Thanks for the information. I currently have an iMac 24", 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT (128 MB). It's the "late 2006 model". So not the latest model, although I think the current aluminium iMacs have a worse video card than mine.
If I buy now, I'm definitely getting the NVIDIA card. Otherwise I doubt I will really get the performance I'm looking for. If I can't "find" the money for that, I will rather wait. I can play the game reasonably well on my iMac after all. :)
I have, however, been wondering about only getting one Xeon processor. I'd save quite a bit. As far as I know, WoW isn't currently able to utilize more than two cores anyway.
this iMac I just got is a 2.4 GHz intel dual core, the midline 20" screen, 2 GB RAM, and according to System Profiler, a Radeon HD 2600 video card with 256 MB RAM. I'm getting more (some times much more) than 30 fps most places. The lowest I've (briefly) seen it was about 10 fps in Shattrath once. In contrast, the frame rate on the mac mini was rarely above 10, and typically 1-2 in Shattrath, and 3-4 elsewhere in outland. True, when the next generation of iMacs comes out (and it may well be this summer), the only "upgrade path" is to buy a new one, but I suspect this one is gonna do me just fine for TBC, and hopefully for WotLK as well.
I have, however, been wondering about only getting one Xeon processor. I'd save quite a bit. As far as I know, WoW isn't currently able to utilize more than two cores anyway.
Be on the look out for some of the tear downs, that model is shipping readily so the information should be out there... and yeah you save $500.
I was impatient and just bought the standard configuration. Have spent most of the day installing and transferring stuff. But I did play WoW a little and it is definitely an upgrade from my iMac. Though I will consider buying the NVIDIA card later. And perhaps more RAM.
Btw, I noticed that it says this in the Config.wtf:
SET coresDetected "8"
So the game at least knows how many CPU-cores there are. Wether they get used properly, I don't know :P Though I can see that the game uses much less CPU time overall even though I have higher FPS now.
Im running wow on a new Mac Pro dual quadcore 2.8Ghz with the 8800GT card and 4G ram
Avg FPS in Shatt .. 60-90
Avg FPS in raids .. 50 - 80
Avg FPS out farming in SMV/Zangar/Netstorm 100+
Ive got all effects on high (Except ful screen glow .. i dont like how that looks)
Game play is a massive upgrade over my old Dual G5 box.
You can bootcamp if you want to for windows games, I havent .. waiting for shader suport in vmware fusion DX9 works under vmware fusion (Atleast I can run Age of Empires 3 under fusion)
Im running wow on a new Mac Pro dual quadcore 2.8Ghz with the 8800GT card and 4G ram
I just ordered the 8800GT. There is a few weeks delivery time sadly. Is it RAM from Apple, btw? Apple's RAM is something like 2-4 times the price of 3rd party RAM. :shock:
Anyway, it definitely is a fast comp. The 8 cores are likely overkill for WoW. But great for other things. I tried running two instances of WoW on the same comp. I could barely see any performance drop. :)
I just ordered the 8800GT. There is a few weeks delivery time sadly. Is it RAM from Apple, btw? Apple's RAM is something like 2-4 times the price of 3rd party RAM. :shock:
Anyway, it definitely is a fast comp. The 8 cores are likely overkill for WoW. But great for other things. I tried running two instances of WoW on the same comp. I could barely see any performance drop. :)
Don't buy ram from apple. You can get the same ram elsewhere for way cheaper.
I got the memory from Other World Computing, it was a lot cheaper. Most of the time while im playing wow Im also transcoding my movie collection to mp4 .. and dont notice it at all
The biggest threads in the game (in decreasing order) are...
The main thread (up to a full core of work)
the OpenGL background thread (up to a full core of work, usually less)
the sound processing thread (way less than one core of work)
the animation math assistant thread (way less than one core of work)
When running in a situation with a large number of animated player characters, but at low video resolution settings so we aren't GPU bottlenecked, and with a lot of sound effects playing, it would not surprise me to see the threads above combine to yield somewhere between 1.5 - 2.5 cores worth of work.
But there are interdependencies - raise your resolution / glow / MSAA / texfiltering and the GPU may become the weak link, then the GL worker thread backs up, then the main thread backs up... all machines wait at the same speed.
Most people with 8-core machines don't have 8 GPU's to match. So even if we could somehow use 6 cores to write a scene description out to OpenGL in 1/6th the time, odds are the GPU would still take the same time it always does to finish the job, and so thumb twiddling occurs.
