new vid card, playing WoW

[Khemikal]

I play WoW as my main 3d application (new games in the future since my next machine will be able to handle them). I'm also a developer so I pretty much can't live without having dual monitors. With my next system I plan on going with dual 22"s. I don't plan on trying to spread my games across both monitors.

I have looked at the hwbot graphs and websites and looking at the $150-$200 price point leaves me with a few options:

2x 3870
3870x2
4850
9800 GTX+


The 3870's beat the others in everything I can see. I'm a little worried about how WoW will handle having either 2 cards or 2 cores. Does WoW utilize both? What would be the pushing force to go one way or another between 2 3870s and a 3870x2?

Between the 4850 and 9800, is the 9800 worth going with DX10 instead of the slightly slower but DX10.1 card? I'm finally able to afford to upgrade and thus I'll have a computer that can handle newer games, soh andling newer games should be taken into account for 6-12 months down the road.

[Trap05]

No point in even considering a 38x series card. WoW doesn't do well with crossfire either so I've read. So that leaves the 4850 or the 9800GTX+

[thideras]

WoW is a single threaded app that heavily relies on the CPU. That northwood is going to hold you back a ton if you are planning on keeping it. When I had my e3110, I saw a decent difference between 4.0 and 4.2 GHz.

I have the 9800GTX with dual 24" (1920x1200) monitors. I have done single screen gaming (with other stuff on the second monitor) and complete spanning. I can run the game completely full out (3840x1200) and not hit below 60fps (except Shattrath...that just hurts). Either the GTX or the 4850 is a decent choice.

[ghost_recon88]

I would opt for the HD 4850. There are quite a few of them on newegg now for $140 after rebates. Linky (http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010380048%20106792627%201067940677&bop=And&Order=PRICE).

[Trap05]

What is the rest of your system like? Obviously you're not putting this card in a P4P800 AGP slot

[Khemikal]

Yeah Thid, I am upgrading to a new system. The only reason I am still using this thing is because I've been a broke college student the last few years, and I'm just finally leveling out and able to save money now that I've had my job for a while. I'll probably be going with a quad core since I do run multiple apps when I'm programming. I'm also be starting off with 4gigs of ram, and eventually moving up to 8gigs within a year (go go cheap ram).

Edit: Whats wrong with my P4P800 dlx!?!?!?! :D

[Trap05]

No PCI-E slot for the new card

[White_Pawn]

No PCI-E slot for the new card

he just posted that he is going to get a new rig. =P

go for the 4850.

[CGR]

I play WOW on my 4850 and it runs like a champ with everything turned up. Usually it is capped at the 60fps mark, but sometimes in instances or in cities it will drop to mid 40's for a bit.

[Sentential]

Here's what you need to look at (coming from a heavy WoW user).

First Xfire and SLI do quite well in WoW and while it is not supported it does function quite well. I had previously used two 3850s and it was noticably faster than the 1 8800gt I had previously used.

Second as the previous posts mentioned, WoW is heavily processor based. Here's a great example, when I moved from Intel Core 2 Duo to AMD Phenom I did not have a good overclocking cooler I was forced to use the PC at stock (2.6 for the 9950).

My frames went from a very comfortable 60-70FPS in Shattrath down to 12. Yes I am not kidding, 12. I thought something was horribly wrong with the PC I went through driver update after update and even dropped the resolution down to 800/600 to figure out what the problem was and nothing solved it. Just this last week we had a very cold front move into the area. Just before I decided to return the Phenom setup I put the PC next to a window fan where outside temps were about 40F and overclocked the chip up to 3ghz (my q9300 was at 3.2 roughly from before)

Soon as the CPU hit 3ghz my frame rates returned to normal, I was completely stunned. I put the PC back at stock and the same low frames returned. Back up to 3 and the issues dissappeared.

In addition to that WoW support multi-threaded processors and gets significant gains from both running Vista 64bit in addition to Quad cores versus single. (rougly 20-30%)

If you are specifically upgrading a PC to run WoW the top thing(s) you need are:

#1 CPU (in this case the more cores the better go for a quad minimum)
#2 RAM (lots of it, 4-8gb prefered speed will not matter)
#3 HDD (one with alot of cache)
distant #4 (a new video card, unless you have something like a 7900gt etc)

If you are going Crossfire / SLI you need to know this right away. While it works flawlessly there is an issue with the way the game renders shadows and when shadows are turned to their full quality with a multi-gpu setup the game will artifact like crazy, once SLI/Xfire is disabled the issue will go away. In addition "shadows" uses tremendous amounts of video-ram, if you intend to get this to work at its highest settings you need over 512mb of video ram otherwise the game will crawl.

