WOW and 5870 cards.. Crossfire or not ?

1

1000

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 2, 2005
Messages
426
Hi there all.

I am a WOW fanatic, it's pretty much all I play apart from a bit of Aion and CS:S these days. I have a GTX280 now which runs pretty well, however, with AA, shadows and high quality textures in WOW I do get moments, particularly in Northrend (I won't even mention Dalaran which is CPU bound) where my frames drop from 60fps to 45-50fps. It bothers me.

I'm going to lash out on a 5870 because I've just read the Anandtech review and the 5870 spanks the competition in WOW. However, I just noticed the figures for Crossfire.. .I was under the impression that WOW did not utilise it, in fact, to the contrary I'd heard that CF causes more problems in WOW than anything else.

So my question is this; should I pick up a second 5870 and run Crossfire for WOW, or should I just settle for a single card ? I have a Gigabyte p45 chipset board so my understanding is that the main PCIE slot is 16x and the one for the second card is 8X, should that also affect my decision ?

Maybe the huge performance leap in WOW is more about the total amount of RAM that the two cards provide.. maybe the 2gb is the factor that makes the difference and I should wait for the 2gb version of the 5870 ???

CHeers

1000
 
It is, but a single HD5870 should be plenty for WoW. A cpu upgrade would benefit you more I'd think than two 5870s.
 
I've tried overclocking my Dual core from 3.0ghz to 3.6ghz and couldn't see much difference to be frank.
There really is nothing else to upgrade to that WOW will benefit from, it doesn't use quad-cores so what's the point in upgrading the CPU ?

1000
 
1000 said:
I've tried overclocking my Dual core from 3.0ghz to 3.6ghz and couldn't see much difference to be frank.
There really is nothing else to upgrade to that WOW will benefit from, it doesn't use quad-cores so what's the point in upgrading the CPU ?

1000
Click to expand...

This is incorrect sir. You can make WoW use more than 2 cores. And you can be rest assured in the new expansion they will add quad core support.
 
What resolution monitor do you run? If it's 1920 or less, a single 5870 should suffice. If you want to do triple monitors, then adding a second might make some sense for you.
 
So straighten me out here on CPUs and I might get the 5870 and a new mobo/cpu at the same time.

I have the 3.0ghz dual core 8500 now. If I want a boost in WOW, should I just pick up the standard, entry level i5 with one of the new socket 1156 boards and some DDR3.. and if I do, would I expect an increase of any signifcance ?

CHeers

1000
 
If you want to upgrade your cpu, either an i5 750 or an i7 920 should be fine for you. But not at stock speeds. OC from to 3.6-4.0 ghz and you'll really get the most benefit from pairing your processor with your 5870.
 
OC from to 3.6-4.0 ghz and you'll really get the most benefit from pairing your processor with your 5870.
Click to expand...

LOL I don't think WoW needs overclocking and suggesting he OC to 4.0 ghz is quite risky and experimental. He might just fry the cpu or something. We don't know his level of expertise.
 
vjcsmoke said:
What resolution monitor do you run? If it's 1920 or less, a single 5870 should suffice. If you want to do triple monitors, then adding a second might make some sense for you.
Click to expand...
I read in one of the reviews that Eyefinity in CrossFire isn't quite ready yet. Not sure what that meant but I am awaiting more HD 5870 Eyefinity and Crossfire Eyefinity reviews.
 
1000 said:
Hi there all.

I am a WOW fanatic, it's pretty much all I play apart from a bit of Aion and CS:S these days. I have a GTX280 now which runs pretty well, however, with AA, shadows and high quality textures in WOW I do get moments, particularly in Northrend (I won't even mention Dalaran which is CPU bound) where my frames drop from 60fps to 45-50fps. It bothers me.

I'm going to lash out on a 5870 because I've just read the Anandtech review and the 5870 spanks the competition in WOW. However, I just noticed the figures for Crossfire.. .I was under the impression that WOW did not utilise it, in fact, to the contrary I'd heard that CF causes more problems in WOW than anything else.

So my question is this; should I pick up a second 5870 and run Crossfire for WOW, or should I just settle for a single card ? I have a Gigabyte p45 chipset board so my understanding is that the main PCIE slot is 16x and the one for the second card is 8X, should that also affect my decision ?

Maybe the huge performance leap in WOW is more about the total amount of RAM that the two cards provide.. maybe the 2gb is the factor that makes the difference and I should wait for the 2gb version of the 5870 ???

