This Christmas, Gitr broke down and built a brand new system and got gift cards to buy a new LCD monitor. What transpired is nothing short of a gaming revolution. WoW is an all new experience now. If you are playing on an old computer, trust me, I feel you. I was running at 1024×768 resolution with the shortest vision and nearly everything turned off. Entering Ramparts, frame rates dropped to a measly 4fps, which makes both tanking and healing exceedingly difficult.
On Wednesday, the new computer got built with a fresh install of Windows XP on a new SATA drive and got all of the WoW patches loaded for some evening playtime. Here’s the current system build, resulting in 35-72fps (depending on the location and party size) with everything at max and my new 1680×1050 resolution:
- 2.66MHz Intel Core2 Duo with 1033FSB
- ASUS SLI-ready motherboard
- 2GB 800 DDR2 RAM
- 160GB Western Digital SATA HD
- ASUS Silent nVidia GeForce 8600GT 512MB
- Envision 22″ Widescreen LCD with DVI-D cable
I’ll move to SLI, 4GB RAM and additional hard drives when the time comes and then top out with a Core 2 Extreme when the prices match what I just paid for this chip. So… using my wife’s bonus, we got all of this stuff in time for my week off of work (don’t worry, I have money coming in this week to replenish her bonus), got a desk, rearranged the office, and took down all of the Christmas decorations. It’s been quite a week, so it’s time to start posting again. BTW, Ding 68!