Hope this helps

[Khemikal]

Thanks Sentential. That was basically the exact information I was looking for. I've gone through 2 complete raid seasons pushing through endgame content in both (stupid KJ wont drop my helm for my dps warrior) on the comp in my sig. You have no idea how hard it is to raid a slam/bf spec warrior when you have to rely on a swing timer to get your hits in correctly. Toss in the fact my head is generally up the boss' butt exactly where 10 or so ranged dps are sending their fireball/frostbolt/shadowbolt/etc and exploding right about my head, I got used to running at like 7fps in raids. I spent so much time doing it that my dps suffers next to nothing since I've got so good at guestimating the video lag and compensating for it with my slams.

So while I play a good bit of WoW (raiding and farming for mats 4+ days a week), I am not building my machine specifically for that (just a major factor). I knew the cpu/ram were big issues and have settled on what I want there, but with the craziness that is video cards and how quick that segment of the market is moving, it was getting hard for me to make a good decision. I had been wanting to run XFire/SLI just to do it, but if you are having problems with shadows, I'll steer away from it and go with a 4850 for now since I want to finally be able to turn on some eye candy when I'm raiding. I had mentioned a quad core proc since I'm a developer and sometimes I have to toy around with stuff at home to see if it works before I take it into work. I also have multiple accounts and multi-boxing has put some of the fun back into the game since my guild has been endgame for a few months now. The ram is one of those parts that I can pretty much go balls to the wall and not burn a hole in my pocket, so I figured 2x2gig would be a good start for the new system.

Basically got a half yes for sli/x2 but has problems with the new shadows. 2 for the 4850. Nothing about the 9800 GTX+.
Looks like I'll be going with the 4850. Thanks everyone.

[Firestrider]

I came from a build almost like yours (Northwood 2.8C @ 3.2Ghz, 6800GS, 1GB RAM) and I can say going to the build I have now increased WoW FPS a lot. I can now (well used to) play at 50+ FPS in raids with full video settings.

I'd recommend a 1GB video card since running dual 22" monitors is a lot of pixels to store.

[Sentential]

Thanks Sentential......

Basically got a half yes for sli/x2 but has problems with the new shadows. 2 for the 4850. Nothing about the 9800 GTX+.
Looks like I'll be going with the 4850. Thanks everyone.

The shadows issue is a recent one and the blues have publically said that they are "working on it" I figured it would be best to let you know right off the bat.

The reason why I went with a single GTX260 was because Xfire with the new "shadows" update would artifact like hell and it also appears to affect SLI. Also note that prior to this update without the updated high res-shadows the game worked just fine with Xfire / SLI

Also just letting you know just like the CPU limitations WoW is also very sensitive to low PCI-E bandwith. Do NOT run SLI with anything less than an 8x slot because it causes all kinds of stuttering (which is why I dumpted my P35)

Going with an HD4850 is an excellent choice or even a 9600GT. The video card isnt really the limiting factor the CPU is. If you are going to do an upgrade you need to get a minimum of an Q6600 and get it up to atleast 3ghz for the game to run effectively

[Khemikal]

Noted. I love my 2.4C but the thing is 6 years old, and my parts are starting to crap out on me. What can I say of pretty much 20hours/day usage for 5+ years. It was WELL worth the money I dumped on it when those parts first came out. I think these parts are good testaments of the idea that if you get good parts they'll last you.

On a side note about monitor size and getting so used to old tech. For years I've run 1280x1024 on my desktop at home with a single monitor. Here at work I started with dual 19"s running 1600x1200, and in the last month moved up to these dual 22"s at 1680x1050 (love my night picture of the Chicago skyline spread across both monitors w/o being stretched/skewed) and I have no idea how I have managed to use my current setup at home for so long. I guess knowing you can barely afford ramen while in school helps keep the upgrade bug and wish/wants out of your head.

