I'm a junior 3D artist who creates video game assets and also plays World of Warcraft regularly. My current PC is nearly six years old and has an Intel Core i9-12900K, RTX 3080 10GB, 64GB DDR4 RAM, and an 850W Corsair power supply. The RAM and PSU were replaced within the last two years, and the CPU still benchmarks close to its original performance.
My main issue is poor performance during personal 3D work and especially in WoW raids. I can sometimes reach high frame rates in simple areas, but major cities are closer to 35–50 FPS and raids can drop to 10–20 FPS with noticeable stuttering. Other games, such as League of Legends, run normally. I've already tried lowering WoW's graphics settings and several software tweaks.
I'm in Canada and have up to about $2,000 CAD to spend on a graphics card. RTX 5080 cards near that price are mostly sold out, while available models cost around $2,200–$2,400, which I'd rather not pay. I'm interested in the 5080 because it seems like a major upgrade without reaching the extreme prices of higher-end cards, but I'm unsure whether to wait, consider an RTX 5070 Ti or Radeon RX 9070 XT, or fix the current performance problem first.
2 Answers
Before buying anything, troubleshoot the WoW performance. An RTX 3080 paired with a 12900K should run WoW far above 15–20 FPS in most situations, even in busy raids. Check CPU and GPU usage, temperatures, clock speeds, background processes, and whether the game is actually using the RTX card. A clean driver removal with DDU, a fresh NVIDIA driver install, BIOS and chipset updates, and possibly a Windows reinstall would be reasonable steps.
The symptoms could be caused by WoW’s CPU limits, addons, or a configuration issue rather than a weak GPU. Try running a raid with only essential addons enabled, reset NVIDIA Control Panel settings, disable automatic game optimizations, and monitor Task Manager or an overlay while the slowdown happens. Also confirm the monitor cables are connected to the graphics card, not the motherboard, even though having three displays makes that less likely.
The worst drops are mainly in raids and since the recent pre-patch. I’ve already tried lowering the settings, but I’ll check usage, temperatures, drivers, and addons more carefully before replacing the card.