Can a GTX 1060 max out WoW at 1920x1080?

[Arachnotronic]

I am helping to build a system for a friend of mine who will be using the system mainly for WoW (aside from general purpose usage of course) and wants to be able to play the latest WoW expansions at high quality & high framerate.

I assume a GTX 1060-class GPU should be enough for this. The game is ancient but I hear the expansions have piled on graphical effects and has become significantly more intensive over time.

Is my assumption correct?

 

[crisium]

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1060/23.html

I guess this is maxed?

 

[4K_shmoorK]

Yeah, a 1060 is more than enough. As for the purported "additional graphical effects", you can put lipstick on a 12 year old pig, but its still a 12 year old pig.

 

[Arachnotronic]

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1060/23.html

I guess this is maxed?

Jeez, 1060 rips this game to shreds. Perfect.

Thanks.

 

[nurturedhate]

As long as you aren't cranking the AA all the way up a 1060 will be more than fine. However, those graphs from tpu are so far off base and not indicative of to actually expect I would pay them no attention. They were more than likely taken in an area with nothing going on. The fps in WoW can swing wildly from 150 to 30 on the same system depending on what you are doing. If your friend is looking to do more than questing and 5 mans the cpu is going to be more important than the gpu for good minimum fps.

 

[railven]

I'd be weary of benchmarks. It really depends on what your friend intends to do.

I've been an avid WoW player since launch. Raids will destroy ALL hardware. Blizz has gotten better at it, but still 4k with my 980 Ti @ +250 core/mem can still be brought to <20 FPS.

These are fringe scenarios but if he is excited about raiding I'd let him know just so he doesn't get disappointed at an FPS bomb.

(Hell that world PVE Boss, Kazzak, I'd get 5-8 FPS.

 

[Sonikku]

Jeez, 1060 rips this game to shreds. Perfect.

Thanks.

Damn. Maybe I should get the 1060 instead of the 480... Can't get the latter anywhere for less than $250 anyhow.

 

[nurturedhate]

Also wonder what tpu means by ultra as there is no overall setting just a slider from 1 to 10 and at 10 everything still isn't all the way up. Suppose I'm way off topic though, the 1060 is perfectly fine.

 

[nurturedhate]

I'd be weary of benchmarks. It really depends on what your friend intends to do.

I've been an avid WoW player since launch. Raids will destroy ALL hardware. Blizz has gotten better at it, but still 4k with my 980 Ti @ +250 core/mem can still be brought to <20 FPS.

These are fringe scenarios but if he is excited about raiding I'd let him know just so he doesn't get disappointed at an FPS bomb.

(Hell that world PVE Boss, Kazzak, I'd get 5-8 FPS.

Got to love Kazzak but exactly what I was trying to say. Those charts are a horrible representation of gameplay fps.

 

[Arachnotronic]

As long as you aren't cranking the AA all the way up a 1060 will be more than fine. However, those graphs from tpu are so far off base and not indicative of to actually expect I would pay them no attention. They were more than likely taken in an area with nothing going on. The fps in WoW can swing wildly from 150 to 30 on the same system depending on what you are doing. If your friend is looking to do more than questing and 5 mans the cpu is going to be more important than the gpu for good minimum fps.

Interesting that you say that. I recently helped another friend of mine upgrade his system from an Athlon II X4 to a Core i3 6100 (using a GTX 650 Ti) and he told me that in the latest WoW expansion this led to a "night and day difference."

He's got a 1060 on the way too, managed to nab a $250 EVGA model, hopefully that'll be another big jump for him.

 

[MustISO]

Also wonder what tpu means by ultra as there is no overall setting just a slider from 1 to 10 and at 10 everything still isn't all the way up. Suppose I'm way off topic though, the 1060 is perfectly fine.

I believe the number scale is new. It used to have presets like "high" and "ultra". Might have even been the pre-patch where this was introduced.

 

[railven]

Got to love Kazzak but exactly what I was trying to say. Those charts are a horrible representation of gameplay fps.

I believe the number scale is new. It used to have presets like "high" and "ultra". Might have even been the pre-patch where this was introduced.