CHeers

1000

__________________
Duo Core 8500 | Gigabyte EP-45 DSP3 | Nvidia GTX280 | 4gig Corsair DDR| Dell 3007fpw | Dell 2405fpw | Zalman 1000w PSU | Audigy4 | 1tb Sata HDDs | Logitech G15 } MS Sidewinder X8 | Antec Nine Hundred Two | Scythe Infinity CPU cooler | 6x Nexus 120mm fans |
Click to expand...

Firstly you need to determine what is causing the slowdowns. It might not even be your hardware. It might be the game has network issues which induces a drop in FPS in those areas. It might be your video drivers. It might be your BIOS isn't configured well. We just don't know.

Throwing a bunch of money at the problem is potentially one way to solve it though. I think an Intel i-750 paired with a single 5870 is plenty of power for WoW. I don't see why a 5850 isn't enough for it. Do some research into the games you play and see what they want. A 5850 is only a bit faster than your current video card and is probably a waste of money in your case.

I see you are using a 30" display. That means you need more video card power than CPU power. The more pixels you are pushing, the more your video card is going to be stressed and your CPU will sit idle waiting for the GPU to finish rendering.

To confirm this, run 'task manager' while you play in the areas that give you slow downs and then alt-tab back to the desktop and check the graphs. If either of your Intel CPU cores are at 90% or more, then you may be CPU limited and in that case, a CPU/Mobo/RAM upgrade to Intel's new i5 or i7 CPU's might help.

You are going to need to run through some diagnosing tests to try to determine what hardware or system changes you need. You might need to just change some BIOS settings that could be causing slowdowns. I don't know. Good luck.
 
Actually, reading more into it, in your case a 5850 is perfect. Not to mention it'll be $120 less for just a slight decrease in performance from the 5870. No benchmarks yet, but since its not very far off the 5870 I doubt it will be more than 20 percent difference.
 
wow is a funny game, the engine is so old and they keep adding on extras and new graphics items ect... my 4870x2 ran wow like crap. I would slide show at times in 5 man instances. Traded it for a GTX285 and it ran tons better but still not like it should. any area in north end can randomly lag and thats do to it being a MMO so many factors involved.

Personaly im going to sell my 285 and get 2x 5870s atleast if they dont play wow good togher i can turn crossfire off and enjoy one of them. then crossfire back on for other games. with the x2 i could not turn crossfire off.
 
crossfire works with wow. Apparently sli does too now. If the anandtech review of the 5870 is anything to go by.

And yeah, it can use your horsepower if you let it (mainly through shadows).

Of course, you really need to raid 25 man to see it...when all 25 people are casting their graphically brilliant spells in one tiny spot, it gets hefty.
 
yeah, most people don't realize that with the shadow slider all the way up(or if you enter some console commands to go beyond that) wow becomes very taxing.

I remember when the only shadows you could get was a blob below you in wow, now you can set it so just about everything casts a relatively realistic shadow with soft edges. Not to mention all the spammy area effects from death knights and just about everyone in your raid casting sht at once.
 
LittleMeEgo said:
Agreed.
Click to expand...

Actually, besides WoW "cartoony" graphics, the latest expansion pack did bump the graphic settings. You can have shadows and other fancy graphics enabled, so if you were running this on an Intel Graphics Chip, you will not be able to run it on WoW's ultra setting.
 
I find upgrading a PC just to play one game a bit silly.

Your question is also a bit silly, in that if you have the money to do it and have already bought one why not just buy another one and see how it works for yourself?
 
Torquemada XP said:
I find upgrading a PC just to play one game a bit silly.
Click to expand...

IF the OP spends a large chunk of time playing that one game on their PC, then an upgrade to increase enjoyment of that game is not silly at all. The 5870 is probably overspec'd for WoW in most instances. But I'm sure there are also some instances where the superior performance of the 5870 will keep the min frame rates higher and thus make the OP's gaming experience smoother and more enjoyable. Plus he can do triple monitors on it. ;)
 
Because his question is subjective. If OP 'should' upgrade to 2 5870's to play WoW for most people is way over the top unnecessary and a waste of money. But maybe he should if he so very badly wants shadows on every object and thinks that will improve his experience.

Just turn down the shadows and maybe another setting or two and be happy with your current setup.. Or upgrade and spend at least a thousand dollars upgrading your PC so you can have everything on max.

You did say you are fanatical about the game so maybe that's what you need to do. Having a game you love is a real gift. Enjoy it.
 
Thanks for all the help guys.

Just lashed out on a i7 860, new mobo, 8gb and a shiny 5870. Will CF in the future if I think I need it. I reckon it's waste not pairing the 5870 with the best (reasonably priced) CPU available.

Once I ebay the old gear it hasn't worked out costing me that much.

Cheers

1000
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top