I plan to overclock the CPU, but for now let’s assume I won’t. I want to run WoW at the best settings (ultra for everything, except shadows, etc.) comfortably (60 fps most places, 45+ for crowded cities/raids).
I get the impression the GPU is overkill at 1920 x 1080, but what if I buy a monitor with a native resolution of 1152 x 2048? What this make the GPU more worthwhile? What would be my performance then?
I lost about 10-15% performance going from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440, maxing everything but shadows (and even enhancing some graphical tweaks beyond what the settings would allow). You will still be bound to your CPU, and as such see dips to the low 40's at times.
Comparing the performance of my 560 Ti and 7970 I noticed no increase at all between these two resolutions (except max framerate when looking up into the sky).
Not many monitors that I could find. The Samsung 2343BWX does (newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824001317CVF). I can't currently post full links.
According to this Wikipedia article (wikipedia.org/wiki/16:9, under 'common resolutions') 1152p is one step up after 1080p. Your 1440p is two steps up. I want a smaller monitor though (22-24 inch), and so I think 1440p is too high for that size?
Runs fine for me at 2560x1600 with an i5 750, 4 gigs of RAM and a Radeon HD 6870. Oh, I always have shadows on minimum though, because I find them distracting (anyway you said you don't want them either).
Your milleage may vary though - sometimes I read about people with better systems than mine having performance issues so...