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Any Recommendations for a smokin' WoW system?

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Toasty_Squirrel

Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2002
I'm wondering what my fellow gamers recommend for a Windows system to run WoW? Basically I'm hitting the Battlegrounds (esp. Alterac Valley) like crazy, not to to mention 40-man raids on a near continual basis.

My current system gives me lag like crazy when I'm 40-manning Molten Core and I'm wondering if there's just something I need to tweak or I need to upgrade my system. I'd also like to mention that running the game with excellent quality is somewhat of a requirement... I like things looking nice and sparkly :bday:

Current Specs go something like:

Video: ATI X700 (256mb)
CPU: AMD XP 3500
HD: +100gb still free
RAM: DDR 3200; 1GB (MoBo doesn't support DDR2... I don't think).


I know I'm well above the "official" recommendations from Blizzard, but come on... those specs are a joke to begin with.

Thank for your help everyone!
 
Toasty_Squirrel said:
I'm wondering what my fellow gamers recommend for a Windows system to run WoW? Basically I'm hitting the Battlegrounds (esp. Alterac Valley) like crazy, not to to mention 40-man raids on a near continual basis.

My current system gives me lag like crazy when I'm 40-manning Molten Core and I'm wondering if there's just something I need to tweak or I need to upgrade my system. I'd also like to mention that running the game with excellent quality is somewhat of a requirement... I like things looking nice and sparkly :bday:

Current Specs go something like:

Video: ATI X700 (256mb)
CPU: AMD XP 3500
HD: +100gb still free
RAM: DDR 3200; 1GB (MoBo doesn't support DDR2... I don't think).


I know I'm well above the "official" recommendations from Blizzard, but come on... those specs are a joke to begin with.

Thank for your help everyone!

Those specs allow you to run the game in a minimally demanding environment and are more like "single player" specs.

To run WoW in a raid/bg environment you will want 2 gigabytes of ram min. It's very memory intensive, this counts for your videocard as well.

I would recommend you upgrade your ram to 2 gigs of pc-3200 (or higher ratings if you're going to overclock)
also try to find a video card with 512mb of ram it will help quite a bit in a game like WoW. I'd recommend a 7600 gs or better, overall I'd look at cards with 256-512mb ddr3 over 512mb of ddr2 ram.

Your CPU seems adequate and is probally socket 939? If so you could look at the fx 55. Here is a link they are really cheap atm because of being open box
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?item=N82E16819103526R
 
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It depends, do you want a new system?

WoW is more CPU/memory intensive than anything, graphics really aren't too realistic so you can easily get along fine without a smoking graphics card. I'd definately dump some cash into a quicker processor and some more RAM.

I'm building a system myself so I can get back into WoW and the other DX10 games, if you want I can show you my specs.

7
 
I second the recommendation for more ram. Getting 2 gb should get you a noticeable improvement. I have an x700 with 128mb of ram and I have no problems in MC with 40 people. Try turning down your settings. A faster cpu will also help.
 
Yup, for Wow, Ram amount and it's latency/speed is all that really matters, as long as you have a 1/2 decent Video card and CPU.

Your Video card looks all right for WoW, the CPU could be upgraded though.
And Nice fast Ram. Overclock, push your Ram/FSB. It will help quite a bit with WoW.
 
What about internet connection? Stop all Bit Torrents, P2P, etc, while your playing. Reserve as much bandwidth you can for the game. And, if you dont have cable already, get it!
 
For WoW, Kill all extra processes (BT, WMP, email, web browsers, etc..).

Get 2 gb of memory. WoW is a greedy ******* memorywise.

I have a feeling that Burning Crusade will be upping the video card reqs so you might want to get over what you need now so you arent upgrading again in a few months.

Other then that, cant think of too much.
 
From my experience, WoW loves memory and specifically, high memory bandwidth. W/e you do, build your system with that in mind.

--pak
 
I think to better answer your question we would need to know what kind of budget to work with. Obviously, SLI is always an option with some of the bigger end cards if money was not an option....even quad SLI.

I play WoW a lot on 40 man raids, etc....I recommend a decent Nvidia card with SLI options for the future if you elect. I would recommend any of the newer dual cores...if you have the future again in mind. I would recommend at least 2 gigs of memory (high end OCZ+). A lot of these new products toss out some decent heat, so take a look at a nice cool case (aluminum or a blend)....more fans are a plus.

Good luck in Azeroth.

burn3r...
 
You really do not need to upgrade anything but ram. Look at my system specs. My processor is older than yours and I run the game with all setting maxed out.

If you can get more ram and maybe a faster vidcard you would have no lag imo
 
TBC shouldn't be much worse on the GFX card, although I expect a LOT of memory and CPU power to be used up when people are slamming through the dark portal and there's 1000 people in view.

