I just came back to wow after a couple of years. My frame rates dip down to like 30 sometimes and I have graphics mostly set at medium (I think it’s 5) at 1080. I currently have an i7 7700k and a GTX 1060. I really don’t have the money to build a whole new PC right now, but I would like to get some higher frame rates. It’s not unplayable, but it is really annoying. I’m going to stay at 1080 for now, but I would like to move up to 1440 in the near future.
I was thinking about getting a 6650 XT, which I can get new on NewEgg for $260. Is that going to make a noticeable difference? Or is my CPU the bottleneck?
More likely this. A better GPU might help but WoW (and most MMOs) tends to be CPU-bound more than GPU.
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Okay that’s good to know. I’m glad I asked before I pulled the trigger on that card. Thanks!
the game has an bottleneck issue, frame drops like this happening even on my 4090. I can be 12% on gpu and 3% on cpu. yet game drops framerate. So don’t expect higher end upgrades to magically fix it. it will improve visual quality and resolution you can set. but the lows on frame rate will persist.
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I am not sure if it is applicable to you or not but here is what i do. I play on an M1 Mac Mini at 1080 and i run 60FPS. I have everything cranked to ultra and turned just the shadows down to the minimum. Shadow settings really kick my machines butt. If i turn the shadows way up i dip down into the 30’s and 40’s. I bought this machine when it first came out and have really been impressed with its preformance for a budget machine, i was honestly just hoping it would run WoW on medium settings at playable frame rates. I was super impressed when it comes to WoW that i could play on Ultra. That M1 processor is a beast.
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Okay that makes sense now because sometimes I’m flying around at over 100 FPS and then all of a sudden I’m at 30.
yup. it’s memory transfer speeds. Faster ram, and faster nvme will alleviate. as well if using a pcie 4.0 motherboard and gpu can help to. but even then. it helps, but doesn’t fix.
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to help, disable rtx, enable VRS, and enable nvidia reflex + boost. set render scale to 100%. resolution of 1080p. cap fps at 60.
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the CPU is more then enough for WoW.
The graphics card is likely your issue.
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I let GeForce Experience set the settings in wow for me, is that a bad idea? I did lower a lot of the shadow settings as those seem to be the biggest hogs.
experience can remove some critical improvements to frame dips in favour of better looks
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regarding the 6650 xt it’s a 8gb gpu. it’s on the cusp of not enough vram for newer titles. So the value to $ should be greatly reduced. Expect you would need to replace it rather soon. to many titles are needing at LEAST 12GB vram as the industry moves to loading more into memory. as well resizable bar and GPU Direct Storage access features on new cpu and mother boards will become a requirement in near future. as it lets the gpu copy textures and models from nvme directly with out passing it though the cpu and system ram.
For now play with settings.
In wow try disable rtx, enable VRS, and enable nvidia reflex + boost. set render scale to 100%. resolution of 1080p.
in nvidia control panel you can set a frame rate cap to 60, and vsync to fast mode. gpu to performance. and low latency enabled.
you will be unable to play the best qualities on 1660. but should be able to get it to 1080p60 with only dips periodically.
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That said even great systems doesn’t solve issues with the game engine.
I have a 7800x3d, 128gb DDR5, samsung evo pro nvme (with game installed on c:/ ), and a Rtx 4090 FE.
I can run the game as low as 1920x1080 or at 8192x4320 (RTX OFF it craps out at this resolution) and the game still get frame drops in valdraken and other zones.
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I have CPU similar to yours (ryzen 3900), and I recently upgraded from 1060 to 3080, to 1440p monitor and I definitely maintain 60 fps.
6650 xt is around 3060 performance from Nvidia, which should still give you a boost for 1080p 60fps. CPU should be fine as is.
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Okay, I’ll try that, thanks. Thanks for your input everyone. I had a feeling I probably would have had buyer’s remorse.
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rtx 4070 is same as 3090 in performance in game, but new generation. brings with it a few performance tools nvidia disabled in many games like dlss 3.0
3080 ti. if used or sold new CHEEP would be a reasonable upgrade.
do you have pcie 3.0 or 4.0 on motherboard. because that can cap out performance on new cards.
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M1 doesn’t do shadows in wow using metal very well. it’s different on pc. shadows can be rendered using baked shadow masks, real time stencils, or rtx real time shadows, or rtx soft real time shadows. so… settings are very unique compared to a M1 mac.
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It’s pcie 3.0. There is no way I’d be able to get a 3080 ti. Maybe a 6700 xt would be doable at about $350. But I think I’m just going to wait until the new 7700 and 7600 cards come out. At that time, I might be in a position to build a whole new PC.
That GPU was slow 6 years ago tbh. Spend 350 on a used 3070 and you will see a huge uplift. Generally though, CPU matters more than GPU in WoW, but your CPU is fine for another year or 2.
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cpu doesn’t matter nearly as much now a day. wow runs typically at like 3-6% cpu load.
more so ram speed and cas. and pcie lanes at higher versions to gpu is improvement points.
now with his gpu. it’s vram limited and front side buffer limited preventing good resolutions. and placing higher load on cpu as it caches in shaders and textures to the small vram on 1660.
if you spend any amount of cash over 200$ get a card with 10gb to 16gb vram. anything less maybe consider it for under 200$. because you will just be buying a new card again soon due to vram to small. That said prices are still a little to high for the value of many older cards.
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