WoW Performance – Improving Your Rig

With a kid on the way, everyone has told me get your toys while you can.  Well one of the things that I have been disappointed in lately has been my computer’s performance when playing WoW.  A few months back my wife bought me a new graphics card, but that only made a marginal difference.

So I set out on a quest to figure out how to improve my gaming experience for under $500.  So the question is how do I go from 4-8 FPS in Dalaran with medium settings to 20+ FPS on ultra settings.  Also how can I go from 14-20 FPS in raids to 30+?  Well I think I might have found the answer while still keeping the solution cost effective.

The first thing I had to do was assess the core of my computer.  Here is what I ultimately started off at:

• Processor: AMD Athlon X2 6000+
• RAM: 4GB DDR2 1066
• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair II Formula AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 780a
• Hard Drive: Western Digital 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3GB/s
• Optical Drive(s): LG DVD Reader (20x) & Sony DVD Burner 16x (Both IDE)
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 260GTX 896MB
• Case: NZXT Apollo
• Power: 585W
• Audio: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1
• Heat Sink: Thermaltake Max Orb

Mind you the Graphics Card was recently upgraded from a Nvidia GeForce 8800, so there was some small performance improvements.  Also the fan on my heat sink came loose and was rattling against the fins, so overall my computer needed some tweaking.

I highly recommend downloading and using CPU-Z to figure out what you have currently if you aren’t 100% sure, and even if you are, it can help.

Another site that is helpful during a rebuilding process is Corsair’s website.  On the front page it will help you determine what memory you need for a particular system if you are unsure.

Finally, Newegg is one of the best sources to find computer parts cheap.  If you have a Microcenter near you, they usually have some very competitive prices, items Newegg doesn’t sell and a service center that can assemble all of your parts if you do not feel comfortable with doing it yourself.

Now to say my original configuration at the time was state of the art, by today’s standards it might as well be a backwater gaming rig.  So I figured OK, well to make this overhaul I needed to upgrade my processor.  However I couldn’t get a new processor without also changing out my motherboard, and of course getting new memory as well.

First thing I did was decided what type of processor I wanted.  I went out to a number of sites including Tom’s Hardware to read reviews on different components to get an idea of where I was going.  Also never underestimate the knowledge in your company’s IT group, my old company’s IT department had some hardware geeks there that were a great help.

So I decided to go value, but also get power.  Now from what I was told and read, the Intel chips have been outperforming AMD recently so decided to make a big switch.  Looking over different sites I decided that the LGA 1366 sockets would be around for a bit, so looked there, and decided to go with the Intel i7 930, now I was able to find this processor at Microcenter for $100 cheaper than Newegg.  Now that I selected my processor I needed to look for a motherboard.

For a motherboard I was looking for something that would allow me to scale into the future but was also pretty slick for now.  Having read great reviews of ASUS boards, I decided to go back and find a board from there.  I came across the ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0.  I also found this particular board at the time on sale and was able to snag it for $200, now I am sure I will read this in the next few months and find the board only costs $100 but that’s what you deal with when you get into computers, prices keep dropping when new stuff comes out.

This board, as you can see is ready for SATA 6GB/s, can handle a 6 core processor (not what I got, but expandability is good), and has USB3.0 capability.

OK so got the board, and the processor, now I need the memory.  Looking over what my new motherboard can handle decided to go with a triple channel kit, since i7 chips and boards support this, figured lets go for 6GB of total memory, 2 more than I previously had.  So for this I decided to go with G-Skill Triple Channel 6GB memory, it had great reviews on Newegg and have read some positive things especially with folks who used it on this particular motherboard.

OK now that I have all that set, now its just the little extras, now this is where I really blow that original $500 budget, and in the end I probably could have done this upgrade without these extras but decided to go for it anyway.

So seeing as how my new motherboard supports SATA 6GB/s, I couldn’t help but splurge and pick up a Western Digital Black Caviar 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6GB drive.  Figured this would improve my read/write speed on the hard drive, without going to SSD initially or even to a 10,000 RPM drive.

I also decided to get a new heat sink since my old thermaltake’s fan was falling off.  I have enjoyed thermaltake a lot, and many of my friends swear by them, so decided to go back to them.  After doing the research I decided to go with the Thermaltake Contac 29, for a few reasons.  First it fit my case, though if you do have my case, it does bump the side fan, so you may want to uninstall that side case fan.  Second I found it at Microcenter on sale for under $30, and of course lastly the reviews it has gotten out there have been really positive.

Finally because my new board is SATA all the way, had to get a new optical drive.  Found an OEM LG 20x CD Burner for $17.99 at Microcenter, so yeah my other drive is worthless and went from 2 drives to 1, but can always upgrade to get a Blu-Ray Reader next, which makes me giddy!

OK so those are all the upgrades for this go-around.  So lets see what it all looked like

• Processor: AMD Athlon X2 6000+ => Intel i7 930 Quad Core
• RAM: 4GB DDR2 1066 => 6GB DDR3 1600
• Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair II Formula AM2+/AM2 NVIDIA nForce 780a => ASUS P6X58D-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0
• Hard Drive: Western Digital 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3GB/s => Western Digital 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6GB/s
• Optical Drive(s): LG DVD Reader (20x) & Sony DVD Burner 16x (Both IDE) = > SATA LG DVD Read/Write 20x
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 260GTX 896MB
• Case: NZXT Apollo
• Power: 585W
• Audio: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1
• Heat Sink: Thermaltake Max Orb => Thermaltake Contac 29

And for clarification I am running Windows 7 Professional 64bit

So how did this translate to in-game performance?  Well I went from getting 10-14FPS on mid settings in World of Warcraft to now getting 35-45FPS on everything set to the highest settings.  In ICC10/25 I went from 20-25FPS to 45-60FPS.  Also since I have more than 2 cores, and WoW only uses currently 2 cores to run it appears, the other cores are able to handle web-browsing on my second monitor, like having tankspot.com up to have strats at the ready, or even have Netflix running to watching a streaming movie.

I have definitely given myself more flexibility while playing as well as expanding later.  I am eyeballing a new graphics card as my next thing, maybe even a Blu-Ray reader or perhaps a larger monitor, I can’t say for certain.

So my original budget of $500 was blown, since I spent $200 on the processor, $200 on the motherboard, $140 on memory, $80 on the hard drive, $30 on the heat sink and $18 on the new drive, all in all I spent $668, not bad though for a huge overhaul that will last me a few years I foresee.