7
 
WoW is sooo easy to run as far as CPU and video card requirements go. I always get a chuckle when people talk about building a WoW machine and spend $400+ on video cards and CPU's. They're gonna have to play something else if they want to get their money's worth. Memory quantity is where it's at, memory bandwith some as well, and maybe even hard drive quickness to a small point.

I have an aging Barton core machine @ 2.2Ghz with a 2Gb of RAM and a 6800 (vanilla) AGP card. Runs everything in WoW flawlessly at max settings. With a DSL connection, the only thing to worry about is when the realm server starts acting up.

I also have a laptop...even slower CPU and integrated video that shares 512mb total system memory. Along with the HD being slower. Set at midrange settings, it actually runs smoothly provided that it has had time to get everything in an area loaded. And, it dogs in areas with tons of people due to not having enough memory to get everything loaded up into RAM.

Back to the original post...another vote for just getting 2GB of ram and not spending anymore money than that.
 
SeasonalEclipse said:
3500 AMD XP?.. YOu mean 2500+? Or 3500+ AMD 64?

3500+ AMD 64, that's it. I have about six computers that I meddle with at the house so I get some of them mixed up and - as with this case - just combined two different CPUs together :p

It seems like the unanimous consent is to upgrade to the 2gigs of RAM. I built this computer about a year and a half ago and I'm probably going to get a new one soon anyway; however this one's far from dead and I'd definitely like to milk it for all it's worth until that time. I think the extra RAM will let me do just that.

I forget what the display size is that I run it at, something insane... I'm not at that particular system right now but I think it's around 1920x1200? Something like that. I think the Bliz downloader's probably gotten re-enabled after the 2.0 patch so I'll want to nix that; but aside from that I've already pulled out just about all the other background processes.

Thanks for all the advise everyone! If anyone's got more ideas, by all means I'd love to hear them. As it is right now.... need more RAM :clap:
 
Well that res is defintely more than I'd push for your system specs. WoW is hardly a system killer, but if you want that res, plus a little AA/AF would be nice to, then there are defintely a few small upgrades you can make to help things out.

Memory - You got 1 gig, is that a single 1 gig stick or 2x512's? Hopefully its not something horrible like 4x256's or 1x512 + 2x256's. Hopefully you have enough ram slots free to get to 2 gigs without having to replace your existing ram.

The best choice you got, OVERCLOCK!. You do know where your at right? If that 3500+ is running stock you got some headroom just waiting to be tapped. So if your MB is not a great OC'er, you may be better off getting a replacement. I'm sure you could prolly find a great used OC'ing MB here for cheap. Maybe some better cooling.

A newer faster HD could help with loading and access times, and there pretty cheap these days.

I never cared for the x700 much as a gamer card, but I am guessing its AGP and so your MB doesn't have a PCI-Express slot. That really kills most of your choices. So it may not be worth upgrading the video if your going to be building a new system soon.

So another gig of ram and OC and things should be much better.
 
Upgrade your RAM.

That's about all you need to do spending wise.

I noticed a memory leak when I was playing WoW hardcore. I don't know if it was my add on packs for raiding or the actual game. Normally my Windows overhead was about 280mb. Loading a fresh WoW never put me above 700MB. I found myself pushing the 1gig physical ram I have easily after a few hours. If it ever went above 900mb or so used in Task Manager I started to notice slowdowns. This normally happened about 2.5-3 hours into play.

The fix was simple...restart WoW. It kinda sucked, but it is 100% cost effective and worked every time.

When I had my AMD64 3000+ OC'ed to 2400, this same RAM, and a 9800 Pro WoW played fine on medium settings. 2 gigs of RAM and it would've played without lag, I'm sure.

On my current setup I noticed some load-related lag flying into Orgrimarr and UC, both would've been fixed by adding RAM.

If adding RAM doesn't work get an mid-level graphics card. Anything over $200-250 is a waste IMO as WoW's graphics really aren't that great.

If that doesn't cut it, get a Opty 170 and OC it some. That paired with 2 gigs of RAM and a mid level nVidia or ATI card is all you'll ever need to play WoW at max settings. No need to blow hundreds to play WoW...it doesn't required that much. I had it running on low settings on my IBM T30 (1.6ghz P4, 1 gig RAM, Radeon Mobility 7500). It ran perfectly smooth until it about an hour or two in then the poor cooling caught up with it.

Note: I used to play at 1600x1200 maxed settings and it ran perfect as long as I restarted recently to free up the memory leak. I also played at whatever the max res was (can't remember) with maxed out settings and it worked great. I was just annoyed by the res switching every time I had to restart WoW every 2 hours...
 
I never had any problems in wow including 40 man instances @ 1024x768 with graphics on medium with a system FAR inferior to yours. the only place I would encounter a problem was actually big cities like ironforge.

that system was a borrowed P4 2.4 GHz Dell which hadn't had a clean XP install since it was new 3 years ago, an old GeForce FX5600 and some mismatched cheapo ram... a stick of geil pc2700 512mb and a stick of micron pc2100 512mb.
 
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