Another new machine question

[Nayl]

Hey, just checking that what im planing to buy should be able to produce decent frame rates at decent settings.

Processor (CPU)
Intel Core 2 Duo E2180 "LGA775 Conroe" 2x2.00GHz (800FSB)

Memory (RAM)
2048 MB CORSAIR XMS2 800MHz - (2x1GB)

Motherboard
ASUS P5K SE: DDR2, SATAII, PCI-e x16, 2 PCI, 3 x PCI-e x1

Operating System
WINDOWS XP Home

Hard Disk
Hitachi Deskstar 7K160 160GB SATA-II 8MB Cache

Graphics Card
ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI


Planning on playing on a 20" monitor at a resolution of 1366×768

[Kalos]

As per the Recommended Hardware sticky thread, it is fine.

As an FYI, whoever told you that the E2180 is a Conroe is wrong or not being trueful. It's actually an Allendale core. You can tell by the size of the memory cache and the speed of the Front Side Bus. The Allendale is a weaker variant of Conroe, stripped down, but functions well enough for another Allendale, the E4400, to be recommended by myself for WoW. Your choice should do fine enough.

If you're going with that graphics card, don't expect great OpenGL mode support. ATI can do fantastic DirectX, but when it goes over to openGL rendering, they tend to slow down and splutter; which has been a complain of some WoW users when they are forced to change from the Direct3D rendering for whatever reason that things aren't smooth and playing well anymore.

[Nayl]

Could you recomend a suitable graphic card then if you think that the ATi X1950 isnt the best choice as ive yet to see anyone actualy say X card is best for y price range

[Kalos]

The first graphics card listed on the Recommended Hardware Sticky thread at the top of this forum is capable in both modes and has yeilded positive responses for users so far. The X1950 Pro isn't a bad peice, but it has that OpenGL weakeness that flags up warning lights for me.

[Nayl]

From this i can assume the GeForce 7600GT would be a gd choice

[Kalos]

Yep, that's one of them. The other, more modern one recommended on there is: The high quality, smooth WoW gaming computer design

Graphics card - XFX GeForce 8600GT, PCI Express
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150229

I'd go for this one. It's a pretty good peice. As you are in the UK like myself I shall pull up a relivant link in this zone.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4HXP&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=Geforce&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=50544

Ask if you need alternative vendors.

[Nayl]

That was originaly the card i was looking at then i read on the wow forums that many people are having problems with this card maily low fps as its more suited to video/media than gaming.

[Kalos]

Well, I have had users on here speaking of them doing quite well (WoW isn't exactly the most graphically challenging game anyhow, the ability to kick serious butt is unnecessary). The 8600 GTS is adequite for the task. There is its big brother, the 8800 GTS, that's a really nice card, but the price increase is steep.

[Nayl]

Yeah theres no way i can justify spending that much on a card, think ill end up going for the 7600GT and maybe if i need to in future buy a 2nd one and run them with SLi

[Moo Cow]

I have the x1950 (but the ASUS build) and it works quite well.

[Herald of Doom]

Read this: http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/09/directx_10_shootout/index.html for a clear comparison of newer cards (keep in mind ATI released 7.10 drivers who are supposed to improve performance). http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/10/01/the_best_gaming_graphics_cards_for_the_money/index.html is a good read if you're budgetlimited. If I had to buy a new budget pc today I'd go for Radeon X1950 PRO, or a 8600 if you want to stay around the 100 euro mark. I wouldn't stick anything less than a 8800gts 320mb in a real gaming machine though.

HoD

[Nayl]

What frame rates are you getting using the X1950

[Kalos]

WoW is a game notoriously bad for judging by Frame Rates because of the nature of the game, you can't repeat the exact same sequence in the exact same conditions due to the thousands of other players moving about doing thier own thing, the variables are insane. Any comparison would be flawed unless narrowed down to a very basic degree, a 15% variance in favour of one side could very easily becaused by some sort of special server event, or time that raids tend to leave the capital cities and hit the dungeons and so on and so forth, thus proving the variance to be in the card alone is next to impossible. Tomshardware wrote an article on why they don't use WoW as a benchmark sometime ago, thier conclusion is that exact reason. Hence, WoW isn't a popular benchmark at all for graphics cards, because the comparisons are never placing equal stress, it varies from one moment to the next.

Outside of OpenGL, the X1950 is a fine card. But there was a massive WoW bug three months ago that meant some ATI users had to switch to OpenGL rendering to get the game to play, and there is the card's weak spot, it's completely crippled in OpenGL. People moaned about Blizzard being responsible for the sudden low frame rates, but any ATI users that know their cards well enough know that OpenGL has been their foulup for years; they've got better, but the difference between the two rendering modes is significant. I'd rather have a card that's good in both modes, than one that's great in one and a dog in the other.