Perfect Graphics Card For WoW?

[serjizzalot]

I hope you guys can help me with this one cause Im not too familiar with how GPU demanding older PC games are. 

So a friend of mine wants to start playing WoW again and needs to be able to play it at max @ 60 FPS and I dont want to recommend a card that would be overkill cause we are working on a budget. I saw the 7770 but wouldn't that be too much horsepower for such an old game? looking to see if anyone can clarify or suggest a different card. This is exclusively for WoW and he wont be playing any other game. 

[Jrobertson]

A gtx 680 or a 280x perhaps

[technation]

I hope you guys can help me with this one cause Im not too familiar with how GPU demanding older PC games are. 

So a friend of mine wants to start playing WoW again and needs to be able to play it at max @ 60 FPS and I dont want to recommend a card that would be overkill cause we are working on a budget. I saw the 7770 but wouldn't that be too much horsepower for such an old game? looking to see if anyone can clarify or suggest a different card. This is exclusively for WoW and he wont be playing any other game. 

Wow is honestly pretty easy to handle. Even a 660ti should do the job more than well. Any new NVIDIA 700 series card will be be able to handle it no problem if not overkill.

[xAcid9]

Maxed out @1080p? GTX760.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-titan-performance-review,3442-8.html

[tYSON2295]

a 760 is enough for wow my little bros gtx 660 runs it on full ultra with 60+ fps my card runs it at 100+ but i put vsync on cuz tearing

[Psychatog]

The most optimal card for WoW is a GTX 770.  WoW is easy to run but to get sustainable FPS in 25/40 man raids you need some power.  More importantly you need an Intel CPU as the game is basically single threaded design.  Sure a GTX 660 can do 10 man raids pretty much maxed out, but 25 man raids eh not so much.  Here is a guide over on the WoW forums that covers some of it: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/10587208956

 

WoW by nature is an old game.  The graphics core was designed in 02/03 and although it has been "updated" it's still over 10 years old.  All they did was throw high resolution textures and increase polygon count and bam a new game.  This has caused the game to be extremely inefficient.  Even Genesect over on the WoW forums who has 4 water cooled Titans OC'ed to 1300MHz and an I7-3960x @ 4.8GHz cannot sustain FULL ULTRA 2560x1440 in raids.  His cards stay below 15% usage each, but the game scales poorly.

[Psychatog]

Maxed out @1080p? GTX760.

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-titan-performance-review,3442-8.html

They don't do actual tests in WoW, they do "fly overs".  When people want to play WoW they want to raid which is an entirely different and more demanding aspect.  

 

The ideal setup is an i5-3570K @ 4.2GHz+ and a GTX 770 w/ GPU Boost 2.0.  This should yield on ultra (good shadows, AA set to x2 and SSAO disabled) a minimum of 35 fps in raiding even during the heavy fights.

[Psychatog]

I want to add something though.  I built a PC for my EX last year.  It featured a Pentium G850, 8GB ram, 400w antec gamer series PSU and an HD 7770GHz edition.  She plays on 1600x1200.  She claims she plays 2 WoW's in LFR 60.0 fps.  Now to be honest I went over there and she was bouncing between 20-30, and 35-45 on 1 account alone.  But she was coming from a terrible experience and it felt butter smooth.  So he maybe asking for 60.0 fps ultra, when realistically he just want better graphics and smoother game play.  Side note, that PC costed me 330 dollars, best PC I've ever built LOL!

[xAcid9]

They don't do actual tests in WoW, they do "fly overs".  When people want to play WoW they want to raid which is an entirely different and more demanding aspect.  

 

The ideal setup is an i5-3570K @ 4.2GHz+ and a GTX 770 w/ GPU Boost 2.0.  This should yield on ultra (good shadows, AA set to x2 and SSAO disabled) a minimum of 35 fps in raiding even during the heavy fights.

 

Demanding is not the right word because when there is many player on screen it will instantly become CPU bottleneck. No amount of 780 Ti can fix this.

[PK112]

My Galaxy GTX 560Ti ran WoW at Ultra settings (everything maxed) at 1920x1080 res with 50-60FPS on average, factoring in Stormwind on populated servers and 25 man raids.

 

Any 600+ series level card or equivalent AMD card should be able to destroy it .

 

It's a shame my 560Ti almost caught fire, I guess there is a fine price to pay with winning the silicone lottery .

[TechFan@ic]

An R9 260X which is basically a 7790 is plenty enough for 1920x1080 and even with 4X anti aliasing, without MSAA a 7770 will easily keep the game running at 60 FPS.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_270_Direct_Cu_II_OC/23.html

[xentric]

With my experience with WoW. If you have a good CPU, get the best single GPU you can afford. Mostly because every x-pack they release they increase the polly count and so a card that use to run ultra one x-pack can't the next in the new zones. Also I agree that nvidia cards run WoW better. I had AMD cards that won't run WoW on DX11 but Nvidia cards do fine. That said I can't tell the different in WoW from running DX9 or DX11. I tend to run DX9 for the high FPS on my GTX 680. The only time my computer has FPS issues in WoW is on world bosses and there was more then 80+ ppl on the screen. Most of the time with WoW the server lags or crashes before you have too many players on the screen.

[PK112]

An R9 260X which is basically a 7790 is plenty enough for 1920x1080 and even with 4X anti aliasing, without MSAA a 7770 will easily keep the game running at 60 FPS.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/R9_270_Direct_Cu_II_OC/23.html

 

Heh there you go, 560Ti at 62 FPS max settings, told you! So yeah if you're focusing more on WoW.. Just know that expansions are going to be coming faster now, and like xentric mentioned the polygon count is i

 

increasing at a pretty nice rate... so I guess it wouldn't hurt to get something beefy, especially if you play any games that are actually graphically challenging. I would say GTX 780/R9 290x just because they are awesome

 

bang for the buck and will last for a while especially with SLI/Xfire when the prices drop.. but if you are on a tigher budget, than earlier GTX 700 series models/R9 270ish cards might suit you better. Cheers hope you find

 

the right card!

 

Edit: Fail spacing!

[the_NIXON88]

What resolution?

 

GTX 760 would be fine if he wants to run it at 1080p

 

But in the rare occasion that he has a 4k monitor which I highly doubt he would have if he's going to play WOW Than a R9 290x

[serjizzalot]

Thanks for the help, everyone. He just wants something that is the best bang for his buck. I think the 760 would be the best option for him.