Ah, I was about to ask, because I don't recall a number system (then again I haven't had to go into my options since the last patch that brought HBAO and CMAA.)

As MustISO said, I remember it being Very Low/Low/High/Very High/Ultra.

But even Ultra didn't set HBAO to whatever the NV specific name it has now version (you'd have to set that manually).

I actually took a break while I was addicted to Dark Souls, I need to check out the changes for 7.0.

 

[Khato]

Yeah, all the TPU benchmarks are based on WoD which had the "high" and "ultra" presets. The legion pre-patch changed that to the number scale, in addition to having much higher graphics loads at the top end. (WoD at maximum settings, 4k, no AA, and v-sync to stay at 60 fps only went to ~75% load on a GTX 980 Ti in garrison, whereas same on maximum Legion settings dropped to 50 fps and full load.)

As for the validity of the TPU benchmarks, they're actually quite useful to gauge relative performance. But they are not at all an indication of what fps will be in load situations, which makes sense given that those are not reproducible. The other point of note is that AMD has typically shown notably worse performance in load situations (eg raiding) due to driver efficiency differences. While legion certainly adds enough graphical complexity to be graphics bound at high resolution/max settings, it's still primarily dependent upon CPU performance. (Last time I checked in depth, still just two primary threads in addition to a few very minor ones.)

 

[IEC]

For MMOs, you actually want a high end CPU to mitigate the minimum FPS issues.

There is no better CPU than an overclocked 6700K for MMOs.

If you're running an old dual core or an i3 you're still going to go into the teens and twenties in minimum FPS where your CPU is bottlenecking you.

 

[Arachnotronic]

For MMOs, you actually want a high end CPU to mitigate the minimum FPS issues.

There is no better CPU than an overclocked 6700K for MMOs.

If you're running an old dual core or an i3 you're still going to go into the teens and twenties in minimum FPS where your CPU is bottlenecking you.

Got it, thanks. As I advise friends on upgrades I will keep this in mind. I only play FPS games so this is new to me.

 

[Jaskalas]

• WoW is very CPU dependent
• Make sure you have a minimum of 8GB of RAM
• Legion changed the max settings from "Ultra" (7) to 10.
• I personally know you want more than a GTX 750 Ti to max the settings.
• A 960 might be enough, but a 1060 is definitely going to work.

Oh, and a SSD is required nice for all the load screens.

 

[railven]

Yeah, all the TPU benchmarks are based on WoD which had the "high" and "ultra" presets. The legion pre-patch changed that to the number scale, in addition to having much higher graphics loads at the top end. (WoD at maximum settings, 4k, no AA, and v-sync to stay at 60 fps only went to ~75% load on a GTX 980 Ti in garrison, whereas same on maximum Legion settings dropped to 50 fps and full load.)

As for the validity of the TPU benchmarks, they're actually quite useful to gauge relative performance. But they are not at all an indication of what fps will be in load situations, which makes sense given that those are not reproducible. The other point of note is that AMD has typically shown notably worse performance in load situations (eg raiding) due to driver efficiency differences. While legion certainly adds enough graphical complexity to be graphics bound at high resolution/max settings, it's still primarily dependent upon CPU performance. (Last time I checked in depth, still just two primary threads in addition to a few very minor ones.)

This I can attest to first hand. Call me naive, but I didn't realize just how bad the driver overhead was until I tried a 660 Ti. I found a single 660 Ti ran MMOs smoother than 7970 single and CFX.

I'm sure AMD fixed some of that, but in a lot of the MMO circles I frequent, AMD CPU+GPU is just asking for a bad time.

EDIT:

ALl the posts saying Legion changes the settings, adding higher ones...I need to check it out if my 980 Ti can still handle 4K. Might be the final push to just splurging on a Titan X

 

[Ranulf]

Interesting that you say that. I recently helped another friend of mine upgrade his system from an Athlon II X4 to a Core i3 6100 (using a GTX 650 Ti) and he told me that in the latest WoW expansion this led to a "night and day difference."

