Can my Gaming PC or Laptop Run World of Warcraft (Shadowlands and Classic)? Here’s How to Find Out!

The first step is, of course, to find out what are the World of Warcraft system requirements. The most up-to-date source of information is most definitely the support section of the official game website, which can be found here: https://eu.battle.net/support/en/article/76459.

There are 3 most important specs that play the main role in how the game runs:

Processor or CPU:
minimum: Intel® Core™ i5-3450 or AMD FX™ 8300
recommended: Intel® Core™ i7-6700K or AMD Ryzen™ 7 2700X

Graphics Card or GPU:
minimum: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 760 2 GB or AMD Radeon™ RX 560 2 GB
recommended: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1080 8 GB or AMD Radeon™ RX Vega 64 8 GB

System Memory or RAM:
minimum: 4GB
recommended: 8GB

The best and most thorough built-in tool in Windows for checking your computer specs is System Information. To open it, click on your Windows menu and begin typing the phrase “System Information,”. Windows will auto-complete it for you. Then, press Enter to run the tool.

Under the System Summary, you can see the CPU and amount of RAM your machine has. In the example above, you can see it has an Intel Core i7-9750H processor and 16GB of RAM.

Still, in the System Information tool, click on the + sign in front of the Components to expand the menu and click on Display.

You can see there are two GPUs listed. Don’t let it confuse you, as this is an example of a gaming laptop that usually has one integrated and one dedicated GPU. On a desktop PC, there is most likely only one listed. But in this case, the dedicated NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q is of our interest.

Finally, you need to find out whether your specs meet the system requirements. If you are not familiar with CPUs and GPUs and don’t know how powerful specific processors and graphic cards are, you can get an estimate by visiting two great websites that benchmark every single processor on the market.

By comparing benchmark scores of your CPU and GPU with the CPU and GPU listed under system requirements, we can roughly determine whether your PC or laptop is strong enough to run this game.

CPU: On this website, you can check the benchmark scores for all the processors. In this example, the Intel Core i7-9750H has a score of 11,275. This means it exceeds the scores of processors listed under minimum requirements (i5-3450, score: 4,473 or AMD FX 8300, score: 5,257). Check!

GPU: On this website, you can see the benchmark scores for all the graphics cards. In this example, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Max-Q has a score of 12,207. This means it exceeds the scores of graphics cards listed under minimum requirements (GeForce GTX 760, score: 4,773 or Radeon RX 560, score: 3,616). Check!

RAM: This is no brainer. 16GB is way above the minimum and recommended requirements (4 and 8 gigs). Check!

If your PC or laptop doesn’t meet even the minimum requirements, you should consider upgrading it. Desktop PC at least, as laptops most likely can’t be upgraded. You may only need to replace your graphics card, so check our guide about all the best graphics cards for WoW. If you prefer playing games on a laptop, and you feel you need to buy a new one, please check our list of best gaming laptops to play World of Warcraft. Finally, if you are a desktop PC enthusiast and you are certain your gaming PC can’t be upgraded, feel free to check our list of best desktop PCs for WoW.