World of Warcraft benchmarks
- World of Warcraft Shadowlands performance analysis 2020-10-12
- Troubleshooting and reporting WoW technical problems 2020-06-09
- WoW Dragonflight CPU performance comparison 2024-01-05
- WoW Dragonflight GPU performance comparison 2024-01-05
- WoW Dragonflight iGPU and mobile chips performance comparison 2024-01-05
CPU, RAM, performance scaling
- Benchmarking Ryzen 5900X and RTX 3070 in WoW 2020-12-08
- Ryzen 5 3500X versus i5-9400F in World of Warcraft 2020-02-16
- Analyzing World of Warcraft multi-core and frequency scaling 2020-04-12
- WoW performance with different RAM configurations 2020-03-22
- World of Warcraft Shadowlands Beta - SSD versus HDD 2020-10-12
GPU topics
- Intel Arc A380 - first look at Intel discrete graphics card 2022-09-23
- Ray tracing and API scaling on Intel Arc A380 2022-09-24
- Analyzing ray traced shadows in World of Warcraft 2020-11-08
- Testing Hardware-accelerated GPU scheduling in World of Warcraft 2020-07-05
Integrated graphics
- World of Warcraft on AMD, Intel and Apple integrated graphics 2022-09-20
- Benchmarking World of Warcraft on AMD APU integrated graphics 2021-04-19
- Benchmarking World of Warcraft on integrated graphics 2020-04-26
- World of Warcraft on handheld and UMPC devices 2021-07-19
Windows on ARM
- WoW Dragonflight PTR and Classic on Windows on ARM devices 2022-10-21
- Testing out World of Warcraft natively on Windows 10 ARM 2021-06-24
Apple silicon, macOS
- Resolution and graphics quality scaling in WoW for Apple M1 2022-10-22
- World of Warcraft on macOS Apple devices 2020-05-06
- World of Warcraft performance on macOS Big Sur and Apple M1 2020-11-23
Old clients
Shadowlands benchmarks
- World of Warcraft Shadowlands Beta CPU benchmarks 2020-10-12
- World of Warcraft Shadowlands Beta GPU benchmarks 2020-10-12
- World of Warcraft Shadowlands Beta iGPU benchmarks 2020-10-12
Other articles
- Benchmarking and analyzing World of Warcraft performance 2019-05-26
- Performance and hardware comparison of Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft 2021-07-11
- Analyzing WoW Shadowlands Spires of Ascension 9.0.5 performance regression 2021-04-14
Benchmarks summary
Zones like Ardenweald seem to be noticeably more GPU demanding than other zones. Other are more typical with CPU being the limiting factor. The combat as always is heavily CPU limited - if you want high framerate in mass-actor combat then the latest top CPUs will be in order. On a smaller scale or just the open world, this will be less apparent.
- CPU: The game is limited to 4 cores, but it does spread the load across them and single core performance becomes essential for combat and other large scale activities.
- GPU: for 1080p you will be fine with a budget GPU. If needed lowering the settings mode will increase the FPS. For higher resolution high fidelity you will however need a top-of-the-line modern GPU. The game should be fine with 4GB of VRAM. 2GB cards can see some performance penalty. Higher resolution/settings can use a bit more.
- RAM: 16GB is pretty much the minimum as with 8GB you will run into hard stutter or even freezes in some zones or scenarios.
- Storage: A good quality SSD. Note that when SSD gets close to full (which depending on the model and capacity can be as soon as for example 60% used) it may degrade in performance which in edge cases causes regular stutters in the game, especially when for example rotating your camera view.
- Display and resolution: if you want more than 1080p resolution then I would recommend ultrawide 3440x1440 displays. If you really like it there are also super ultra-wide displays. 4K isn't bad, just that WoW is really nice on an ultrawide display.
- Laptop: Integrated graphics can run the game really well on medium settings, but only the more recent ones - Radeon 780M/680M, Intel Arc integrated graphics and the older Vega 7/8 or Intel Xe. Older or low tier Intel UHD will not cut it.