Hardware for Wrath

[Concillian]

I've done a litte investigating over the past couple weeks and I thought I'd share my observations. It seems 3.0.2 performance (and thus Wrath performance) is a big sticking point, so I felt it would be good to share my knowledge.

Some of this was done because I had a spare computer as I'm upgrading anyway, and part of it was out of necessity. While in the process of upgrading / testing overclocks we had a power outage and my current WoW machine took offense. The hard drive with WoW on it died as a result and either the mobo or CPU did too. So I was moving hardware around diagnosing those problems and tride out some different configurations while I had the 2 computers in pieces on the test-bench.

Most of these observations come from my favorite testing spot in Shattrath. Near the flightmaster, looking out over Terrokar at an angle where you see the formation of dranei doing drills. This is where I consistently get my loweest frame rates within Shattrath. That largely stresses CPU and only minorly stresses video card.

All of these configurations are using max view distance settings but otherwise nothing special. I have no repeatable way of testing spell effects so raid performance with the overboard laser light show of spell effects introduced in 3.0.2 are not really tested. My assumption is that slowdowns in raids with all the spell effects going are likely to be more affected by video card performance, but that's just an assumption.

Memory was at least 2 GB if in Win 2k and 4GB in Vista, in other words plenty of RAM. But at $40 - 50 for 4GB you likely wouldn't be upgrading to less than that.

observation #1 - WoW loves dual cores. single core A64 overclocked to 2.5 GHz = worse performance than same generation dual core at 1.8GHz.

observation #2 - dual core A64x2 at 1.8GHz performance seemed acceptable, meaning the cheapest dual core is likely adequate as an upgrade for reasonable Wrath performance. So go dual core, but no need to go too far overboard.

observation #3 - 7800GT performance wasn't troublesome except in hyjal on trash with all settings maxed (except shadows) + 4xAA In terms of new-ish cards, this translates to some of the cheapest "gaming" cards available, though they are limited in memory bandwidth and may not be able to handle 4xAA as well, a $50 video card is roughly equivalent to my old $200 monster. The only better card I had was an ATi 4850, which, of course pegged 60 FPS everywhere I went (~$160 after rebate at current prices)

observation #4 - dynamic shadows implementation in WoW is BAD. Not only does it cause major slowdowns, it's really annoying. I rode by a lantern and my shadow would point in whatever direction it was pointing before I rode up to the lantern. It's really disorienting to ride by a light source and have your shadow pointing at that light source. I found myself getting mad at the game with dynamic shadows on. Really do not upgrade to be able to enable this feature, it's not worth it.
So lets talk upgrading, components and cost:

• DDR is pretty much dead. You can scour the web and find used deals on S939 mobos and CPUs, but in the end you save about $50 and get worse performance than the cheapest options with new CPU / Mobo / RAM.
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• RAM:
  I haven't tested WoW specifically, but faster RAM is generally very low gain for price paid. I recommend DDR2-800 as the current best option because it has a zero to very slight price premium over lower speed DDR2-533 and 667 and it fully backwards compatible.
  
  Absolute cheapest route is to go with 2x1GB sticks for a total of 2GB, but some boards have problems with 4x1GB, and you potentially have no upgrade path. At current RAM prices it's hard to not move up to 4GB
  
  Examples of decent RAM choices:
  2x1GB for 2GB total:
  DDR2-800 2x1GB 1.8v (Currently $26 shipped) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820211165
  Kingston brand... some people feel more comfortable with a brand behind a lifetime warrantee (currently $28 shipped): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820134635
  
  2x2GB for 4GB total:
  Mushkin DDR2-800 (currently $40 after rebate) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820146692
  
  Mobo / RAM / CPU solutions:<>
  
• AMD is the cheapest option, but is currently lagging in terms of performance compared with Intel systems. A decent case of 'you get what you pay for'. I like the e4850 because it runs at a decent clock speed (2.5GHz) at very low voltage, which means it's giving excellent power efficiency as well as pocket efficiency. If you increase the voltage to the level of the other x2s, this easily overclocks to ~2.8 GHz on stock cooling and 3.0 and potentially higher with aftermarket cooling. You can move up AMDs processor line, but in my opinion if you're seeking more performance, move to intel's line. This is a great budget setup though
  potential example configuration:
  780G based motherboard (currently $60 after rebate) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813138105
  2.5 GHz low power dual core (currently $60 free shipping) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819103255
  
  Intel offers a little higher performance per clock, and is the current favorite among enthusiasts due to their strong ability to overclock. Not strictly necessary for WoW. Motherboard options are generally more expensive as well, so for budget upgraders, this may not be the best option. If you play other games, it may be a good option.<>
  
• e5200 is the current low end at $85. I have one of these chips. Mine runs around 3.0GHz stable at stock voltage and heatsink. ~3.4 GHz with aftermarket heatsink and voltage increases.<>
  
