Hardware Question

[Greneuges 0]

So ive noticed that i have had to turn some of my settings down to be able to get acceptable fps.

In Cata i had everythign cranked to Ultra and all the best settings and i ran 30 to 50 fps.

now im down to the mid 20s dipping into the teens on occassion and that was even trunign the multisampling and a few of the other effects down.

I want to run everything wide open and im wondering if i do a grapics card upgrade if that will acheive it or is my system just too low on recources to accomplish this

I am running

Asus Pro 5ql mother board

6 gigs of ddr2 ram

Intel core 2 Quad 3 gig processor

Sapphire RAedon 48xx card....cant remember which one but itwas the bigges 48xx series at the time

100g HD

was thinking maybe if i went more ram and a better card I could jump over the edge but i don't wanna spend the cash unless im certain it wll work. Thoughts opinions?

thought about attempting to overclock the processor but i dont' have any evpericence in doing that and i don't wanna break something.

open to suggestions on ideas here.

[Damien 1,514]

It would be helpful to know the exact CPU model and the exact graphic card model.

[Greneuges 0]

It is a sapphire Raedon 4870 on the card

the CPU

Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9650

[NightShade 14]

To be honest overclocking is not for the faint of heart. You need to make sure you have changed out the stock cooler for something that is able to dissipate more heat and move more air through your case to get rid of that heat. Overclocking should be done in slow increments and then tested for stability for a few hours before moving to the next level up. If your board has an auto overclock function that would be the best place to start but watch your temps, if they get too high you will be forced to buy a new PC before you really want to.

With that said the game has steadily increased the amount of power needed to just stay in the playable range. I have a setup that can easily handle ultra in the original world but when I go to the Isle of the Thunder King I have to turn the settings down to good with a couple at fair to have 35 to 40 fps before spells are being cast. One of the biggest things to start turning down is the shadows and view distance. As well as the "high end eyecandy" like the water and ssao.

I have a radeon 6850 and just picked up a second so I can run crossfire to get my rates up. But your board only has one PCIe x16 slot so that would not be an option. You can look through the list below to see a card that would likely be a bit faster and you can try to find something that will help you out and not break the bank.

http://www.videocard...n HD 4870&id=30

You say that you have 6gb of ram. Make sure that you have ram that is populated into the slots in pairs or that can hurt your performance as well. If you have 3 2gb sticks you would see a performance boost in memory speed by removing one stick as the system is setup for dual channel so that it can access the banks in pairs at a faster speed.

I would not go spending more than maybe 150 to 200 on your current system though as even an upgrade is only going to extend it's life by a year or two. When I build systems I look to the future so my current system had the ability to run crossfire when a second card dropped in price and the money became available. I also bought 8GB sticks of memory so that when the prices drop down I can pick up another pair down the road. The CPU is an AMD and they really try to use the same socket for a longer period so when the am4 comes out I can still have a possible upgrade down the road and don't have to scrap my MB to do it. Little things like this can be helpful when coming up with a system design that is ready for future games and usability rather than a one and done throw it away and go buy new OEM design.

There are some other things you can do to boost your performance without upgrading parts at all. One is to have a second hard drive that is installed with your OS and WoW and little else as well as cleaning out vampire programs, I wrote a little something a few months back when I got tired of my wife's complaints that her computer was slow. She hated me for it but it got the point across and it may be helpful in your and others situation. http://legion.ventshop.net/node/6

And don't look to sites like "mycleanpc" to fix problems. I have had fresh installs with no junk or bloatware come up with over 1000 "errors" from their software, the majority of it is deleting blank registry keys which are there for a reason.

Hope this helps a bit and if you have more questions post away, I am sure others may have some insight as well.

Looked through the list of video cards and this one would be a nice upgrade and fairly easy on the bank too. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121686&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction2&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction2-_-ASUS-_-Video%20Cards-_-14121686&cm_sp=&AID=10487648&PID=3962334&SID=

You could also go with a GTX480 for around 200 but I would not spend any more than that.