He's got a 1060 on the way too, managed to nab a $250 EVGA model, hopefully that'll be another big jump for him.

That is cpu related. While I've had little problem with my AMD rigs, the game (blizz in general) favors intel/nvidia. My 8350(stock) and 7870vid average 60-110 fps in light traffic areas. Raiding, 30-45 fps on avg and down to 15-20 at worst. Kazzak is a 40man raid, it kills every machine, I think I'd usually hit 10-15 there or worse. All at 1080p res.

IIRC, when I put in my R9 290 into the 8350 system, fps overall went up only 10-20 fps.

 

[USER8000]

Jeez, 1060 rips this game to shreds. Perfect.

Thanks.

TechPowerUp has removed WoW from its newer reviews since it has had a major update which overhauls a lot of things.

 

[Nhirlathothep]

Jeez, 1060 rips this game to shreds. Perfect.

Thanks.

incredible difference 1060 vs 970 and 480!

and someone said that 1060 was not good on old games

 

[kami]

The old "Ultra" you see in benchmarks is roughly 7.5 on the new 1-10 scale they added in patch 7.0 (a week ago). 10 is very demanding. It's mostly better shadows, more draw distance, and more grass density. At 1080p you should have no issues at all. However, at 4k even a GTX1080 struggles to maintain 60fps in all situations (at the "10" setting) in the upcoming Legion zones.

They also never seem to give details of where benchmarks take place. It's easy to get high FPS in old zones, but new zones can be twice as demanding. Did the card get 146fps in Elwynn Forest or in the Shadowmoon Garrison? It's not even comparable. Yes, it's a valid comparison between cards, but don't think you're going to run the game everywhere at that FPS is all I'm saying.

 

[Adul]

incredible difference 1060 vs 970 and 480!

and someone said that 1060 was not good on old games

not exactly an old game when it continues to get updated.

 

[railven]

incredible difference 1060 vs 970 and 480!

and someone said that 1060 was not good on old games

Yeah, no kidding. Almost catches up to the 980 Ti.

The old "Ultra" you see in benchmarks is roughly 7.5 on the new 1-10 scale they added in patch 7.0 (a week ago). 10 is very demanding. It's mostly better shadows, more draw distance, and more grass density. At 1080p you should have no issues at all. However, at 4k even a GTX1080 struggles to maintain 60fps in all situations (at the "10" setting) in the upcoming Legion zones.

They also never seem to give details of where benchmarks take place. It's easy to get high FPS in old zones, but new zones can be twice as demanding. Did the card get 146fps in Elwynn Forest or in the Shadowmoon Garrison? It's not even comparable.

Judging by their 980 Ti numbers, I know it is a low NPC area because my 980 Ti stock can't handle 4K @ Pre-7.0 Ultra in a full garrison without dipping into the mid 50s.

 

[Headfoot]

Damn. Maybe I should get the 1060 instead of the 480... Can't get the latter anywhere for less than $250 anyhow.

WoW is not a typical result. It's always favored nVidia architecture for the past ten years. It would be like looking at Doom and saying that's how much ahead the RX 480 is in everything...

 

[Concillian]

Interesting that you say that. I recently helped another friend of mine upgrade his system from an Athlon II X4 to a Core i3 6100 (using a GTX 650 Ti) and he told me that in the latest WoW expansion this led to a "night and day difference."

He's got a 1060 on the way too, managed to nab a $250 EVGA model, hopefully that'll be another big jump for him.

Been a while since I played WoW, but I did play for over 5 years. My experience was that it ran WAY better on a Dual + HT i3 than an old AMD quad... and that was like pre-Sandy Bridge days.

When I upgraded, it was clear that the large majority of the slowdowns I experienced then were CPU driven. Didn't tax the video card much even in heavy battles. GPU upgrades would not help with the bogs, but would make already high FPS even higher. CPU upgrades would give noticeable improvements in the bogging areas. I'd think a 1060 would be pretty overkill for 1080p in WoW, but it's still probably the best price/perf for specifically WoW that will easily sustain high FPS at 1080p.