Why is my frame rate higher at AAx8 instead of x1, when playing WoW?

[Shpati]

First off, let me say as far as I know, this is only occurring for WoW (World of WarCraft).

I was just messing around on my Desktop. And noticed when I switched the AA to x8 my frame rate was 60, but when I put it back on x1 it went to 50 or a little bit below. AA to me has always been the thing that drastically would increase performance if you put it on the lowest. I just thought this was crazy. On both my desktop and laptop, I will leave shadows and water detail on the lowest possible. And I keep texture settings on the highest (anisotropic filtering, texture detail, AA, terrain). Only difference is on my laptop is keep view distances on the highest and sound settings on the highest. I have the most up to date ATI drivers on this desktop.

I was thinking because on my desktop I use a ASUS 24'' monitor 1920x1080 with a 2ms response time, and my laptop is 16'' 1366*768. Both 60Hz refresh rates. Use vertical sync on both and triple buffering.

Catalyst control center settings are all the same.

Any clue why the higher frames when playing WoW with x8 AA on my desktop instead of x1.

 

[bystander]

The likelihood is that you are getting the same FPS on average, but things just slightly changed in game that caused higher FPS. Your FPS are probably CPU bound, so you might be able to turn up your settings higher in other areas with little impact on performance.

 

[Shpati]

I was in the same place, I was testing it back and forth. There was the same amount of players next to me each time.