• e7200 runs about the same speed as the e5200 but adds cache, it's about $35 more at ~$120 e7300 is slightly faster for about $5 more. Most games see the cache improvment as worth about 1-200 MHz when the e5200 and e7200 are running the same speed. both e7200 and 7300 overclock similar to the e5200.<>
  
• e8400 is the king of the dual cores with even more cache than the e7200 and again gives the equivalent of 100-200 more MHz worth of speed at the same actual speed of an e7xxx series processor. These are a different stepping of the processor and overclock even better than the e5200 or e7xxx series. With aftermarket air cooling, people are running 4GHz, but 3.5-3.8 are more realistic expectations. 3.2-3.3 is effortless with stock heatsink & voltage. These are on the pricey side at $170ish, but unbeatable in terms of current CPU performance in games that can't make use of quad-cores (UT3 is the only common game that does, to my knowledge).
  
  All the current Intel dual cores use low power, even the e8400 is pretty much in-line with the low power AMD processor e4850.
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• q6600 is the cheapest quad core at 2.4GHz. WoW does not make use of quad cores. You will get the WoW performance of a dual core but use extra power (doubly so because these are built on older technology which uses more power by default). However, it's clear that the trend is to move towards more cores. If the single to dual transition is any indication, it's possible that 3 years down the road a Q6600 will outperform and dual core available. Who knows? It's a gamble, but these potentially offer better "future-proofing". They run around ~$185 so marginally more expensive than e8400. Lower performance now, but maybe better in the future. Overclock well, in the 3.0-3.2 range, but can be using well over 100W with processor alone at that point and require strong cooling.
  
  Intel motherboards are a little more expensive than AMD counterparts as well. Very little reason to not get a P43 or P45 based solution if going Intel. More expensive boards offer options for multiple graphics cards that are wasted on WoW, and wasted in general if you plan on spending less than $500 or so on video cards alone.
  
  Intel based mobo examples:
  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813130181
  Always check combo deals of slightly higher priced mobos at newegg, sometimes you'll find a decent gem: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductCombo...eSize=10&page=1 lists an e7300+ mobo for $190 AR
  
  For the most part motherboard doesn't matter unless you're a serious overclocker. Look for features you might want (like firewire, eSATA, connectors in places that work well with your case, etc...) and price. Not much else matters.
  
  The AMD solution is the best for cheap fix for Wrath. mildly overclocked e5200 is probably the best performance for value. Mildly overclocked e8400 is current performance champ, and q6600 has a place reserved for potential longevity if the industry embraced quad-cores (Intels recently launched i7 CPU is only quad-core, and AMDs next launch is too, so hardware is already moving that direction, the question is how long it will take games to catch up.)
  
  If you do any video encoding or the like, the Quad core is a good value, those are generally appications that will make very good use of multiple cores.
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• Video cards.
  The market has moved to the point where you pretty much get what you pay for here. There was a time where there were gems that did extremely well for the money, but for the most part, those days are gone. The good thing about that, it that both nVidia and ATi ended up moving the prices WAY down. It wasn't long ago that bottom tier for gaming was ~$100 and midrange performance was ~$150. Now bottom tier is $50 - 75 and midrange is $100-$120.
  
  You can make approximate rankings of 0x AF here (no WoW benchmark, but you get an idea of general performance):
  http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-...0x1050,798.html
  4xAA can be a significant quality improvement and generally this warrants at least moving to a mid-tier card to maintain decent performance. Memory bandwidth is a primary factor, and the cheaper cards are usually 128 bit. Moving up to 256bit or wider makes sense if you're interested in this feature.
  http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-...050-AA,799.html
  
  AA is listed in the wow options as "multisample" if you choose 24 bit color depth 1 multisample you are at 0xAA if you choose 4 multisample you are at 4xAA. This essentially takes multiple points around the pixel to determine it's color. In areas of rapidly changing color (a diagonal line in the foreground passing through a light background) it will make a jagged looking line at 0xAA and a smoother looking line at 4xAA.
  
  memory size: For the most part, Size doesn't matter. With exception of the highest end cards, you are usually best off with the lower end of any memory size offered for the same model card. People know that more RAM is good for CPU, and they have a tendency to want the same thing on video cards. So video card companies capitalize on this by selling cards with much cheaper (slower) memory, but more of it to increase margins. Reality is that consumer tendency does not follow reality. Speed matters more than size on video card memory, it is almost never worth paying more or even paying the same for more memory. In fact, it's usually slower. Again, the exception is in the high end ($200+) when coupled with huge monitors and resolutions like 1920x1080 or 2560x1600.
  