Edited March 15, 2013 by NightShade

[Damien 1,514]

It is a sapphire Raedon 4870 on the card

the CPU

Intel® Core™2 Quad Processor Q9650

This is decent stuff, I'm surprised that you're running into such FPS issues. I mean, you can't expect to play MoP in high settings, but still, it seems that you are dropping quite low. When does it happen? If it's in a 25-man raid or in a place with a lot of people, that is not surprising.

What NightShade said about the 6GB is definitely worth a look. Your motherboard has dual-channel memory, so you should have an even number of RAM stick for best performances. Also, you need to use a 64-bit system to make use of more than 4GB of RAM (just saying, as you haven't specified what you are using).

Also, you should download a benchmark, like 3d mark, run it. Then it should allow you to compare your results online and you will see what types of systems people with similar benchmark results are using (it may be a $10 feature, but it's still better than spend $300 to get a new card when you may not need to). That should give you some indications regarding the current performances of your installation.

[NightShade 14]

Yeah you can benchmark and compare. . . the passmark I referenced is free to use for a limited time and can import the information as well. They are really trying to expand and as you can look and see from the link they are getting a lot of info posted. Your system will also slow down over time due to general clutter of the OS. But you should have playable settings on low with no problem as well as fair but I don't see it running well at good or higher and you may have to turn down the multisampling and anti aliasing. Eye candy in any game costs money or sacrifices framerates.

As per the OS, even 4GB of ram is hard for a 32bit OS to fully address. Every device takes a part of that and if you have multiple drives and cards in the system that useable number will be less. My old comp was only able to address 3.27GB of ram with a 32bit OS.

[Greneuges 0]

Right now I have 3 2gb sticks.....so i would be better to take one of those out or get another 2 gig stick to add? I thought aout getting a smaller SSD to put in it. I have nothing on it right now other than WoW and the OS I use my macbook for EVERYTHING else.

I have the multisampling turned down to 1x and I have the water and shadow turned down or off. It runs pretty decent all around othr than in 40 mans. 25 mans i run pretty steadily at mid 20s not ideal but playable. Im just a little OCD about having everything maxxed. I turned everything down to the setting below ultra and i actually ran 40 to 50 fps lol so i guessfor a box i built in 09 im doing pretty good lol.

I think ill try another stick of RAM, and an SSD and see what happens....that should easily come in below the couple hundred bucks mark

[Greneuges 0]

oh i run 64bit windows 7

[NightShade 14]

In that board you should be putting memory in to the board in pairs only and they should all be the same speed of memory. Just grabbing what ever and tossing it in can be a performance loss as well.

Your board specs for ram are listed as Max. 16 GB, DDR2 1066/800/667 so I would run the 800 or the 1066 but you won't see leaps and bounds in performance gains with more memory unless you run stuff in the background by having more memory. Having it in dual channel will probably be more of a performance gain. A SSD will decrease loading times but will have little to no effect on framerates. Framerates are effected by your CPU and Video card then memory speed and amount to a point.

And I don't want to tell you what to do here but think about something for a second, you spend 30 on a stick of memory, 50 on a small SSD and eventually another 150 on a video card and in 12 to 18 months you will be back in the same place with the cpu being a bottleneck and the only option to get a motherboard, cpu, and memory. Should you cannibalize your old computer for the video card your still going to be throwing more money at the problem than need be. Drop your settings and save your cash for a full computer IMHO.

[Storm 426]

WoW is very CPU/Ram dependent. I think what is holding you back the most is probably your DDR2 ram. Also as stated above, you're not utilizing the boards dual channel capabilities if you have an odd number of ram sticks in the board.

The 4870 is still a pretty decent card. My girlfriends computer has an AMD Phenom x4, 8gb DDR3, and a Radeon 4890. She doesn't play at maxed out ultra settings but everything is turned up pretty high and she gets about 60fps.

By comparison I have almost an identical set up, but with a Radeon 7950. I play on ultra, but I still have to turn down shadows, multisample and a couple other things to keep my Frame rates above 60 during raids.

Edited March 18, 2013 by Storm

[NightShade 14]

It also depends on the resolution you are running the client at. If you are running 1024X768 your card will have much higher framerates than someone running 1920 X1080

All things being the same one will show 60FPS and the other might show 20FPS.