Question on Video Cards for Max Ultra settings in WoW.

darkdemise

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Evening guys, in process of building two new Identical gaming comps for wifey and I. I have been an Avid Gamer for years dating back to the old Original EQ days, and had built my own systems in the past, but have not built one in 8+ years now so not nearly up to date with the new items available as I should be.

Little lady has recently become addicted to playing wow and wanting to get a new gaming comp to experience the game on Full Ultra settings. I am looking for advice on GPU options that will allow us to do that, as well as play any games comming out within the near future on reasonably high settings without going way overkill but yet achieving the preformance we seek. My set up is listed below.

CPU : I5 2500K http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072&cm_re=intel_i5_2500k-_-19-115-072-_-Product

MoBo: Asrock Extreme4 P67 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157229&cm_re=asrock_extreme4-_-13-157-229-_-Product

Memory: G. Skill Ripsaw Series 8G (2 X 4G) DDr3 1600 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428&cm_re=g._skill_ripjaw_8gb-_-20-231-428-_-Product

Hard Drive: Samsun Spinpoint F3 1 Tb http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185&Tpk=samsung%20spinpoint%20f3%201tb

Power Supply: XFX 750w Black Edition http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817207003&cm_re=xfx_750w_psu-_-17-207-003-_-Product

Case: Coolmaster HAF 922 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197&cm_re=coolmaster_haf_922-_-11-119-197-_-Product

DVD Drive: Sony Optiarc http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118039&cm_re=sony_optiarc-_-27-118-039-_-Product

CPU Cooler: Coolmster Hyper 212 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065&Tpk=coolmaster%20hyper%20212

Now the only thing that I am lacking are the Video Cards. I am not sure which to choose for what Im looking for, as well as good results in the newer games being released today.

Which of the following do you expert builders recommend and reasoning behind it please:

2 X Gforce 460's Super clocked: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127534&cm_re=gtx_460_1_gb-_-14-127-534-_-Product

1X Gforce 570 Super Clocked: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130595&cm_re=gtx_570_superclocked-_-14-130-595-_-Product

1X Radeon 6970 2Gb: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102915&cm_re=radeon_hd_6970_2gb-_-14-102-915-_-Product

2X Radeon 6850: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127566&cm_re=radeon_hd_6850_1gb-_-14-127-566-_-Product

Have everything in cart, just waiting for final comfirmation before clicking order. =) Thank you so much in advance for your imput and help. ** EDIT ** Also looking to check out the MMO Rift, Call of duty, possibly Crysis 2, be nice to run those on Ultra also. =P Please take that into consideration with suggesions.
 
Solution
I can't remember what I got with sli gtx 570 in wow on full settings, but I remember it was smooth. But it depends on what settings clearly, with supersampling at it's max, and 64x aa, 1080p, your going to see some fps damage in some scenes that's noticeable even with my setup. But that's supersampling for u, But you should be good with like a ati 6950 flashed to a 6970, or a single 570gtx. The 400 series run hot I heard, and would run hotter in sli, plus they suck energy. That's why they made the 500 series. Also note that nvidia has pyshx engine, ati=went home sad. So techniquely the nvidia cards have more calculations to do and come to the table with the same fps as ati,s contenders.

You can find a better prices psu thats like a...

crewton

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crewton

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Should also mention, you'd only need one card to be able to handle WoW and Rift on ultra settings. I have both games and my gtx 560 handles both no prob. The 6950 is a notch better so you won't have to worry about a second card for awhile.
 

Ea0

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I can't remember what I got with sli gtx 570 in wow on full settings, but I remember it was smooth. But it depends on what settings clearly, with supersampling at it's max, and 64x aa, 1080p, your going to see some fps damage in some scenes that's noticeable even with my setup. But that's supersampling for u, But you should be good with like a ati 6950 flashed to a 6970, or a single 570gtx. The 400 series run hot I heard, and would run hotter in sli, plus they suck energy. That's why they made the 500 series. Also note that nvidia has pyshx engine, ati=went home sad. So techniquely the nvidia cards have more calculations to do and come to the table with the same fps as ati,s contenders.

You can find a better prices psu thats like a gold 80 plus cert for less with same wattage and not effect quality.

For CPU cooling, I run a corsair h60 and at 4.5ghz it runs at about 60c and at 5ghz it ran about 70c. That's under load. FYI. I don't know much about that CPU hsf in your cart. But read the comments and look for ppl with same setup and temps. Stock hsf is worthless. I turned it into a ssd cooler.

I highly recommend an ssd if you can afford them, that's your bottle kneck and it's a big one. But were like fine tuning your system now. As far as wow, any of those cards u listed will run it well at 1080p full settings with legit fps. Especially with that CPU.

My setup:
Intel i7 2600k sandy bridge @ 5ghz
Water-cooled
Corsair 2133mhz ddr3 8Gb
Msi p67
2 Asus gtx570 directcuII in sli
1000 watt 80 plus bronze psu
120gb ocz ssd vertex 2
1tb hd 7200rpm 64mb cache sataIII dual processor
Wind tunnel case

-sent from my ipad 2!
 
Solution

Ea0

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Note you need a ati 6950 2GB model not 1GB model to be eligible to flash it to a 6970 because all 6970's are 2GB. These cards have dual bios as well and with a flip of a switch you can switch between stock bios and modded bios. this is what I did with my amd x6 system. It worked well and saw a notable increase in fps. But you can't run your fan lower than like 35 percents cuz it's going to run hotter, and should turn it up to at least 75 percent before you go into game, which can be some work, but they retail for about 270$ with a 6970 $400 video card performance. Do google searching for bios's and in ten minutes your flashed,


My setup:
Intel i7 2600k sandy bridge @ 5ghz
Water-cooled
Corsair 2133mhz ddr3 8Gb
Msi p67
2 Asus gtx570 directcuII in sli
1000 watt 80 plus bronze psu
120gb ocz ssd vertex 2
1tb hd 7200rpm 64mb cache sataIII dual processor
Wind tunnel case

-sent from my ipad 2!
 
According to the bottom of my Cata box, recommended sys requirements as follows:

64bit vista or win7
dual core processor
2Gb ram
256mb nvidia geforce 8600/Ati 2600
multibutton mouse with scroll wheel

But seriously, I wouldn't even log in to mailcheck on a system like that lol

Plus amk, My Mobo doesn't have onboard gfx so its a card or no pretties onscreen :p
Graphics on WoW are a lot more than they used to be in vanilla/bc
Moto
 

norleras

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WoW is more CPU based than anything. You did well by choosing the 2500k. I believe it is the gaming standard and truly a wonderful little chip. I run with a 570, but I play more graphically intense games. If you're only building the system for WoW, you can skimp on the GPU like others have suggested. I'd say 5770 and up for WoW. Although, I'd probably invest in a 6950 if it were me.
 

darkdemise

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May 9, 2011
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Really leaning more towards the radeon 5950 2G card as opposed to the 570 and just OC the heck outta it, to make it basically on par with the 5970 for a bit cheaper, with the idea of possibly crossfiring at a little later date.

I have also heard in the past though that if you go with intel chipset, you should lean more toward Nvidea, cards but if you go with AMD Processor, we should lean more toward radeon, especially since they are now made by same company? Any truth to this or reasoning behind this statement?
 

crewton

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That's more of how things have been as opposed to how things are. At the moment all new AMD motherboards do not have SLI capabilities due to licensing conflicts with nvidia so if you get an AMD board and you want to use more than one card you pretty much have to go AMD. Intel motherboards allow both SLI and Crossfire so either way you are fine on that side.