  Rebates:
  There are so many different cards. ATi and nVidia are always trying to 1-up each other through authorizing rebates on specific models. If you don't like rebates, you can expect to pay considerably more. Conversely, if you are a savvy shopper, you can get exceptionally good deals just by rebate hunting.
  
  performance assumptions here are based on moderately sized monitors (1280x1024 up to 1650x1050). If running 1920x or 2560x you may have to step up a tier or two for same performance as I'm mentioning here.
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• bottom tier These are cards I wouldn't necessarily recommend unless you are completely strapped for cash. They are roughly equivalent in performance to my 7800GT, which is perfectly adequate for okay WoW performance, but they have zero future. Good if you need something and will upgrade later, Video cards are easy to upgrade. Since 3.0.2 I do see some slowdowns on Hyjal trash, but generally my performance is quite usable. Cards in this category are in the $40-65 range: ATi HD3650, 2900XT, nVidia 8600GTS, 8600GT if you can't find a good deal on 8600GTS. Currently 8600GTS is best deal in this price range on newegg:
  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814130394
  
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• mid-bottom These are generally quite a step up in performance for a little more money. Should run everything in WoW fine except full shadows. maybe even some 4xAA if you don't mind some slowdowns on Hyjal trash like encounters. Generally $75-100 range: ATi 4670, nVIdia 9600GT
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• mid tier Should handle everything in WoW well at 4xAA $100-150 range: nVidia 9800GT, ATi HD4830
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• mid-upper is ATi HD4850 / nVidia 9800GTX and is around $150-180. Original competitor to HD 4850 was the 9800 GT, but the 4850 was beating it handily. nVidia responded by dropping prices and now the GTX is the competitor. ATi responded with a quick release of the HD4830, which is basically a 4850 with some cores disabled and with cheaper RAM to compete directly with the 9800GT.
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• upper tier is 4870, 4870x2, nVidia GTX 260 and GTX280. These are all in their own class and priced for it at $230+ range. Some are well over that. They are for more serious gaming than WoW. These generally have 2 PCIe connectors, which means they are capable of using 150-225W.
  
  My recommentation is one of the mid tiers based on your desires and budget. WoW makes heavy use of CPU, but most other games are not this way and video card is the most important factor. This is a bit of a judgement call.<>
  [st]Power requirements: e5200, e7200, e8400 Intel CPUs are all reasonably low power, no more than 50W under load, usually less. AMD e4850 is in the same boat. Q6600 pulls a little more. If overclocking figure on 100W max at full load.
  
  Motherbards use around 30W max
  
  Graphics cards can pull 75W through the PCIe slot. Each additional 6-pin power connector is 75W max. They usually don't actually pull that much, but that gives an idea.
  
  SO if you have a CPU and a video card with on 6-pin connector, you need ~200W plus peripherals at absolute max load. In most cases a modest 380W power supply is more than enough.
  
  For reference, my new machine is an e5200 + P45 based motherboard and HD4850 (1 6-pin connector). There are 2 hard drives and 5 fans (many low speed fans = good cooling, but quiet). I have a meter to measure power consumption and I can get 230W peak load if I overclock CPU + video card and load up CPU and video card in an unrealistic manner (stress test CPU program + graphics demonstration program). That's a reasonably high end system with a 3.33GHz dual core + overclocked 4850 and it's still only pulling 230W from the wall. So you don't need a crazy powerful supply.
  
  Most likely your current power supply is adequate, you just might need some adapters. Check the label on the side of the power supply, it should list capability for 12v, 5v, and 3.3v rails. Modern computers run almost entirely from the 12v rail, while some older computers made more use of 5v and 3.3v. Your main issue may be too much power for the 3.3 & 5v rails and not enough for the 12v. Look for at least 250-300W capability from the 12v rail (~21-24 amps). This will usually be split between two different 12v ratings, something like 12v1 = 12A and 12v2 = 12 A.
  
  Useful adapters for older supplies working with modern motherboards:
  drive power connector to PCI-e power adapter http://www.svc.com/pcie-converter.html
  Plug this in to two separate "wire-chains" coming from the power supply
  20 --> 24 pin main power adapter: http://www.svc.com/glatx2024-11.html
  modern boards are all 24 pin. The extra pins are more 12v cables. If you have a modest CPU, and keep motherboard power usage in check, these are not needed.
  4-pin to 8 pin CPU power adapter: Not needed, just plug into the far side where the pins will insert with little pressure and leave the other 4 pins empty. Again, if CPU power is modest, this is a non-issue. There are 140W monster CPUs that need this thing, but the CPUs listed (with the exception of an overclocked Q6600) will not require the power to warrant an 8-pin connector.
  SATA adapter: http://www.svc.com/mol-y-sata6.html
  takes a standard molex to hook up to a SATA drive if your power supply is that old.
  
  Hard drives:
  I work for Seagate, this is no secret. I pretty much pick up Seagate drives without looking at other brands. For the most part, there isn't enough difference between brands to really worry about it, both in terms of cost and performance. I used a 15k SCSI drive for a while, and for the most part, I'd say it's not worth it. Just get whatever size you need. The one feature that IS worth getting is SATA with Native Command Queuing (NCQ). This is sort of like dual-core CPUs for hard drives. It allows the drive to more efficiently work with multiple requests and gives a noticeable speed improvement when doing multiple things in windows at the same time. Useless for gaming though. Generally newer drives have this by default, it's not a cost adder in most cases. Maybe the newer gen hard drives are like $5 more than last gen.
  