Ive had a macbook pro for the past year, run wow on it for that long, and pretty much the only thing i have to say is make sure you put some kind of finish saver on a laptop casing if you have sweaty palms like i do. I have pocks and divots in my caste from where i spen hours on hours of schoolwork and wow :P
2g ram, i guess i only have the stock 128m vid card, ati radeonx1600 something, i get ~30fps world and raiding, and 15-10 in shatt during peak hours. pretty much everywhere else is ~30. And 2g of ram is plenty for what kind of interfaces i run.
Got my NVidia 8800 GT card a couple of days ago. And wow... what a change. :) To begin with I didn't change my graphics settings and got 300-400 FPS in certain areas (granted, this was quiet corners of Exodar... but still). I've now maxed most settings and still getting great FPS - depending on the place of course. The graphics card was no doubt the bottle-neck in my system.
Also, in comparison with my old iMac, the new comp seems to handle all of this with lots of headroom still to use. Meaning it doesn't get noisy, doesn't get hot, and I can easily run lots of other programs at the same time. So all in all it was an expensive but worthwhile purchase.
If I buy now, I'm definitely getting the NVIDIA card. Otherwise I doubt I will really get the performance I'm looking for. If I can't "find" the money for that, I will rather wait. I can play the game reasonably well on my iMac after all. :)
I have, however, been wondering about only getting one Xeon processor. I'd save quite a bit. As far as I know, WoW isn't currently able to utilize more than two cores anyway.
Be on the look out for some of the tear downs, that model is shipping readily so the information should be out there... and yeah you save $500.
I was impatient and just bought the standard configuration. Have spent most of the day installing and transferring stuff. But I did play WoW a little and it is definitely an upgrade from my iMac. Though I will consider buying the NVIDIA card later. And perhaps more RAM.
Btw, I noticed that it says this in the Config.wtf:
So the game at least knows how many CPU-cores there are. Wether they get used properly, I don't know :P Though I can see that the game uses much less CPU time overall even though I have higher FPS now.
About the cores, I think wow may offload some sound engine stuff to another core, but I think that's it.
Avg FPS in Shatt .. 60-90
Avg FPS in raids .. 50 - 80
Avg FPS out farming in SMV/Zangar/Netstorm 100+
Ive got all effects on high (Except ful screen glow .. i dont like how that looks)
Game play is a massive upgrade over my old Dual G5 box.
You can bootcamp if you want to for windows games, I havent .. waiting for shader suport in vmware fusion DX9 works under vmware fusion (Atleast I can run Age of Empires 3 under fusion)
I just ordered the 8800GT. There is a few weeks delivery time sadly. Is it RAM from Apple, btw? Apple's RAM is something like 2-4 times the price of 3rd party RAM. :shock:
Anyway, it definitely is a fast comp. The 8 cores are likely overkill for WoW. But great for other things. I tried running two instances of WoW on the same comp. I could barely see any performance drop. :)
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Curse PremiumDon't buy ram from apple. You can get the same ram elsewhere for way cheaper.
Handbrake + Wow .. drool
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Curse PremiumAnd how! That's reason alone to get more than 2 cores.
Just ordered 8Gb from OWC. :D
(Really gotta stop buying now... lol)
Now.
You're breaking my heart. :*(
iBook G4 1.42ghz
1GB RAM
32M ATI Radeon 8550 Mobility
In regards to the multi-core support (unless you were in this discussion on the boards already) ref:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html;jsessionid=F64C6F04CC52E24CFDDF1D5EC21EB7E7?topicId=4976331101&sid=1
although not that much new to what you already probably know...
2g ram, i guess i only have the stock 128m vid card, ati radeonx1600 something, i get ~30fps world and raiding, and 15-10 in shatt during peak hours. pretty much everywhere else is ~30. And 2g of ram is plenty for what kind of interfaces i run.
Also, in comparison with my old iMac, the new comp seems to handle all of this with lots of headroom still to use. Meaning it doesn't get noisy, doesn't get hot, and I can easily run lots of other programs at the same time. So all in all it was an expensive but worthwhile purchase.
Thanks to all who replied in the thread. :)
Expendable is more like it...
[me=break19]throws his nearly 3yr old iBook into the Gulf of Mexico..[/me]
I NEED MORE POWERRRRRRRR KIPTIN!@ SHE CANNA TAKE ENNY MORRRRRRRRRE