WoW Legion Performance Issues

[dcolby10]

Hi all, I was hoping for a little insight into the issues I am having with my PC build and World of Warcraft. Here is my build:
CPU: AMD 860K X4 Black Edition
GPU: XFX R7 370 2GB
RAM: 8GB Gskill Ripjaw 1600 MHz
MOBO: MSI AH68HM Grenade
OS: Windows 7 64byte

CPU temps are solid, I have a Hyper 212 evo keeping everything cool.

Here is my issue, WoW is recommending graphics quality 7 for my computer. But when I attempt to play on that setting I get tons of FPS drop. When I turn it down to 5 and turn off most of the effects, as well as turn the draw distances and ground clutter down; I can hold about 70 FPS with some drops in instances. I disable all forms of AA and keep vsync off.

I am trying to minimize the FPS drops as much as possible because I am seeing drops from 70 FPS to the mid 30's FPS. I know the CPU is the bottleneck, however when I look at HWmonitor it shows the GPU at 100% while the CPU is only at 77%.

I was wondering what I might do to alleviate the issue. I have read that disabling the AMD Turbo Core can help with FPS drops. Is this the first thing I should try? MSI Kombuster has my GPU benchmark at 73FPS with full 1080p and AA enabled. So I would like to be able to have WoW run at a consistent 60FPS or higher.

Thanks for your help.

 

[logainofhades]

The recommended doesn't ever work for me either, even on my Sandy Bridge, i5 laptop, with a GT 540m. Blizzard needs to really fix that. An overclock should help you. I would disable turbo core, when you do. Sadly your system has no upgrade path, CPU wise. WoW is not AMD friendly, at all, either.

 

[dcolby10]

The recommended doesn't ever work for me either, even on my Sandy Bridge, i5 laptop, with a GT 540m. Blizzard needs to really fix that. An overclock should help you. I would disable turbo core, when you do. Sadly your system has no upgrade path, CPU wise. WoW is not AMD friendly, at all, either.

What sort of overclock should I shoot for to start out with? As far as not having an upgrade path, I plan on doing swapping my mobo out anyways when I go to upgrade, I want to go to a full sized board so I can crossfire. Upgrading really isn't necessary right now though.

 

[logainofhades]

Upgrade wise, you would be best going with Intel, unless Zen proves to be a winner, and is priced right. Looking at your board, I am not sure overclocking is a great idea. Your VRM's lack any kind of heatsink. Turning Shadows to low always seems to help me. That and keep the view distance as low as you can stand it. Legion 7 is WoD ultra, and the R7 370 was not capable of ultra, back then. My old GTX 770 had to run with some settings turned down, especially in Ashran. 5 sounds appropriate, for that system, after giving it some more thought.

 

[dcolby10]

Upgrade wise, you would be best going with Intel, unless Zen proves to be a winner, and is priced right. Looking at your board, I am not sure overclocking is a great idea. Your VRM's lack any kind of heatsink. Turning Shadows to low always seems to help me. That and keep the view distance as low as you can stand it. Legion 7 is WoD ultra, and the R7 370 was not capable of ultra, back then. My old GTX 770 had to run with some settings turned down, especially in Ashran. 5 sounds appropriate, for that system, after giving it some more thought.

Alright, I'm on 5 now anyways and I will drop my view distance to 3-4. I was thinking of going Zen only if it beats out the i5/i7 but if not, I will buy the better processor when the time comes. Should I cap my frames at 60? V-sync seems to lead to an fps loss for me. Leave the turbo-core on auto as well then?

 

[logainofhades]

I never cap my frames, and I always leave V-sync off. Since turbo core speed is 4.0, I would turn off turbo core, and overclock to 4.0. That should be safe, with that board. That might help even out your FPS some. Sorry if I seem all over the place. I am posting when I can, at work, today.

 

[dcolby10]

I never cap my frames, and I always leave V-sync off. Since turbo core speed is 4.0, I would turn off turbo core, and overclock to 4.0. That should be safe, with that board. That might help even out your FPS some. Sorry if I seem all over the place. I am posting when I can, at work, today.

It's all good; I appreciate the help! I will push my cap back up to 100 fps; I've had it at about 70ish. I will also push my multiplier up to get that 4.0ghz overclock. I think the constant overclock/underclock of the turbo core causes some performance issues. We will see if that helps!

 

[dcolby10]

I never cap my frames, and I always leave V-sync off. Since turbo core speed is 4.0, I would turn off turbo core, and overclock to 4.0. That should be safe, with that board. That might help even out your FPS some. Sorry if I seem all over the place. I am posting when I can, at work, today.

Would it be better to just enable the turbo full time? Or overclock the chip to 4.0 and disable turbo? I only ask because I have never overclocked before and really don't know the procedure.

 

[logainofhades]

I would just disable turbo, and overclock to 4.0, so it is always at the max turbo speed. For that CPU it should just be a multiplier change, to 20, iirc.

 

[dcolby10]

I would just disable turbo, and overclock to 4.0, so it is always at the max turbo speed. For that CPU it should just be a multiplier change, to 20, iirc.

Okay, no need to do anything else? Memory clock speeds or disable cool n' quiet/CE1? Again I really appreciate the help.

 

[logainofhades]

I think disabling CNQ is common, when overclocking AMD CPU's. It's been awhile since I have use one myself. You should not need to touch anything but the CPU multiplier otherwise. That was I did, for an FX 8320, that I used to have.

 

[dcolby10]

I think disabling CNQ is common, when overclocking AMD CPU's. It's been awhile since I have use one myself. You should not need to touch anything but the CPU multiplier otherwise. That was I did, for an FX 8320, that I used to have.

Sounds good to me, I will do that and report back.

Thanks