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Best value for money low end card for WoW

ACEOWNER said:
You probably wont even see much difference as MMO performance is related 90% to the CPU in my opinion.
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Not really.

WoW does require a decent amount of CPU grunt but to say it's 90% reliant on CPU is total madness.

In short, you need a decent CPU but WoW can also be exceptionally demanding GPU wise.

A £40 GPU will mean low res and all details at low in WoW.
 
I would recomend fsatest dx11 cheap card you can afford :)
Dx11 mode makes game run more on GPU than on CPU.
Not to mention that 64bit client gives me extra 60fps over 32 bit one no ****....
 
For £40 I've have to say a HD 4870 or GTX 260.

Wow tends to favor Nivida, but I'm not sure by how much at this level and age of card in general the HD 4870 has a very slight edge.

The above cards should run 1080p on "Good" with some of the effects lowered and you might get away with uping some of the other options.
My spare rig is running a HD 4890 and X2 4600+, runs at an average 30 fps (20 fps in town, the CPU probably the biggest issue).

Wow at high/ultra settings will need a reasonable GPU such as an HD 5850, but not a top end one as it is very CPU bound.
 
I had a HD 4870 and wow was constant 60fps all settings high except shadows. High shadows and it would go down to 35-40 fps
 
hedgey said:
for sub £40 you aint gonna have a pleasant experience in Pandaria. even my rig I get 40fps in places.
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And I bet it is the result of CPU bottleneck with your 7970 nowhere near 99% GPU usage when it hit 40fps :p

But I do agree £40 ain't gonna get a new card that's acceptable even for WOW...2nd hand is the way to go, ideally stretch for a GTX460.
 
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Hey guys :P went for a GT 630 2GB - actually runs wow pretty well - I should mention I have a heavily overclocked phenom ii x4 965BE as the CPU, which really boosts the performance I'm guessing :D get around 35fps in orgrimmar and around 60-80fps flying around pandaria on good graphics setting
 
Marine-RX179 said:
And I bet it is the result of CPU bottleneck with your 7970 nowhere near 99% GPU usage when it hit 40fps :p

But I do agree £40 ain't gonna get a new card that's acceptable even for WOW...2nd hand is the way to go, ideally stretch for a GTX460.
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WoW scales well with cpu and gpu because its very unoptimized. Hardly think a i5 at 4.6ghz is being stretched either, WoW is not multithreaded.
 
I wouldve went for a 7850 as minimum for MoP at 1920x1200, handles wow fine with shadows off and ground detail low.
 
hedgey said:
WoW scales well with cpu and gpu because its very unoptimized. Hardly think a i5 at 4.6ghz is being stretched either, WoW is not multithreaded.
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Actually the problem is exactly because of the game only using 1 thread mainly, so one core of the overclocked i5 still won't be fast enough to scale with the 7970, which is why I said "CPU bottleneck".
 
if it was cpu bottleneck, my gpu would have the same fps as my old 6950. infact, i get about 30fps more with the 7970. like i said, it scales well.
 
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