Wow capabilities on maxed out imac

[shadyartist]

ok here are the specs
3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2x4GB
1.0TB Serial ATA Drive
ATI Radeon HD 4850 512MB

will this imac (gonna be my first one) run world of warcraft on max settings in crowded areas PERFECTLY?
if u don't know what im talking about don't answer =P

[Stef Andrews]

First off, you will annoy people, and lose valid points by making your last statement. Avoid telling people not to answer. I have a friend on the basic Macbook 2.2GHz 2GB Ram that is happily running WoW. I honestly don't know how well, but can tell you safely that the machine you spec'd will run well. One thing is for sure, do not buy it from Apple with the 8GB RAM and 1TB HDD spec'd.

Spec the machine in its basic format, which I believe to be 4GB RAM, 500GB HDD, and then upgrade if you feel the need too. My 500GB HDD was around £100, and depending on where you are Newegg.com appears to be the best place in the US to by Mac compatible RAM, and Crucial in the UK. Upgrade both of these yourself and you will save yourself a hefty some of money.

S

[scathe]

you don't have to worry about running WoW, you can max it out and still see no lag ... and as far as crowded areas go, well that will depend on your internet connection and the connection of others ... you could always check system requirements to be sure

and good point, you can always upgrade your RAM and HDD and it will be cheaper then from Apple

[bobtomay]

No one in their right sense is going to tell you that any individual machine "will" run any particular app with all maxed out settings "PERFECTLY".

Can tell you that I play WoW on occasion on my Macbook Pro, a 2.33Ghz, with 2 GB RAM for 2 years (now at 3GB) at max settings on a 10 Mb/s download feed and had nothing to complain about. The max settings on that 24" screen will be higher than the max settings on my 15" screen.

I would recommend, if you're a gamer, you're buying this rig as a gaming rig, or your primary concern is with it's use during games, you've never used OS X before, do yourself a favor - build your own Windows gaming rig and forget about buying a Mac.

edit to add: I take back my first statement. I reckon some overzealous salesman working on commission might tell you that about any computer he thinks he could sell you.

[shadyartist]

sorry about saying /if u don't know what your talking about don't answer/
one more thing
would the imac be easily upgradeable by giving it to an apple store or something? i dont want to splurge 1,000 if 5 years down the road i can't upgrade it
thanx for the answers

[Mama Luigi]

There are no upgrades for the iMac other than RAM. I hope you don't buy your RAM from Apple... they charge way more than a fair price for it. We're talking hundreds of dollars down the drain.

WoW is not that graphically demanding but it will sometimes cause problems for even the highest-end systems around. No matter how much graphics or CPU horsepower you have, sometimes it will lag. And a top-of-the-line iMac is nowhere near high end in terms of gaming power. So no, it will not run WoW perfectly, 100% of the time. But neither will a tricked-out rig with a Core i7 Extreme 965 and GTX 295. It's not for a lack of power, it's just how WoW is sometimes. It's an older game and it's not perfectly optimized for the newest hardware.

Unfortunately you're still going to drop some serious bills if you want good gaming on an iMac. The cheapest version with dedicated graphics now is $1800, and that's with a GT 120, which is pretty weak even for WoW. The GT 130 is a worthwhile upgrade, but for just $50 more you can get the even better 4850. So you're looking at $2k.

[tinkerson]

you will have no problems running wow shadyartist on max settings you computer that you’ve put down is about 2 times as good as mine and I’ve got a Intel core duo e6600 Nvidia 9800gt 512 3gb ram running on windows xp(one of my gaming machines) and get about 40 fps in dalaran (one of the main cities). You will be getting about 90-100+ fps everywhere min 60-75 fps in crowded areas properly it will run like a dream

[007bond]

my first post!

anyway your mac will run superfast with wow but dont expect it to work perfect with games 2-3 years down the road

[sprite]

WoW should be fine. But don't let one single game decide your computer purchases for you forever or you'll end up regretting it later down the line. Especially with WoW in the state it is now (i.e. very little new content and adding "hard modes" of the same stuff to keep people playing/paying) you might find you tire of it more quickly than you'd hoped. So just make sure any computer you buy will keep you happy outside of WoW too.

(That was my mistake when I bought my Windows laptop )

As someone else alluded to, you can expect a bit of slowdown in WoW no matter what system you play on. Mostly, in cities, this comes from loading from the hard drive (so all the NPCs in Dalaran and the like), and you can't really get around that unless you play from an external.

[don_macabre]

As someone else alluded to, you can expect a bit of slowdown in WoW no matter what system you play on. Mostly, in cities, this comes from loading from the hard drive (so all the NPCs in Dalaran and the like), and you can't really get around that unless you play from an external.

I'm entirely not new to Macs, but am a total layperson when it comes to actually understanding computers; one of the curses of Mac is that they just work, with little or no input required from a user!

I'm curious about something you said in your post - 'play from an external'. To my very limited understanding, that means having the software on an external drive and loading it up through - what? - Firewire?

I would have thought that would slow things down? Surely if the computer has to actually get the information from an entirely other machine, and then process it to run the thing, that would be slower than if all the information was just to hand on the computer itself?

[CrimsonRequiem]

bombay hit the nail on the head.

If you are serious about gaming then build your own rig. If I had 2k I could build an overclocked water cooled gaming rig pretty easily.

This would be the best solution to any gamer because at least you have the option to upgrade your PC. IE. Better GPU, plus you can overclocked your CPU, GPU, and RAM.

That's not going to be the case with an iMac because you are limited to what components/hardware it can use and you can't overclock a Mac very easily or at all.

sprite is also right in saying that you shouldn't make your computer purchases based on a game. Doesn't seem very logical to drop 2k just to play a game.