I'm just wondering what people are suggesting as the best video card for WoW right now. I'd like to be able to play with all settings maxed, at 1680x1050 and still have good frame rates. Are there any cards that are able to pull this off on a reasonable budget? I am not necessarily looking for the cheapest card possible, but I probably will want to avoid the few that are very expensive. Thanks!
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Best video card for WoW
- Thread starter WCES Ryan
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WoW is REALY CPU dependent but I can play with all settings and never fall below 40FPS in Dalanor I'm using a 260 now but I could do the same exact frame rate with a 7800 8800 9800 and the 260 using the same CPU/Memory config. I'm running with all shadows and 8Xaa
Cmustang87
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@1680x1050 you could easily do a 4670, that engine is old and doesn't require a lot of power under the hood in todays standards.
A 4850 would also be great, but a bit more money. I see you have an 8800GT... does that not cut it? Or are you upgrading someone else's machine?
A 4850 would also be great, but a bit more money. I see you have an 8800GT... does that not cut it? Or are you upgrading someone else's machine?
RagingSamster
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Although WoW has not changed much as far a poly-count they have strecthed the engine to it's limits with enhancements. Most of today's mid-level cards will run WoW well, but this game seems to be "across the board" bottlenecked. You need a good balance of processor, memory, and GPU to really get the frame rates up there with all settings maxed. With my system at 1920X1080 I'm getting around 15-25 frames with all but "viewing distance" maxed (it's sitting in the middle)
Make sure you have a well rounded system and you should be pumping out much better FPS rates than me
Make sure you have a well rounded system and you should be pumping out much better FPS rates than me
No offense, but that is a ridiculous question. If you where asking what the best video card was for say Crysis on ultra high @ 2560x1600 then maybe it might be a valid question. A game this old with such low requirements, you could grab any card and max it out. Hell, my brothers old PC still has a GeForce4 Ti4600 that plays it with max settings at 1680x1050.
Get the best card you can afford, it will be MORE then enough.
You obviosly havn't played in a while the new patch added several new features that NEED higher end setups to turn on. The shadow effects by itself would case a ti4600 to crap its pants and run away crying.
The 8800GT is a newbie to me. It was originally bought for an HTPC before I started playing, but since I've started, my old card (7900GTX) didn't seem to be cutting it, so I downgraded the HTPC, knowing that it was overkill, and used the parts in my desktop. My GF however, also has an 8800GT, she plays with all settings maxed, and the frame rates seem like they could be a bit better. I have also read about various issues between WoW and the 8800GT, so I am just wondering if I *do* run into problems, whether there might be a better card that I can pick up quickly.
Cmustang87
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Cmustang87
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The cost to performance ratio is just not worth it upgrading from an 8800GT to anything else for this game, IMO.
Cmustang87
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You don't need to spend even $160 for this game. If you're getting framerate issues with an 8800GT you may want to look into new video drivers or other possibilities.
But Criccio is right.
My old system with a 9600XT was pretty rough at 1280x1024 even a year ago before the patch and graphics improvements. I have seen posts that said a 4870X2 was still not overkill for WoW, but not sure about the validity of that. I would have to say that your 8800GT should be able to offer you an effective experience in WoW, you may have to drop your settings slightly but WoW was not designed to be all that graphically immersive. If you feel that you are missing part of the experience by not maxing out your settings then by all means, upgrade your card and get a 4870 or GTX 260. I would not make the upgrade for less than that, however. You will se an improvement from 8800GT to a 9800GTX+ or a 4850, but not enough to go to the trouble imho.
Conman
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I love all these posts about how WoW isn't intensive needing a sub par 8800 for max detail. Or that they get great frame rates in dalaran like that means anything at all.Try Raiding in this situation.Take 25 of your buddies into Naxx and wait for a swarm of spider adds to hit the group.Then the Mages and Warlocks unleash the AE bomb and I guarantee your max detail 8800s will take a crap.Mine did.What card you need depends on what you want to do.Solo or five mans? Fine hook up your old voodoo 5500 or whatever.But if you plan to play the endgame more power is surely required.
To make your posts more meaningful you need to specify what resolution you are gaming at.
An 8800 GT might be fine at lower resolutions but terrible at high resolutions.
I've found that my old 8800 GTX can't handle gaming at 2560x1600 with all settings on high. The fps is terrible and during raid encounters would crawl to below 10 fps.
With my gtx 280 it can handle it pretty well although it does drop to below 30 (with vertical sync on) on some encounters. I had to enable vertical sync because i couldn't tolerate the excessive screen tearing.
An 8800 GT might be fine at lower resolutions but terrible at high resolutions.
I've found that my old 8800 GTX can't handle gaming at 2560x1600 with all settings on high. The fps is terrible and during raid encounters would crawl to below 10 fps.
With my gtx 280 it can handle it pretty well although it does drop to below 30 (with vertical sync on) on some encounters. I had to enable vertical sync because i couldn't tolerate the excessive screen tearing.
AltTabbins
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Im calling BS on the highlighted part. I have seen it run on 8 and 7 series cards. I even upgraded a friends from a 7800 and the difference is night and day. If you see the same frames after a gpu upgrade, you need to think about changing your cpu.. because its obviously holding you back.
Things have changed since the new expansion. Just about any card can play it at medium settings, but it takes a pretty nice rig to really max it (shadows, draw distance, clutter etc).
Again, I think everybody is getting tired of hearing this. Funny too because the rig in your signature couldnt max it out. Maxing out the game with old hardware is impossible now. A lot of people with rigs that could max out Burning Crusades had to spend a bit to upgrade.
The OP wants to max out wow. This takes quite the rig to do. There are a lot of people who can play "max settings" and then you check and they have shadows turned off, cluster density turned down or draw distance turned down. The engine is old and now its badly coded. It takes a lot of horsepower to make up for the crappy engine coding.