World of Warcraft is one of the best MMORPG games of all time. It was released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment. Currently, it is at its 7th extension Battle for Azeroth, and 8th Shadowlands is scheduled for a release in November 2020
The system requirements from Vanilla to Battle for Azeroth expansion has changed a lot. Especially in 2018, when DirectX 12 support came into play. Blizzard continuously improves graphic elements such as textures, lighting, 3D models, particle effects, and so on. It demands a gaming PC with a processor and graphics card powerful enough to run the game smoothly, so the gameplay is the most enjoyable.
A graphics card (or GPU, short of “Graphics Processing Unit”) is undoubtedly one of the most crucial hardware parts of a gaming PC. It handles all the processing and rendering of what you see on the display and directly affects the quality of the textures, anti-aliasing, frame rate, and such…
When choosing the best GPU for World of Warcraft it depends on the budget you are willing to spend on a new graphics card. Second, a good starting point would be meeting at least the recommended system requirements. Why recommended and not minimum? Because minimum requirements are based on what developers define that games are playable at the lowest graphic settings values. Whereas the recommended requirements are what is needed to run a game with decent or highest graphical settings with a high enough frame rate for the best gaming experience.
Note that due to graphics improvement of the Shadowlands expansion, Blizzard again raised the requirements.
World of Warcraft Recommended System Requirements
Battle for Azeroth
- OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows® 10 64-bit
- PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™ i7-4770 or AMD FX™-8310 or better
- GRAPHICS: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 960 4GB or AMD™ Radeon™ R9 280 or better
- MEMORY: 8GB
- STORAGE: 70GB available space SSD
Source: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/76459
Shadowlands
- OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows® 10 64-bit
- PROCESSOR: Intel® Core™ i7-6700K or AMD Ryzen™ 7 2700X or better
- GRAPHICS: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 or AMD Radeon™ RX Vega 64 or better
- MEMORY: 8GB
- STORAGE: Solid State Drive (SSD) 100GB available space
Source: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/256565
What is the Best GPU for World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands?
1.
EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Super SC Ultra, 6GB
2.
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER WINDFORCE OC 8G
3.
ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Overclocked, 8GB
4.
MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Super, 8GB
5.
ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2080TI Overclocked, 11GB
1.
EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 Super SC Ultra, 6GB
2.
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER WINDFORCE OC 8G
3.
ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Overclocked, 8GB
4.
MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Super, 8GB
5.
ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2080TI Overclocked, 11GB
Last update on 2023-09-29.
The recommended GPU is NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 or AMD Radeon™ RX Vega 64. GTX 1080 is kind of obsolete nowadays so a good starting point would be an RTX 2060 which is slightly above the GTX 1080 performance-wise.
When you do raiding or battlegrounds there are lots of character 3d models, environment, and spell effects being rendered at the same tame. Even though Blizzard makes a great effort to optimize every piece of 3D content it’s still quite a task for graphics cards and it may stutter and lag like hell if having underpowered GPU.
A compiled list of graphics cards, being able to run World of Warcraft
EVGA GeForce RTX 2060 KO Ultra, 6GB
Last update on 2023-09-29.
Technical Details:
CLOCK SPEED: 1755 MHz
MEMORY: 6 GB GDDR6
MAX. RESOLUTION: 7680 x 4320 px
MONITOR CONNECTION: 1x HDMI 2.0b, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x Dual-Link DVI
Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER WINDFORCE OC, 8G
Last update on 2023-09-29.
Technical Details:
CLOCK SPEED: 1680 MHz
MEMORY: 8 GB GDDR6
MAX. RESOLUTION: 7680 x 4320 px
MONITOR CONNECTION: 1x HDMI 2.0b, 3x DisplayPort 1.4
ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER Advanced Overclocked, 8GB
Last update on 2023-09-29.
Technical Details:
CLOCK SPEED: 1830 MHz
MEMORY: 8 GB GDDR6
MAX. RESOLUTION: 7680 x 4320 px
MONITOR CONNECTION: 2x HDMI 2.0b, 2x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x USB Type-C
MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 2080 Super, 8GB
Last update on 2023-09-29.
Technical Details:
CLOCK SPEED: 1845 MHz
MEMORY: 8 GB GDDR6
MAX. RESOLUTION: 7680 x 4320 px
MONITOR CONNECTION: 1x HDMI 2.0b, 3x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x USB Type-C
ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2080TI Overclocked, 11GB
Last update on 2023-09-29.
Technical Details:
CLOCK SPEED: 1665 MHz
MEMORY: 11 GB GDDR6
MAX. RESOLUTION: 7680 x 4320 px
MONITOR CONNECTION: 2x HDMI 2.0b, 2x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x USB Type-C