  Seagate 7200.10 do NOT have NCQ. 7200.11 do. Don't bother with any other line. ES series is slightly higher reliability line, they are noisier too, more made for budget business file servers.
  WD has similar lines, I'm not familiar with their lines, but as I said before, there are not huge differences between brands of similar drives. 10k RPM raptors are faster, but honestly it's not noticeable to me in the real world.
  
  Keep your old hard drive and set up windows to make it a huge swap file (I use 16GB, which is probably overkill, but whatever I don't actually usee that drive for anything else), then reboot and tell it to put no swap file on your main drive. This offers noticeable performance benefits because memory calls can happen completely independent of any normal hard drive needs. In my opinion this is a more noticeable benefit than running 2 drives in RAID 0. The RAID setup will offer better single file performance, but you need 2 identical and fast drives. The 2 drive setup with one holding backups and virtual memory is super cheap and helps in more real-world scenarios (for example minimizing WoW to look something up on wowhead or something).
  
  Lastly... DVD players.
  Mobo drivers are coming on DVDs now, most games are no longer shipping on CDs. this includes Wrath of the Lich King expansion So you need to upgrade to a DVD player / burner if you've been limping along on a CD player (I had only 1 DVD and 3 CD players on my computers, so I was in this boat). I have the latest Lite-On and Samsung, and the Samsung is sturdier and quieter on access. I hihgly recommend it at $25 shipped from newegg. I strongly recommend SATA.
  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827151171
  
  
  
  
  Cliff's notes on upgrade paths for Wrath:
  CPU / mobo:
  best value AMD e4850 + AMD 780G mobo = ~$130 shipped
  best mix of performance and price = Intel e7300+mobo combo special at newegg ~$190 shipped
  most likely to last = Intel Q6600 + mobo ~$280 shipped
  
  Video card:
  lowest price = nVidia 8600GTS $40 after rebate at newegg
  best value = nVidia 9600GT $75 after rebate at newegg
  best mix of performance and price = ATi HD4830 $110 after rebate at newegg
  
  memory:
  IMO no reason not to go with 4GB DDR2-800 for $40 after rebate, works with all CPU / mobo solutions listed
  
  If you don't have a DVD player / burner, well now is the time WotLK is only on DVD.
  
  Hard drive with NCQ is good, okay without, but either way if you have 2 drives, put your virtual memory on one drive and your files on the other.
  
  PSU: Current one might work with adapters. Check 12v current ratings. If not, 380w is likely plenty unless going way overboard planning for the future.
  
  hope some people find this useful. GG please do not be jealous of my wall of text.

[--Pete]

Hi,

hope some people find this useful. GG please do not be jealous of my wall of text.

Wow, thank you. That's a lot of information to digest, but it'll be a great starting point if Magi's current machine chokes on LK. I might have to see if I can still pick up a cheap dual core for the 939 mobos.

--Pete

[Concillian]

Hi,
Wow, thank you. That's a lot of information to digest, but it'll be a great starting point if Magi's current machine chokes on LK. I might have to see if I can still pick up a cheap dual core for the 939 mobos.

--Pete

These are holding value decently well due to people wanting them. They are going for ~$50 ish in the useed channels because people want to move from single to dual. They are also fairly rare right now, as most of the S939 duals were fairly early adopters and those people have moved on already and sold them.

But you can find them, and it's a decent upgrade.

[vor_lord]

This is something I am very concerned about, and I will have a rough time justifying the expense of a new machine. I'm not sure there are any pieces I can feasibly upgrade though that will make much difference.

I have an AMD Mobile Barton 2500+, o/c to 2.2GHz from 1.85.

If I upgrade mobo/CPU I would need a new card (I have a 7600GT which is AGP not PCI-E). There isn't much more video cardwise I can do with AGP I believe.

I could add more memory if I could find some old enough. I don't know if that will provide much benefit (I have 1G now).

This is all complicated by the fact that I do not have a Windows license, and I'm sure my performance in Wine is not as good as the same hardware would be in Windows.

[Concillian]

This is something I am very concerned about, and I will have a rough time justifying the expense of a new machine. I'm not sure there are any pieces I can feasibly upgrade though that will make much difference.

I have an AMD Mobile Barton 2500+, o/c to 2.2GHz from 1.85.

If I upgrade mobo/CPU I would need a new card (I have a 7600GT which is AGP not PCI-E). There isn't much more video cardwise I can do with AGP I believe.

I could add more memory if I could find some old enough. I don't know if that will provide much benefit (I have 1G now).

This is all complicated by the fact that I do not have a Windows license, and I'm sure my performance in Wine is not as good as the same hardware would be in Windows.

