Hardware spec for WoW?

cr!spy · 6 Jul 2010 at 09:38

Hi guys,

I posted in the General Hardware section yesterday about this, but just wanted to know what other WoW players thought...

I haven't played it in over a year and unfortunately sold my pc last year, so I'm looking at getting a new one. I was thinking of getting the OcUK Titan Xenomorph with the Radeon 5770... would I be able to play on full settings without any issues on this system? Oh and I will be running the game @ 1920x1080.

Deadbeat · 6 Jul 2010 at 10:22

You can run woW on max with a glass of water connected to a lemon. Game looks horrible.

neoboy · 6 Jul 2010 at 10:25

I ran it maxed out on e7200 and 8800GTS 640MB so anything with 5770 will laugh at you while playing it.

Voltage · 6 Jul 2010 at 10:29

You can run woW on max with a glass of water connected to a lemon. Game looks horrible.

Classic race character models agreed.

However the actualy landscape at times is quite jaw dropping in the Catalclyms beta.

As for the question.......

Its very CPU intensive, i have mine at 1920x1200 2x aa 16 ani ultra settings + tweakwow mod + endseries dx10 mod

MASSIVELY improves the game graphics but even on my 4.2ghz i7 and 5870 frames drop to 40 fps in busy areas

cr!spy · 6 Jul 2010 at 11:00

So would you say the Titan Xenomorph would be ok to play the game at full settings, or would the option to upgrade the card to a 5830 be a better idea?

Voltage · 6 Jul 2010 at 11:14

depends if you want ultra mode.

the shadows are very poorly coded in wow, id say 5850 minimum if you want all the bells and whistles. Look up enb series for wow also, i would never play the game without it.

Also, be a man, build your own computer

Ordokai · 6 Jul 2010 at 11:14

People consistently -vastly- overestimate WoW system requirements. It's an old game, it does not need a shiny new system to run at 100%. The devs specifically maintain it that way. Cataclysm will -not- be an entirely new engine and/or client but rather more of a reskin. :rolleyes:

- Ordokai

Exsurgo · 6 Jul 2010 at 11:22

WoW runs decently overall even on 4 year old systems with the selection of a few select areas, such as Dalaran and ICC/Ruby Sanctum and a few other raid instances. For the later zones, the fps scales almost entirely with CPU horsepower, and responds noticeably with overclocking. The difference between a 5770 and 5830 will probably be very slim, a good cpu cooler/overclock would probably make a bigger difference in wow.

cr!spy · 6 Jul 2010 at 11:27

Voltage said:
depends if you want ultra mode.

the shadows are very poorly coded in wow, id say 5850 minimum if you want all the bells and whistles. Look up enb series for wow also, i would never play the game without it.

Also, be a man, build your own computer

Hmm... ok, but now the price is going to start creeping up and I was hoping to keep it under £700.

Back in TBC days I was playing on a dual core, 4gb, 4870 setup and it ran WoW flawlessly @ max settings 1920x1050... does it really need that much more grunt now?

Haha I probably will end up doing that now to save money. I've just been out of the loop for a while since selling my old pc and just wanted a system that was already built, overclocked and 100% stable.

Voltage · 6 Jul 2010 at 11:29

engine has improved since TBC, they have a whole new shadow system which if turned on can be very taxing.

LiE · 6 Jul 2010 at 11:51

http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/6908/wowultra.png

Quick screen I took with everything turned up.

wordy · 6 Jul 2010 at 11:55

cr!spy said:
Hi guys,

I posted in the General Hardware section yesterday about this, but just wanted to know what other WoW players thought...

I haven't played it in over a year and unfortunately sold my pc last year, so I'm looking at getting a new one. I was thinking of getting the OcUK Titan Xenomorph with the Radeon 5770... would I be able to play on full settings without any issues on this system? Oh and I will be running the game @ 1920x1080.

You'll be able to run it fine. I recently got a modified Titan Exodus and while doing some quests in The Storm Peaks I'm getting 140-160 FPS with V-sync turned off so I would imagine yours would be fine aswell.

DampCat · 6 Jul 2010 at 11:57

It ran max on my E6300 at stock with a 256mb 7900GS.

Nymins · 6 Jul 2010 at 12:02

You should be able to run it at max (maybe with shadows turned down a bit). As said its very CPU intensive, so keep that in mind. The 'new' areas require a lot more power than Classic or TBC areas.

cr!spy · 6 Jul 2010 at 12:02

wordy said:
You'll be able to run it fine. I recently got a modified Titan Exodus and while doing some quests in The Storm Peaks I'm getting 140-160 FPS with V-sync turned off so I would imagine yours would be fine aswell.

Cool! So which graphics card would you recommend to go with the Titan Xenomorph - 5770, 5830 or the 5850? I definitely don't want to go any higher than the 5850. Oh and is the i3 processor overclocked to 4.2GHz a good processor to run the game, as most people seem to be running it on quad cores?

ins0mn1ac · 6 Jul 2010 at 12:03

Only reason WoW becomes slightly taxing on any PC over 4 years old is because the shadows were coded by someone aged 9. They're poor simples, don't mistake this for an amazingly powerful and demanding engine because it isnt.

DampCat · 6 Jul 2010 at 12:11

cr!spy said:
Cool! So which graphics card would you recommend to go with the Titan Xenomorph - 5770, 5830 or the 5850? I definitely don't want to go any higher than the 5850. Oh and is the i3 processor overclocked to 4.2GHz a good processor to run the game, as most people seem to be running it on quad cores?

Are you kidding? Don't buy into this crap, all of those above are far, far more than adequate for running WoW at max settings.

You dont need quad cores, you dont need a 4.2ghz overclocked CPU. Christ. You could buy 2nd hand kit that would run WoW maxed out for less than £200.

Nymins · 6 Jul 2010 at 12:27

DampCat said:
Are you kidding? Don't buy into this crap, all of those above are far, far more than adequate for running WoW at max settings.

You dont need quad cores, you dont need a 4.2ghz overclocked CPU. Christ. You could buy 2nd hand kit that would run WoW maxed out for less than £200.

Not with the current coding you couldn't. The shadows on max (or ultra or whatever its called) are extremely taxing on the computer. I had an E6300 and 8800GTS and I couldn't max it out at 1280x1024 without slow-down. Turning down shadows helped a lot, but its very hard to MAX the game due to poor coding. The only way to do it in its current state is to have over-powered hardware (overpowered for WoW anyway).

DampCat · 6 Jul 2010 at 12:35

I currently max it on a e2140 clocked at 3.01ghz and a stock GTX260 216 and no slowdown, in raid scenarios, in dalaran, wherever. (although in fairness it artifacts on some spells, although im fairly sure thats driver related). Dalaran slow down is a result of latenency issues in any case.

Recommendations for CPUs clocked at 4.2ghz are ludicrously over estimating and a 5850? Come on.

By all means if you want to spend £700 on a PC go ahead, but that is no way "required" to max out WoW. If you're designing a system around WoW and Wow alone, without any wish for upgrade options or playing modern games, there is no reason at all to spend that much money.

Mart2912 · 6 Jul 2010 at 12:36

Most PC's can max the game without any problems that is until you enter Lagaran. That will probably be the only time when your FPS will be at its lowest, which is fine because all you do is stand around anyway.

With my 8800GT the main slowdowns I noticed were busy instances and Lagaran, everything else was smooth.