Upgrade - 2500k

[Masterdeadly]

Surely the CPU is at 100 percent on most games

 

[Subliminal Aura]

Surely the CPU is at 100 percent on most games

It's 2012 and a large majority of games still only use 1 to 2 cores but if as you say WoW is CPU bound then I would expect to see more than 2 cores in use ie > 50% in a four core system

 

[Masterdeadly]

Is there a program that records the load
Of each core ?

 

[Subliminal Aura]

Is there a program that records the load
Of each core ?

How about doing the noobs method of monitoring the cpu usage.

Leave task manager running in the background and alt-tab whilst gaming to check what the usage is like.

 

[beejjacobs]

I'd say the CPU upgrade. Then you've got a solid platform to add a high end GPU later? A 6950 isn't slow (not that a 955 is!)

 

[IvanDobskey]

A 955 at 3.6Ghz is still a fine CPU and should be plenty for WOW or any other game currently available for that matter. Would a 2500K be better? Yeh, it would be. But not night and day better. Get an SSD, now that's something you will really notice The 128Gb Crucial M4 is probably the favourite right now.

 

[stulid]

A 955 at 3.6Ghz is still a fine CPU and should be plenty for WOW or any other game currently available for that matter. Would a 2500K be better? Yeh, it would be. But not night and day better. Get an SSD, now that's something you will really notice

This, wait for something else (Haswell) to upgrade too.

 

[Masterdeadly]

Sorry my processor is at stock because it caused artifacts

 

[Clav]

Tomshardware did a WoW hardware analysis but I'm not sure if i can link it? If you google it should come up. It tests a lot of different hardware combinations and should give you a good idea of what to expect performancewise.

 

[evilpenguin]

a 2500k is one of the best chips at the moment, most games don't make use of the hyperthreading so an i7 will not get too much of a boost. that, a 64gb crucial m4 and a gigabyte z68ap-d3 would be my choice for the cash...

 

[evilpenguin]

as for ivybridge etc, you won't notice a difference on warcraft

 

[Masterdeadly]

Ok thanks guys I think I'll wait a few years when my pc can't run games at a solid 60 FPS with low settings

 

[philds]

That's what I did, I ran an Intel Q6600 for 5 years and just upgraded to my rig below and the difference in gaming was outstanding. I was using a Crucial M225 for 3 years so I was already used to Windows performance, the new rig didn't really get any faster for Windows performance as the SSDs have already made it very snappy to use W7.

For Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop/Premiere Pro, I haven't had to use it for work yet on the new rig but I'm sure that will be a massive difference as well when I do sit down and use it properly.

 

[Antony101]

I'd say get an SSD and a good CPU cooler now, then down the line when the new CPUs come out you'll be set for some good overclocking. And if the new CPUs don't live up to much Sandybridge should atleast have dropped in price a little.

 

[Hidden Hippo]

Just as a note (since I've just got one) - the i5 2500K OEM is only £150 at the moment, and the Crucia M4 64GB is in this week only for £70.

Edit: Ah, didn't see you weren't going to go for the Processor upgrade.

 

[Puppetmaster]

A 955 at 3.6Ghz is still a fine CPU and should be plenty for WOW or any other game currently available for that matter. Would a 2500K be better? Yeh, it would be. But not night and day better. Get an SSD, now that's something you will really notice The 128Gb Crucial M4 is probably the favourite right now.

Do you play Warcraft out of interest?

I went from a Q9550 @ 4GHz to a 2600K @ stock initially and gained a fair performance boost and even more so when overclocked to 4.7GHz. CPU makes a big difference in wow. Most of the time my 6950 isnt being used anywhere near 100%. Warcraft is old and will only use 2 cores / threads.

 

[Antony101]

I'm using an i7 2600k stock at the moment and running zune, email, chrome and SWtoR my processor is only using 10-14% of it's power. These processors are bloody stupid