There are actually ATi3800 series AGP cards, which are a large improvement over a 7600GT (and ATi linux drivers are much better than they used to be), so AGP isn't dead, dead. However, the major gap in your system is the AthlonXP, and that does nothing to address your major issue.

Memory helps flight paths and loading, but not so much once you get into instances. Some disc thrashing is reduced, but I don't think it's major. Again, the A-XP is your sticking point. Other improvments will be minor in comparison. Add in that 1GB of DDR is about the same cost of 2GB of DDR2 and it's really hard to justify spending money on DDR at this point.

In your case, as you noted, it's hard to upgrade anything without upgrading everything. The cheap option of e4850 + 780G + 2 gig + $50 video card is less than $200 and offers significant improvements in all areas. I expect will be adequate even with the WINE tax on performance, certainly better than your current machine in TBC. If you have access to a heatsink that fits the AM2 socket, you can shave $10-15 bucks of the processor and get an OEM 2.3GHz dual core, but I think there's value in the e4850 which will use less power but runs faster, so that you essentially make back that $10-15 over time in the reduced power usage, and get an extra 200 MHz as a bonus for taking the retail package with heatsink. You can shave maybe $10 off by going with a 740G mobo, but they're kind of a kludge between previous gen with certain options only enabled if you use a Phenom (AMD quad-core) and disabled with a dual core, it's an odd duck that I tend to avoid, but it is an option for a small savings.

One problem really old systems like yours might have is too many IDE drives, since modern mobos only include one header (2 IDE drives max).

$200 is $200 but I don't see a move to PCIe ever getting much cheaper. DDR3 is the new memory standard & DDR2 is saturated in the channel (sorry, I realized this is industry-speak that people may not understand, translation: there is too much DDR2 right now, prices are essentially below market value). Prices are probably close to bottomed out on RAM right now. It will probably be at least a year before DDR3 gets to this kind of price point, and as DDR2 stockpiles diminish, those prices will stabilize and start increasing. Mobo + processor has never been much cheaper than $120. And decent video cards have never been in the $50 range. I don't expect a transition to PCIe to be much cheaper than this for a good long time. At the same time you end up with a dual-core and at least twice the RAM. 4x RAM if you pony up an extra $20-25.

And you have an upgrade path with triple core Phenoms in the $100 range and quads in the $140 in case triples / quads start being more useful than they are now. The bad news is AMD has their next processor introduction set for January, which will obsolete the AM2 platform. But this will also be DDR3, and thus likely not a reasonable option for budget purchase for at least a year. The good thing about a platform that's about to be replaced is it's pretty cheap to get into. And when you're someone who buys parts on the trailing edge to save cash, it's actually quite a good thing.

[vor_lord]

Thanks for the pointers, Conc. $200 doesn't sound too bad, I may have to spring for something like this. Luckily I have no IDE drives. SATA was pretty bleeding edge when I built it but my hard drive situation is in good shape as I have a new 750G drive that is less than six months old.

[Ynir]

Every year or two for the last fifteen years I have built a new computer. These were Atari back in the day, then PCs since Diablo came out in 1995. The latest machines run WoW and Firefox, and nothing else.

The budget is constant: $1500, not including peripherals. The design philosopy is to keep well behind the bleeding edge, to use racehorse components but not to stress them, to build a workhorse without paying a premium for unnecessary capacity.

Alar, the newest machine, replaces Xendivious and Medivh, two NVIDIA/SLI based computers. Twin-card and dual-GPU SLI were experiments that didn't boost framerate noticeably. Dual core CPU / 64-bit XP flattened latency to 120 ms: I never lag, except when the servers are flaky.

Framerates varied from 100+ fps out of town to 30 - 50 fps raiding, which depended more on what Blizzard was doing with its graphics code than my hardware. Framerates dropped steeply with the 3.0 patch, so, it is time to upgrade.

NVIDIA is rumored to have thermal expansion mismatch problems with some of their GPU mounts, so we went with Radeon this time. XP has been a stable platform, easy to work with, but Vista is the future, so here we go, ready or not:

Motherboard:
ASUS RAMPAGE FORMULA LGA 775 Intel X48 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131284

Intel Core 2 Duo E8600 Wolfdale 3.33GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115054

CORSAIR DOMINATOR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820145197

Video card:
ASUS EAH4870/HTDI/1G Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814121277

Hard drive:
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136218

OS:
Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 64-bit

Misc:
Seasonic 700W PS, Zerotherm BTF90 CPU cooler, Liteon DVD, Asus Gift WoW Trial Edition!

So, how does it work? I don't know yet. The heat sink that comes with the CPU doesn't clamp to the motherboard reliably, so I ordered a Zerotherm cooler that bolts into a frame on the back side of the motherboard.

I'll post an update when I get the machine up & running, hopefully before the expansion. Meanwhile, thanks, Concillian, for a very edifying tech post.

