is much pricier than DDR3. Had been debating an upgrade to Haswell this fall so maybe I'll just hold out until then and do a full system upgrade, and make sure to get more than 4 Gigs of RAM then!

Consider the 64-bit OS and Corsair's Vengeance DDR3 RAM. I went all out and installed 32 GBs of Vengeance. Running flawlessly since build a year ago. Yes Fall (Black Friday) is a great time to buy components, and if you have a MicroCenter nearby, they have the best prices for CPUs (In-store and one per family address).