Wanting to run WoW at Ultra!

6870 or the GTX 460 seems to be your best bet for those settings, seems a bit overkill to spend much more if you're only running WoW.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-c...

You serious? The 5770 will destroy WoW at ultra at any resolution unless you have 2600x1560 or higher, hell I can play it on high settings on a athlon ii x2 and 4670 at 1280x1024.

I played WoW until a couple months ago at Ultra, with shadows turned down 2 notches with 5870's in crossfire ath 1920x1200 with an i7 at 3.5ghz. I would get 40-50 FPS in Dalaran. With a single 5870 I would get 30-40 FPS in Dalaran.

A 5770 will not max out WoW at any resolution.

The big question is the monitor you plan to use. Do you truely mean you want Ultra settings, with MSAAx8 and shadows maxed, or do you want to be at Ultra, with shadows turned down a couple notches and no MSAA.

Those questions will make a big difference on what you want/need.

I am currently running a 9800GT 1gb card on my 965 BE overclocked to 3.8ghz and I'm maintaining 30+ FPS during combat with EVERYTHING on Ultra. A 5770 should destroy WoW.

I know that cata changed things but I used to be able to max out wow (single instance) on a 7800gs. Even though I like Nvidia but a 5770 should be able to pull it's own weight in this game after the recent patch unless you are using a Giant LCD.

My resolution used to be maxed till xpac. I run good-high with 2100 x 1152 and shadows at low to keep my fps maxed. Do I need a better graphics card? Idk if you guys play the Cataclysm or not but they updated the graphics. I want to run ultra everything if it is the graphics card and if I can afford. I'm not overclocking bcause I don't want to blow my card.

I have a 23 inch screen

I like your build and you should be fine so long that you maintain the system and upgrade it over time. a slow hard drive will bottleneck wow as it likes to page to the swap file. I personally run up to 6 accounts at once on my machine (no third party software just a clicker) so I know the game very well.

With that res you might be able to pull it off but you will be found wanting an upgrade down the road much sooner than you would have liked.

I don't mind upgrading over time. I figured that I would have to anyways. Haha. So should I get a new one?

The processor will play a bigger part here, go for the i3 if on a budget. Even a stock i7 930 bottlenecks wow a wee bit since wow only utilizes 2 cores.

I run a GTX 470 with a stock i7 930 all max very well, but there's places that it dips. It didn't when my i7 was at 4.011ghz. For the GPU i'd recommend at least the super OC edition GTX 460. That's your best bet if you want to stay locked at 60fps as much as possible. But like i said, the CPU will play a big part on your minimum fps, so get a high clocked dual core, or a i5/i7 quad and OC it.

I wouldn't recommend AMD in this case since we are going for high clockspeed and efficiency per clock cycle, which currently the i series processors are better at by a good margin. Up to you though.

I can't remember my exact bare drive but I think it is a samsung spinpoint? Fastest one I could find.

I can run max everything but my fps goes way down. I want it to stay up!

I don't know how Cata is doing, but WotLK would run will in most places, but like I said, it depends on what you consider Ultra settings.

Dalaran will not be playable at maxed out settings with a 5770 at 1080p for example. But you'll have 60 FPS most places.

Most people turn shadows off, and still call it Ultra, it's not.

As long as you understand what people mean when they say a 5770 maxes out WoW, it really means you will dread populated cities in the new areas, but runs pretty well outside in the wild, and also sucks in hardcore raids.

And just to be clear, WoW favors Nvidia quite a bit. If a 460 struggles, a 5770 suffers hard.

Oh yeah, one more question, do you play with mods? Mods will slow things down. You'll need more power if you are a hardcore player who uses a lot of mods.

Might be a dumb question. Can I use nvidia with my setup? I love nvidia but everyone talks about radeon series. I would get an nvidia card. I'm just selling my old one to my friend.

Cheapest, quickest and most worthy upgrade in this case would be to crossfire 5770s, you'll get alot better performance on every single game and app.

OCing the cpu a little using just the multi wouldn't hurt either, even a 200mhz bump to 3.6 gives a pretty decent increase in performance considering there will be almost no temperature increase and there's no need to mess with voltages

For me to crossfire, do I need a bigger power supply? Also, I do oc my cpu occassionally to 3.8ghz.

Yea didn't check that before, you will need a bigger power supply for 2 5770s.

Smartest thing would be to sell your 5770 and save up for a gtx570 as WoW is quite nvidia favoring, SLI gtx460s would be a better bang for buck but you'd have to upgrade you psu for that aswell

Well my family is asking what I want for christmas. Should I go with just a 570? Or should I roll with dual 460's? I see the dual 460's would overall cost more but would it be worth it?

For WoW especially, I'd go with a single 570 over two 460's. SLI/CF isn't official supported by WoW, although CF 5870's did improve things for me, but I've been informed that it doesn't always work with some cards. Also, if you play in windowed mode, like many if not most WoW players, due to looking up things online while you play, windowed mode does not support SLI/CF in any game.

It is so weird how games favor certain cards. Okay. Well I think I may swap to the 570. Is that a huge jump from the 5770?

Yes.

Cool. I appreciate all the feedback from you guys. If anyone still has opinion, please post. You guys have Merry Christmas!

heck yes!!!!!!!