[LavCat]

I've done a litte investigating over the past couple weeks and I thought I'd share my observations. It seems 3.0.2 performance (and thus Wrath performance) is a big sticking point, so I felt it would be good to share my knowledge.

Thanks for the recommendations. I did not see anything with which I would disagree. I have been concerned with frame rates since my post in the other thread. The game was unplayable for me. Much of the problem is probably more CPU related than GPU related.

My motherboard is a socket 939, and I am not in a position to replace it. Actually I have had four socket 939 motherboards (three here and one at my former place of work). A direct lightning strike did not help. (While I was playing WoW.) My arm is not quite the same either.

Currently for WoW I am using a motherboard made from parts of two different Asus motherboads. The CPU is an Opteron 185. Until the recent patch I was always happy with it. I still think it is a good CPU. In the last week I have been experimenting with overclocking. WoW seems stable at 2.73 GHz. Higher than that Windows was OK but WoW would lock up within half an hour. I have not tried increasing the processor voltage as I am a little afraid of frying it.

With my former graphics card I would stop in mid air flying into Shattrath. I recently got an Asus 4870x2, which I can not afford. Now from Concillian Point I get at least 20 FPS. Sometimes lower in other parts of Shattrath. Raiding is OK in BT, but still not good enough in AV or Sunwell. I have not been to Hyjal since the patch.

I am not convinced the second GPU is worth it; I am not even sure it's working. But the graphics are lovely. We are required to raid with spell detail maxed out. One selling point for the Asus was the artwork on the card. another was the free copy of WoW. But the biggest reason for getting the 4870x2 is that no known single 4780 card would work properly in my configuration. The GPU fan is blocked by the card two slots away, which in my case is the disc controller. The 4780x2 is long enough that the fan clears the disc controller with room to spare.

[Skywing]

Wasn't WoW one of the things that kept being mentioned in nVIDIA's driver release notes as not having any benefit from SLI?

(Note: Last time I checked was quite some months ago. My information might be dated by now, but it could be a good thing to verify that WoW now takes advatnage of SLI before shelling out for it.)

- S

[Concillian]

Wasn't WoW one of the things that kept being mentioned in nVIDIA's driver release notes as not having any benefit from SLI?

I don't know, but SLI (or crossfire for ATi) is generally not worth it until you are to the point of needing more power than the top of the line cards. In pretty much every case you get more value out of a higher end single card than any two card implementation.

Given these high end cards are in the $400-500 range, there shouldn't be too many people considering these options. Especially when considering that motherboards and power supplies to support these multi-GPU configurations can add another $100-200 to the total system cost.

The 4870x2 seems to perform better than 4870 + 4870 in crossfire, so it probably doesn't have the same implications as crossfire.

People who have older cards may be tempted to go the SLI or crossfire route to potentially save money, but if you look at the Tom's benchmarks in the original post, you can see that this generally doesn't pan out.

For example, if you compare the 8600 GTS in SLI (currently as low as $50 each) you can see that even in crossfire, they don't come close to a 9600GT (can be had less than $100)

[Ynir]

I bolted the Zerotherm BTF90 CPU cooler to the motherboard, and Alar booted up and stayed up. CPU temperature is locked at 43°C forever.

VISTA installed itself without even asking me how to partition the hard drive, good thing I didn't care. It found the network and all the OS updates, and some of the chipset drivers. It left me with nothing to do but to hunt down and turn off an annoying "account security" feature that brought up a confirmation window every time I executed a program. There are many obscure features to the directory structure and system utilities, but to play WoW, I don't need to know.

I copied over the World of Warcraft directory from Medivh into the Program Files(x86) directory on Alar. My bank alt on Xendivious told me that the 3 Hour Blackout was over and Stormrage was up, so I clicked the Launcher icon, and to my surprise, WoW executed just as it did on Medivh. WoW doesn't need registry entries, apparently.

I am accustomed to running with all video settings maxed except shadow, so I ran out of the Aldor bank and maxed shadow detail. Nothing much happened, either to the detail of the shadows, or the frame rate, which was about 40 fps. Setting shadow detail higher than the first click froze my previous machine, so this was a noticeable improvement. Frame rates varied from 35 to 50 fps as I moved around. It felt like pre-3.0 Shatt: no stuttering, no critical errors. Shatt becomes a ghost town in 30 hours, so we won't persue this further.

Trolls in trade chat were howling about free PvP epics, so I went to Champion's Hall to check it out. Lieutenant Tristia was buried in the thickest mob that I have ever seen, kicking and biting for a free Guardian's Band of Dominance. Latency was up to 200 ms, a bit high, but frame rates held at 30 - 35 fps. This bodes well for world PvP in the future. I won't have a chance to test the system in a raid before the expansion.

GPU temperatures range from 40°C while doing nothing to more than 50°C under load. The cooling fan kicks on at 42°C and its velocity, and noise, increase with temperature. Although the system has space and power for another video card, there is no way I could tolerate the noise from another GPU cooling fan, even if a Crossfire setup provided better performance.

