I currently own an HP Omen Laptop with an impressive build that includes an Intel i9-13900HX 5.40GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090, 32GB 5600MHz DDR5 Ram, and 1TB SSD. However, despite its high-end specifications, it seems to struggle while playing WoW, which is quite disappointing considering its price. I initially thought it was due to thermal throttling, but I have checked the temperatures, and they seem to be alright.
As I often travel for work, I had opted for a laptop, but now I am considering switching to a desktop. Someone has offered me a desktop with a 5800x3d processor, 32GB DDR4 3200 CL14 RAM, 6900xt 16GB graphics card, and a 1TB WD 850 NVMe. With such a powerful build, I am confident that it should be able to handle WoW without any issues.
So, I am wondering if WoW is just not optimized for laptops, or if I would have better thermal performance with a desktop. Nonetheless, I am excited to try out the new desktop and see how it performs and would love your insight.
Do you have ray traced shadows on? I think that causes issues for everyone. If so set it to disabled and give it a go.
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That’s a good point. I’ve actually turned it both on and off. I see a difference but I’m still not thrilled with the performance of the laptop.
Have you tried changing the Graphics settings in-game as well as in NVidia Control Panel, as well as turning Game Mode on in Windows? I used the video linked below, and went from 70/75 FPS in-game to 130/140. Playing right now, sitting at 85-90 in Valdrakken.
Pretty crazy laptop specs, but there’s so much tweaking that has to go in with them to try and get them to run at what you’d expect. I’m not personally a fan of modern Intel CPUs, since they run very hot, but whether thermal throttling is an issue is hard to say with a high end gaming laptop. While common, it’s not the only common issue with a laptop’s gaming performance.
That PC is quite good. I don’t know about AM4 RAM clocks and tuning, but the 5800X3D and 6900 XT both hold up today. Beware of the weird AMD driver timeout issue with WoW. I don’t personally experience, but many reported it (namely with the 7000 series cards, but it can happen with 6000 series, as I’ve experienced in the past).
The 5800X3D is a better CPU for WoW than the 13900k (desktop version of your Laptop CPU), so it would definitely be faster than the laptop version.
http://71.198.67.190/Intel13seriesWoW.png
The difference between the desktop and laptop version of the 13900 should be quite significant. The 13900k desktop CPU is a decent CPU, but it’s built on an old process node due to Intel falling behind in that area. They had no choice but to build it on an older process node. The result is that the chip uses LOTS OF POWER and it RUNS VERY HOT. Both of those are exactly what you DON’T want in a laptop, so it’s almost certain that the laptop variant does in-fact use fairly aggressive power and thermal throttling to keep that CPU in check.
AMD X3D CPUs perform exceptionally well because the extra cache on the CPU matches up well with how the game uses the CPU. In fact, WoW shows more benefit from being run on an X3D CPU than any other game aside from maybe MS Flight Simulator.
With that said, depending on exactly what you are doing in-game while you are experiencing poor performance, it might not actually be your hardware that is the problem. Even the best hardware available using minimum settings is still going to experience poor performance in big cities, epic battlegrounds, and large raids. It’s not really a hardware issue. It’s more a limit of the game itself and some of the legacy code that is still in there.
Pruning some un-used addons can potentially help. Keep in mind that add-ons use up CPU resources also; even more-so when they are old, half-broken, and glitching like crazy in the background.
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I appreciate everyone’s feedback regarding my decision to swap my laptop for a desktop. After further consideration and exploration, I have decided to move forward with the exchange. I am excited about the possibility of having more opportunities to work with hardware, as I enjoy building. Thank you again for your input.
