Best performance boost option

[NormH]

i have an athlon x4 860k with 8gb ddr3 1600mhz ram, 500gb 7200rpm hdd, asus hd 7850 gpu.

i run World of warcraft on a 22" monitor at the same time as streaming movies/tv shows online on a 50" flatscreen (typically 2-5 tabs open at that time) also my son is playing world of warcraft on a different pc at the same time.

i have a dual band (300mb per chanel) wireless router with both devices hardwired. 50mbps internet speed (confirmed with speed test from multiple sites. avg DL is 57mb, avg UL is 8-10mb)

games never have performance issues but when i am on WoW my wife complains that the movies buffer or freeze..

what would be the cheapest/most cost effective performance increase.
thank you

 

[bgunner]

To clearify you are running the movies on the same pc that you are playing WoW on?

 

[NormH]

yes on dual screen

 

[bgunner]

the main issue is the QoS. The game is getting the main amount of data from the router/modem. you may be able to set up a QoS profile for netflix to get priority instead of the game.

next issue performance, although this is less of an issue than the data, WoW can be fairly resource demanding. I would start with the data QoS first and see what kind of performance issues remain and adress them at that time.

QoS = Quality of Service

Some motherboards come with network software that would do this right on your system and not have to change thing in the router.

 

[NormH]

if i change the QoS would it make the game lag hard? or can i split it 50/50?

 

[bgunner]

to be honest i do not know if your game will lag hard or a little. Some software may allow the amount to be set but this is a guess as I never needed to stream and play on the same machine.

Another option is always getting a cheep device that the wife could stream on and it would take the load off the pc. just an after thought here.

 

[NormH]

we have 2 pc's already i do not want to put money into another machine if i can upgrade an item in mine like additional ram or an ssd or upgrade gpu if that would help.

 

[bgunner]

not Quite what i meant. A wii can stream youtube netfix and hulu as an example. Some blue ray players have wifi that allows the streaming of youtube netfix hulu and others. This is more of what i meant. not building a hole new machine. a better Gpu for example will cost over $200 USD and a Blueray player that will stream will cost less.

If this is a no go then you will need to setup some sort of network data control to start and see what happens then upgrade once the data end is set.

EDIT: sorry for punctuation and caps but i have one hand ATM and tend to take a few short cuts.

 

[NormH]

we mostly stream from primewire.ag i doubt our ps3 would be able to stream from a website like that. when she uses netflix or hulu she does use the ps3 but that is basically an app based program not real-time streaming.

 

[NormH]

with my set up and windows 8.1 would i be able to run a thinclient for the sole purpose of streaming to my TV? if yes other than the thinclient hardware what would i need?

 

[bgunner]

oops the one hand, left at that, on the mouse i clicked solution but oh well.

In that case see if you can track down some network control programs that will work with you board and give the web site priority and see what happens there. it may cure you issues if not then for system upgrades you have few due to the socket you have chosen. extra ram will help some but not tremendously. the biggest boost would be a better CPU. Since you are limited you may want to consider OCing the CPU and gaining performance that way. The GPU should be fine as long as your not having FPS issues now.

 

[bgunner]

with my set up and windows 8.1 would i be able to run a thinclient for the sole purpose of streaming to my TV? if yes other than the thinclient hardware what would i need?

I personally am not familiar with the thinclents so i can not answer that question. You could start a new thread with that exact question and get help from those that do have experience with them.

 

[bgunner]

Humm thinking out loud here... What if you set the CPU to use 1 core for just the Web Browser. This would take away from gaming performance but may help the freezing. this may cause issues and may not. like i said i am just thinking out loud.

 

[NormH]

Humm thinking out loud here... What if you set the CPU to use 1 core for just the Web Browser. This would take away from gaming performance but may help the freezing. this may cause issues and may not. like i said i am just thinking out loud.

it would not affect the game as it can only take advantage of 2 cores and my cpu is 4 cores.