Long term stability, and performance in raiding, remain to be seen but Alar has made a good start, just in time for the expansion.

[Concillian]

I copied over the World of Warcraft directory from Medivh into the Program Files(x86) directory on Alar. My bank alt on Xendivious told me that the 3 Hour Blackout was over and Stormrage was up, so I clicked the Launcher icon, and to my surprise, WoW executed just as it did on Medivh. WoW doesn't need registry entries, apparently.

This worked for me no problems on my Win2k machines.

On my Vista machine it worked until I needed to download a patch, then it would download the patch, but then tell me it couldn't install it.

I fixed the issue by changing the name of the directory, then installing from the original WoW CDs, then changing that directory name, then changing the other directory name back, then deleting the directory of the fresh install.

[Ynir]

This worked for me no problems on my Win2k machines.

On my Vista machine it worked until I needed to download a patch, then it would download the patch, but then tell me it couldn't install it.

I fixed the issue by changing the name of the directory, then installing from the original WoW CDs, then changing that directory name, then changing the other directory name back, then deleting the directory of the fresh install.

When I installed the expansion last night, the process first moved the World of Warcraft directory into the Public directory. Install then downloaded and ran the 3.02 and 3.03 patches, so this might be Bizzard's way of handling permission issues.

I romped through Howling Fjord, doing entry quests and nosing around. The graphics are more detailed than before, very pretty. Latency was a bit high, 200+ ms, even though player load was light between 3 - 7am. Framerates varied between 40 - 59 fps. I seem to hit a wall at 59 fps: I never saw frame rates at 60 fps or above.

If I came upon a crowded scene and turned suddenly, the motion would stutter for a moment while the scene loaded. I may turn down some video settings if this becomes a problem. Intermittent fan noise from the video card seems more annoying than constant fan noise, so I will tinker with the fan control utility.

Apart from these issues Alar seems stable and robust, and might take me through to the next expansion.

[Concillian]

After some time playing around in Warsong hold with various CPUs and under / overclocking them, I'm amending things a little.

It seems dual core = adequate performance, speed barely matters above that. It changes some, but once you have dual core, video card seems to be in the driver seat. I saw no noticeable difference at all between e5200 at stock 2.5GHz and e7200 at 3.4GHz. I had to underclock either until I saw CPU effects, and that would only barely move things below pegged at 60FPS when using the HD4850, no real affect on my 7800GT.

So those with a specific upgrade budget might consider the AMD option and spending on the video card. The intels are still better processors, but I'd be surprised if it really affects WoW significantly after this testing. Nothing wrong with more CPU power, but those looking for the cheapest upgrades, the AMD option seems adequate.

For reference, my 7800GT would dip below 20 FPS in Warsong Hold, which presumably may be into the low teens in some raids. My 4850 was pinned at 60 FPS with 12xAA, so has PLENTY of power for Wrath.

I run at 2560x1024 with the right monitor showing no real polygons (just maps and chat windows), so my actual game viewport is 1280x1024.

Even though video card is most important, WoW is not demanding compared with the current "showy" games like Crysis and Far Cry 2, so you can pick from the bottom-midrange of cards. Couple this with the fact that the bottom is completely falling out in the video card market if you're into rebates, and you have a really nice situation for people ugprading older computers. A couple weeks ago 9800GTs / HD4830 were in the $120 range, now they're occasionally under $100. HD4850 is down to as low as $130, but it's hard to beat the value of a 9800GT or HD4830 at $90-110 range. An exceptional deal and given my pegged 12xAA performance at 1280x1024, the 9800GT / 4830 is only slightly behind that in terms of power, and should be in the 30+ FPS range at 4xAA up into the 1650x or 1920x range.

I know vor_lord went for a 9600GT / 4850e / 4gig upgrade for the $200-250ish range. He runs 1920x. Perhaps he can let us know his impressions. 9600GT is also a decent value, in the $70-80 range at the low end of prices.

It seems like ~$250-300 budgeted to CPU + mobo + RAM + video card is enough for very strong WoW performance at max video options.

BTW I found that recount has an FPS graph option. It's pretty useful to just turn it on and play a while and see what gives you dips and how low. It's a lot easier to monitor after the fact than watching the FPS number while also trying to heal an instance or whatever.

[vor_lord]

I know vor_lord went for a 9600GT / 4850e / 4gig upgrade for the $200-250ish range. He runs 1920x. Perhaps he can let us know his impressions. 9600GT is also a decent value, in the $70-80 range at the low end of prices.

I actually went with an e7300 intel platform for roughly $335 shipped after rebates. With me running this on linux through wine my absolute numbers are probably not so useful.

At any rate I went from about 12-15 fps with all detail down at 1280x1024 (dipping to 3-4 in raids) to about 40-50 fps with all detail maxed at 1920x1200. This will dip into the 30s when things get hot but I haven't done any 25 man raids yet.

edit: I need to add that I am not 100% certain that WoW knows it can use two cores in wine. I've yet to confirm that it is using them.

