World of Warcraft Performance Guide
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 23, 2005 12:17 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
WoW GPU Performance
We tested a total of 12 GPUs, mostly modern day DX9 hardware. But even at 12, we didn't get as much testing done as possible. This week's WoW patch threw a wrench in our testing, which forced us to keep a couple of cards out of the comparison, mainly the Radeon 9800 Pro and the Radeon 9600XT. Thankfully from a performance perspective, the Radeon 9800 Pro behaves very similarly to the X700 Pro (a bit slower, but nothing huge), so you will at least have a reference point if you are a current 9800 Pro owner.
Much to our surprise, performance was fairly balanced between ATI and NVIDIA at similar product points. The GeForce 6800 Ultra performed very similarly to the Radeon X850 XT, as did the 6800GT and the X800 XL. The major exception being the 6600GT vs. the X700 Pro, where the 6600GT offers significantly better performance.
The GeForce 6200 performed exceptionally well given that it is a sub-$100 card. At 1024 x 768, its performance was quite acceptable in WoW (remember that 20 - 30 fps is a lot more playable in a slow-paced FPS).
It did take the fastest GPUs to actually offer uninterruptible smooth performance (i.e. no stuttering) at the higher resolutions. The X850 XT and the 6800 Ultra were both capable of that at 1600 x 1200.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
59 Comments
View All Comments
biegstvo - Tuesday, July 8, 2008 - link
CPU seems to make a difference. I only have a 1.8 Ghz, and it's slow, but I'm not sure how much that has to do with the fact that it's a Celeron, with it's cut down cache, etc. If I got a 1.8Ghz P4, or even 2.* Ghz, would that help a lot?(I realize socket 478 is old, but I still have [cheap] room ahead of me even in this outdated format.)
edeus - Monday, October 31, 2005 - link
It would be good to know if there was raid on this test machine - as CPU tests may have been skewed because of it.shady28 - Saturday, January 7, 2006 - link
This article should be updated in some way. With the advent of battlegrounds, the biggest performance hits come in battlegrounds where there are 30-40 vs 30-40 other players. The front lines can easily have 60 people PvPing, plus a dozen or more NPCs thrashing around.
I can say unequivocably that a Radeon 9600Pro is incapable of dealing effectively with this. I seriously doubt anything below a 9800XT can give you even moderately good framerates in those circumstances. I'd also like to see something showing any differences in 512MB cards vs 256MB vs 128MB in games like WoW and EQ2, since those games have tons of textures and constantly have to reload new textures as you move around in-game (both for the landscape, and textures on other players representing their armor and weapons as they come into visual range).
xinc - Friday, May 6, 2005 - link
To poster 50.Yes, when ram comes into question, it would be more beneficial, to have at least 1gb of ram to avoid lag issues.
Graphical quality wise, my laptop sucks for detail, and frame rates are mediocre at best (I use default settings for details etc), however with 1gb of ram, I am lag free when passing by the auction houses in Orgrimmar, and Iron Forge.
Thanks to Anand & Co. for performing these tests... at least it gives us as the general public an idea of how to spec a "WOW gamebox"
Now my question to anyone reading these comments, and who would know more about performance... would you choose either a Geforce 6600GT or a Geforce 6800? (not GT just 6800)
it's about a $80 premium for the 6800 where I live in Canada. Thanks for any help.
Solanio - Wednesday, April 13, 2005 - link
I'm running it on a Mac with all settings set to max, highest refresh and all shaders on and I'm noticing hardly any lag*. But I haven't been able to compare it to a PC yet.People even complain about lag in open channel when I'm not suffering any. - But again, what seems 'normal' to me might seem slow to others. I'll know better when I'm able to compare.
I have a G5 dual 2GHz with 2 G RAM and the 6800 Ultra DLL NVIDIA card connecting via DSL.
I do have to say though that visually the game is beautiful and I'm really enjoying it.
*(The only time I notice lag is when I log on at peak times, there's sometimes an initial second of jump and then now and then rarely when entering an area like Goldshire, when there are a bunch of characters and I've been off somewhere else, like Westfall - but that is rare and it only happens for a moment and then everything is smooth).
bluebob950 - Tuesday, April 12, 2005 - link
what model 6600gt did you use in your test?Anemone - Monday, April 11, 2005 - link
2gb for the more intense raids helps noticeably on the Intel side of things.$.02
matbe - Tuesday, April 5, 2005 - link
Great article! It's hard to test mmorpg performance but you succeeded. Must be a first, at least with such reliable tests! Again Anandtech impresses me. Would love to see a test of the more graphics intensive EverQuest2 too!DPOverLord - Monday, April 4, 2005 - link
Ram wise does this mean if we plan on building a computer it makes more sense to buy the ram now then later?drdavis - Friday, April 1, 2005 - link
OK, followup to the Mac post. I was looking through the Mac support forum on the WoW community site. The FPS rate drop is a known issue that was introduced and a fix is in the works. So, hopefully Blizzard will have it soon!See http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=w...