PC stats, what results should I be seeing?

[Deleted]

AMD Phenom 9550 quad core clocked at 2.21Gz per core.
3GB of xms2 Ram (4GB installed, but im running XP 32 bit so it only see's 3GB -.-)
Nvidia 8800 GTX XFX 768Mb GDDR3 Graphics card

Thats all the important specs I think we need.

Now with this Graphics and cpu/ram setup I think I should be seeing no problem hitting max settings, however I have to half the veiwing distance else I will see low fps just in normal roaming about. With it half, I tend to be around 45fps in game. However this plummets in boss fights such as LDW for example, and I see judders on screen etc.

Is there anything I need to change or to check i've got switched on etc?

Im running this setup on a 40" Sony Bravia LCD TV, at 1024*768 resolution.

All my hardware drivers are up to date

Any suggestions as to Graphics settings (for the graphics card itself) computer settings etc would be great.

Thanks in advanced,

Halatosis

[vesseblah]

Too slow CPU for 25-man raids. Also graphics card is borderline.

WoW requirements have gone up significantly from what it says on the vanilla box. Or from what's listed as minimum on WLK box.

[Deleted]

So its a CPU thing..... despite it being a quad?

Im soon to upgrade, thinking of getting hte Pentium G6950 (Duel core), or an i5-750 (quad core), not sure which one yet. I have the tools to overclock both, the G6950 to 4.2ghz (2.8 stock) or the i5 to 3.6gz (stock 2.66). Alongside 4Gb of xms3 PC3 12800 and Windows 7. And a nice cheap Geforce GTX460 GLH.

This setup both run WoW on full settings at 60fps (55 under load stock, or 59 under load overclocked). Personally Im gonna go for the cheaper duel core and overclock it to 4.8, seeing as the i5 is twice the price, for the same performance (I only play WoW on my PC, alongside general use). Unless anyone has any other suggestions as to why the i5 is worth the price tag over the G6950 (for instance lifetime etc - meaning how it will cope in future expansions and patches etc)

Thanks,

Halatosis

[vesseblah]

So its a CPU thing..... despite it being a quad?

It's 2.5 years old -thing. Despite being quad. You don't expect $100k car from 1950 to be faster than $100k car from 2010, so why you'd expect computers to be any different?

Unless anyone has any other suggestions as to why the i5 is worth the price tag over the G6950 (for instance lifetime etc - meaning how it will cope in future expansions and patches etc)

How about this for a reason: i5-760 is about 100% faster than G6950 on multithreaded apps, and 30-50% faster on games.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2972/t...670-reviewed/1

[Deleted]

Ok ok, yeh its old, didnt think of that part xD. It's been some time since I last upgraded.

Ok, however I did mention I only use my PC for WoW and general computer use, Email, net browsing etc. Nothing major. Does that change the status of multithreading apps being important?

Added to this, in the CPC magazine, the setup I explained above (the upgrade) plays WoW at next to no different fps between the two cores.

Im just trying to wager whether its worth spending the extra 75 for something that seems to do the jobs I need at exactly the same performance. OR save myself 75 to spend on say the RAM ^.^.

Halatosis

[vesseblah]

WoW is rather peculiar in that in questing and open world it behaves like any other game, and throwing in better graphics card makes it running faster, but when it comes to raids things change dramatically. All spell effects thrown in are mostly handled by CPU, and with 2.5 years old CPU like you have the game starts lagging badly. Raids due to their random nature are impossible to accurately benchmark, but there is significant amount of anecdotal evidence to prove it.

I can say for sure WoW runs faster on i5 than G6950 in most cases, but not sure how much there is difference after extreme overclocking. There are no active people on these forums using G6950 who would give any hard data about the performance.

Another thing is that betting on dualcore CPU today is very risky and most likely a bet you'll lose. Currently WoW can use somewhat effectively 3 cores (even though 2 fast cores is just as good), but if you add any multitasking to it, like for example video capture, dual core turns to worthless pretty fast.

[Deleted]

Ok, point taken :P. Thank you for the input!

That aswell as I assume the i5 is going to age better than the G6950.

Looks like its an extra 75 on the budget then :P.

Thank you

Halatosis

---------- Post added 2010-10-14 at 11:51 PM ----------

Anothing question, the MB I am looking to buyfor the i5 has only 3gb/s Sata sockets, however the 64Gb SSD I am buying with it is a 6gb/s Sata, Now I trust they are compatible still, however how/will this hinder the performance of the SSD in loading times etc?

Halatosis

[vesseblah]

In theory it will slow down the SSD slightly, but in practice only the best SSD discs actually go over SATA2 speeds. Only SSD discs that have internal RAID0 can be severely limited by SATA2.

[llDemonll]

honestly ssd is a waste of money if you're getting one that small. it will just be a novelty item and will fill up so fast you will have to continually uninstall things off it and put new ones on

[Deleted]

Guess it depends on what you do with your PC as well

[vesseblah]

64GB is perfect for Windows7 and WoW. That's what I use my SSD for.

Although I have to admit I had to move WoW out of the SSD during 4.01 patching, temp files takes crazy amount of space.