[CGR]

I wonder if the shadow issue with xfire, only happens with two cards vs an X2.. Any info on that Sententical?

[Sentential]

I wonder if the shadow issue with xfire, only happens with two cards vs an X2.. Any info on that Sententical?

All 9800GTX2, HD3870X2, and HD4870X2 are all affected in addition to traditional dual setups. The issue with the new shadow engine only appears when shadows are on FULL. You CAN turn shadows on just not "real-time" shadows. The dev's said it is a glitch in the way that the drivers interact with the game when using AFR rendering mode to blend the two images together causes textures to flicker.

[JonSimonzi]

I had a GX2, and WoW hated it. Had to disable multi GPU and just run it as an 8800GTS pretty much. But WoW loves my new GTX260.

[Firestrider]

Would there be a benefit of going from 2 to 4 cores for Warhammer (given same speed)

[thideras]

Would there be a benefit of going from 2 to 4 cores for Warhammer (given same speed)Warhammer? This is a WoW thread...

[Firestrider]

I thought I would ask since they are pretty similar games computing wise.

[Albyno]

to end ur question quickly yes quads are utilized well in warhammer. back to the topic i would get a Q9400/e8500 e0 and a 4850/4870 if i was you. my bro has a e8400 and a 4850 and it eats wow for dead and he wont let em overclock it more then 3.6ghz.

[Theocnoob]

No point in even considering a 38x series card. WoW doesn't do well with crossfire either so I've read. So that leaves the 4850 or the 9800GTX+

:confused: Can someone please explain to me why seriously beefed GPU's keep getting recommended for a game which not only came out like four years ago or something-- but was designed, even then, to run amicably on PC's that were at that time quite mid range.

The game freakin FLIES on my system. FLIES. Its gotta be doing like 100+FPS all the time. No matter how many effects are going on, 100 people on screen, doesn't matter. I can't slow it down.

[thideras]

:confused: Can someone please explain to me why seriously beefed GPU's keep getting recommended for a game which not only came out like four years ago or something-- but was designed, even then, to run amicably on PC's that were at that time quite mid range.

The game freakin FLIES on my system. FLIES. Its gotta be doing like 100+FPS all the time. No matter how many effects are going on, 100 people on screen, doesn't matter. I can't slow it down.What resolution and setting are you running at? I run a 9800GTX with 1 or 2 24" monitors (1920x1200 each). At 1920x1200, full settings and an overclocked system, I can hit as low as 30fps in a 25 man raid with TONS of mobs (think hyjal). Not sure where you are sitting to get 100+, the only time I get that is pre-bc content or if I'm looking at a wall.

[lharp]

I just uped my system the other day to two 4850´s not a x2 .
Still the artifacting is an issue with crossfire engaged but I get the best out of it using windowed mode (no artifacting ) Plus there is an option in video settings something bout reduce lag make sure it´s unchecked and the games runs super usually 60+ fps and thats with a 22" display full eyecandy 1680x1050 ..
Not sure what you wanna get for a proc but I would fully go for a quad ...
Intel or Amd is your choice .. If Amd wait till next year hopefully the deneb will be out and the 6mb L3 cache will help..
If not the Intel i7´s are out the middle of this month and the older intel´s should drop in price . Get a nice quad for lil cash .

Happy building

[don'tknow]

Eh, i7 isn't really for gaming. Go for one of the Q9k or E8k series recommended above.

[e6600]

Eh, i7 isn't really for gaming. Go for one of the Q9k or E8k series recommended above.
would be nice to have one core (two threads) running along with 6 other threads crunching :drool:

[lharp]

I ment the new chips are coming out and hopefully will drop prices on older quads and dual cores ....


Reading is half the battle

[JonSimonzi]

What resolution and setting are you running at? I run a 9800GTX with 1 or 2 24" monitors (1920x1200 each). At 1920x1200, full settings and an overclocked system, I can hit as low as 30fps in a 25 man raid with TONS of mobs (think hyjal). Not sure where you are sitting to get 100+, the only time I get that is pre-bc content or if I'm looking at a wall.

I agree with Thid. If I'm by myself flying around or something, I can see upwards of 150fps. But in a 25 man raid setting, with tons of **** going on, it will drop to around 40 - 50. Luckily, I've never seen it drop below 30, which is exactly what I was going for.