[Mordekhuul]

I plan on revisiting this thread and posting some questions of my own soon, as I plan to make a new computer soonish.

In the meantime, my immediate question is how much up or downstream rates affect WoW.

AT&T called tonight, and they are swapping us from a Fiber-to-Curb DSL setup to full fiber to the house on the 24th of December. It is a forced upgrade, as they have finished upgrading their cables in our area, I suppose, from what they said.

Either way, we'll be with AT&T U-verse for our internet, and we have three tiers of bandwidth to choose from, and differing information on the actual bandwidth offered to boot =)

First, there is this chart.

Second, the information I got over the phone and the "Learn More" links here say this:

Express: $12/mo; 384 Kbps Upstream, 1.5 Mbps down.
Pro: $17/mo; 512 Kbps Upstream, 3.0 Mbps down.
Elite: $27/mo; 768 Kbps Upstream, 6.0 Mbps down.

To give you an idea of our usage, we generally have two computers/people playing WoW at once in the evenings, both in a 25 man raid environment (lots of AOE effects, lots of information passing around, various raid lead useful mods sending and receiving information for me).

[Kevin]

I plan on revisiting this thread and posting some questions of my own soon, as I plan to make a new computer soonish.

In the meantime, my immediate question is how much up or downstream rates affect WoW.

AT&T called tonight, and they are swapping us from a Fiber-to-Curb DSL setup to full fiber to the house on the 24th of December. It is a forced upgrade, as they have finished upgrading their cables in our area, I suppose, from what they said.

Either way, we'll be with AT&T U-verse for our internet, and we have three tiers of bandwidth to choose from, and differing information on the actual bandwidth offered to boot =)

First, there is this chart.

Second, the information I got over the phone and the "Learn More" links here say this:

Express: $12/mo; 384 Kbps Upstream, 1.5 Mbps down.
Pro: $17/mo; 512 Kbps Upstream, 3.0 Mbps down.
Elite: $27/mo; 768 Kbps Upstream, 6.0 Mbps down.

To give you an idea of our usage, we generally have two computers/people playing WoW at once in the evenings, both in a 25 man raid environment (lots of AOE effects, lots of information passing around, various raid lead useful mods sending and receiving information for me).

The 384 Kbps up and 1.5 Mbps down is a ton more than WoW needs for 2 people.

We had 256 up and 1M down for a long time no issues. That comes out to ~32K Bytes up. I could run something like BitTorrent and set my upload limit as high as 25 KBytes and not notice any effect. If I didn't throttle the upload there would be issues, but if you've got 5+ K Bytes (about 40 Kbps) of upload free you shouldn't have issues there and you really still only need about that in download bandwidth even for 2 people.

WoW doesn't send as much data over the net as you might think and you can send a fair bit of info at 5KB/s and you'll have 6 to 7 times that on the up pipe.

[Concillian]

If you have Fubar you can download performanceFu and verify what GG just said, it will monitor your data throughputs.

Throughput is not an issue except for patch downloads.

U-verse is currently running network in "safe mode", which adds about 10-15ms of latency.

I was going to switch to U-verse, but they won't sell it to me unless I turn off my third party DSL before I place the order and they're currently running 2-3 week lead times. Yeah, that's not happening. They have some kind of top down policy right now that they basically will not sell to people with third party ISPs on their phone line. Period. The end. You get completely stonewalled and forums indicate this is a broad policy. Speculation is that they are doing so to minimize time spent on customer service and maximize rollout speed of U-verse.

[Mordekhuul]

If you have Fubar you can download performanceFu and verify what GG just said, it will monitor your data throughputs.

Throughput is not an issue except for patch downloads.

U-verse is currently running network in "safe mode", which adds about 10-15ms of latency.

I was going to switch to U-verse, but they won't sell it to me unless I turn off my third party DSL before I place the order and they're currently running 2-3 week lead times. Yeah, that's not happening. They have some kind of top down policy right now that they basically will not sell to people with third party ISPs on their phone line. Period. The end. You get completely stonewalled and forums indicate this is a broad policy. Speculation is that they are doing so to minimize time spent on customer service and maximize rollout speed of U-verse.

Yeah, they are shutting down their AT&T DSL service the morning of the 24th, then coming to rollout U-verse later that morning, so same kind of deal (just hopefully without the 2-3 week lag time) =)

[Mordekhuul]

Let me ask this. Given what you said about the performance boost even a lower performing dual-core chip can bring, how easy or hard is it to (assuming my Dell Dimension desktop case can fit one) replace my 3 year old motherboard with a dual-core motherboard, typically?

I kind of assume there is no need to do a fresh OS install or anything annoying like that, but perhaps some drivers would need updating (running WinXP).

Also, if I decide to go a more painful route, is going with a 64 bit CPU worth it, even though it'd require a fresh 64 bit OS install and such?