Need advice on a good video card for WoW & blizzard type games.

[Shadowprice]

Thinking about picking up WoW again for the spring/summer, and some other blizzard type games like Diablo 3 and some assorted steam games. I'm a casual gamer, not looking for bleeding edge graphics, but modest visuals and a smooth and fluid 60 FPS is a must have at all times. I'm looking for a buttery smooth experience while having nice graphics, I don't need to run ultra settings.

My main specs from my sig:

Main System
- Fractal Design Define R4 Black
- Dell UltraSharp 24" 2412M (1920 x 1200)
- Intel Core i5-3470 / Gigabyte LGA 1155 mTAX GA-B75M-D3H
- Corsair Vengeance 8 GB ( 2 x 4 GB ) DDR3 1600 MHz
- Samsung 840 EVO 250GB SSD / Western Digital 1TB Blue
- Corsair RM Series 650W PSU
- Windows 7 64bit

I don't think I want to spend more then $250, my only non-negotiable is it must run very quiet. Each video card I've gotten has ran nearly silent even under gameplay, my last card I had was a ASUS 660 Ti DirectCU that was extremely quiet. Right now I'm running onboard graphics because I'm not gaming at all. I would like to stick with Nvidia if possible, especially since last time I checked, WoW performs better with Nvidia cards, if this has changed and the playing field is even, then I'm fine switching to the red team.

Any recommendations would be great. Another random question, will upgrading to Windows 8.1 increase gaming performance at all, or is the difference hardly there with Windows 7?

 

[Araxie]

GTX 960 at 200$ have your name on it..

 

[limitedaccess]

Another random question, will upgrading to Windows 8.1 increase gaming performance at all, or is the difference hardly there with Windows 7?

At this point you should just wait for Windows 10 and take advantage of the free upgrade.

 

[OmgitsSexyChase]

GTX 960 at 200$ have your name on it..

I would wait for 960 ti in like 2 months. It will make the 960 trash and at 250 dollars you will probably be able to buy a 970

 

[Doozer]

I've sold and have seen used GTX780s in the $250 range in the FS/FT forums here

 

[Runt.]

I mainly play blizzard games myself so I can safely say that @ 1080p you can use a GTX 760 and game at max settings if not one step below. If I recall correctly, I was able to play Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 at max settings around 100 FPS when I still had my 120Hz monitor, and easily > 60Hz. I am also using a weaker CPU than you with an aged i5-750 @ 3.8GHz (at least you would think its weaker). Nowadays I just play Hearthstone and Heroes Of The Storm and the GTX 760 handles them just as well. WoW is much older than all of these games, and even though I haven't used my GTX 760 with it lately, I played it smoothly with an HD 5870 which is worse than the GTX 760.

So if you want to spend little, GTX 760 (~$150 or less used) works but if you want to spend a little bit more, I would recommend the GTX 960 for $200 new.

 

[GotNoRice]

Nowadays I just play Hearthstone and Heroes Of The Storm and the GTX 760 handles them just as well. WoW is much older than all of these games, and even though I haven't used my GTX 760 with it lately, I played it smoothly with an HD 5870 which is worse than the GTX 760.

World of Warcraft gets significant changes to the game engine almost every expansion (there have been 5 expansions so far). You used to be able to play the game on a DirectX 7 card, now you need a DX9, SM3.0 GPU at the minimum and the game also has full DirectX 11 support (including full support for 10.1 and 10.0 feature levels if you have a DX10 or 10.1 card). The most recent huge change that came with WoD was when the game engine changed to differed rendering, which dramatically changed the way Anti-Aliasing is able to work. Point being, it's not the same game it was years ago from a technical perspective and you can't really count on those outdated experiences to give you a relevant picture of WoW's GPU performance today.

 

[OmgitsSexyChase]

I've sold and have seen used GTX780s in the $250 range in the FS/FT forums here

I would buy used, or wait

 

[ITSTHINKING]

IMO the best bang for your buck would be a r9 280. See them for less than $180 often. Yes I know you said Nvidia but I love my Nvidia cards as well and there's no way I would by a GTX960 right now when the R9 280 is cheaper and just as fast if not faster. The quiet part of it would just depend on which 3rd party cooler is being used.

 

[SLiGuy]

World of Warcraft gets significant changes to the game engine almost every expansion (there have been 5 expansions so far). You used to be able to play the game on a DirectX 7 card, now you need a DX9, SM3.0 GPU at the minimum and the game also has full DirectX 11 support (including full support for 10.1 and 10.0 feature levels if you have a DX10 or 10.1 card). The most recent huge change that came with WoD was when the game engine changed to differed rendering, which dramatically changed the way Anti-Aliasing is able to work. Point being, it's not the same game it was years ago from a technical perspective and you can't really count on those outdated experiences to give you a relevant picture of WoW's GPU performance today.

Thanks for this.

A lot of people overlook the fact that WoW becomes more demanding with each expansion. It's not demanding by today's standards, no, but it certainly is more demanding than it was years ago. My current machine (which, sadly to say, is 4 and a half years old) played Cata perfectly with everything on ultra/max, during MoP I had to turn it down a bit and now with WoD it struggles even at medium.