Is there something wrong with my PC? (GTX 690 + 3770k with WoW)

BradS

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Jul 16, 2010
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Okay...so I built a new PC back in July and it is a very powerful one at that. I've had it for almost 4 months now and it plays games at max settings no problem...except for one game. When I max out World of Warcraft (1080p resolution, ultra everything, full AA, etc.), I sometimes tend to get like 45 to 55 fps. This is especially true in zones with many trees.

One thing that I found out is that by lowering the view distance, ground clutter, and environment detail only one notch (to high from ultra), I run the game at a very stable 60 fps no problem. This is even in zones with the abundance of trees as well as players.

Anyway... here are my computer's specs:

Intel Core i7 3770k (OC'ed to 4.5 Ghz)
GTX 690 (Stock cooling; no OC)
Asus P8Z77-V Premium
G.Skill Ripjaws X 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) 2133
Corsair HX850 850 Watt PSU
Crucial M4 128GB SSD
WD Caviar Black 1TB HDD
Corsair 800D Case

Custom Watercooling loop (CPU):

FrozenQ Liquid Fusion V UV Blue Helix Reservoir
XSPC Raystorm Intel CPU Water Block
Swifttech MCP655-B High Flow Pump
XSPC RX360 Extreme Performance Radiator V2 (with 3 x Yate Loon 120mm fans at Medium Speed Rating)
PrimoFlex UV Blue Tubing

As you can see, this computer should run anything and everything with absolutely no hiccups. I've checked temps and everything is running fine. I'm not sure if it's Nvidia's drivers or maybe WoW's coding but I don't think that I should be having any problem setting the view distance to ultra. Now...I know this is nitpicking but it just annoys me that I bought such nice parts and the computer isn't able to completely max out WoW at every scenario, especially considering I am running on a single 1080p monitor. I've heard of some issues with Nvidia's drivers on the WoW forums but I'm not sure if this fits the category of that issue.

Anyone out there with a similar setup that is also having problems? As I said, any other game (BF3, Crysis 2, Darksiders 2, etc.) all play at a perfect 60 fps...
 

dscudella

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Sep 10, 2012
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Oh wow, you got me stumped. I have no clue to this one. Download wowmatrix to manage your addons and check for outdated ones like Sunius said. An outdated addon can cripple even the mightiest of rigs.

And yes, I'm jealous :)
 

casualcolors

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Apr 18, 2011
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WoW cannot adequately make use of modern hardware. It's heavily CPU-bound, but does not use the CPU very elegantly. This is a common problem with all MMO's for the most part. As soon as you get enough people together issues begin to compound like server-side issues, data transfer to the GPU etc.

There is no amount of overclocking that you can do to overcome this. Performance-wise, WoW doesn't know the difference between your GTX 690 and i7-3770k, and my i5-2500k and GTX 570. Both system specs are beyond the threshold of potential improvement in WoW during raid scenarios and so on.

If you're having issues with tree-rendering slowing you down however, try disabling one of the GPU's on your 690. There's the off chance that SLI may be causing issues, or more likely that the 690 just has poor driver support (which was the same reason to avoid the 590). More than likely though your issue is rooted in the zones actually being populated whether you can see it or not, ever since they instituted the cross-realm open world.

So without going into more elaborate detail, in a nutshell there is nothing you can do about this if it isn't a simple issue related to SLI on the 690. What you're experiencing is normal behavior for WoW, and really for almost all MMO's.
 
sometimes it was poor coding. still remember where in this one mmo i can max out everything with 60 fps except shadow. just enable shadow will drop my fps below 20. even with everthing else set to low as long as shadow being enabled the frame rate will dip below 20.

correct me if wrong but i heard that wow does not play nice with multi gpu.
 

casualcolors

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In WoW it's not so much poor coding as it is antiquated coding. When WoW was first developed, GPU's were exponentially less powerful than they are today as were CPU's. The game was developed to exist as best it could at that time.

As far as multi-GPU support, that is almost completely driver-related but yes the game does often have weird quirks with SLI and crossfire.