R1 or R2 for World of Warcraft?

Greetings. I'm buying a M11x (hopefully today if I can make up my mind) and have been reading through this forum for the last couple hours. You guys rock, once I get this laptop I hope to contribute as much as everyone else to help solve issues.

While on the road I'll be playing WoW exclusively (10 man raiding max). Since the game is so processor intensive, should I go for the i5 or i7 - or is the bump in speed not that noticeable from the oc 7300? I'll be always plugged in, so batter life isn't a concern.

Also one last question. Every now and then I'll have to hook up to an projector. How do you do that on a R2? Is there an adapter available?

Thanks!

For price consideration, I have a $200 off EPP coupon for a new R1. For the R2, I'm still looking for the best deal. My budget is about $900.

 

I would highly recommend the i5 or i7. With the use of Throttlestop there is much more CPU available (see the big thread about “supercharging you ri5/i7). I haven’t played WoW very much yet but it does slow down from time to time even overclocked and using Throtlestop so I wouldn’t want any less. I use Ultra settings at 1280x720 with no AA.

I’m not sure how important it is to you to get a new one vs a refurb but I got my i7 from the outlet for around 800 or so, and I saw some people on here getting better deals than I me. I used a 20% outlet coupon I found by googling coupon codes and trying them at checkout.

From the HDMI connection on the R2 you can connect to DVI or VGA through adapters (or even a special cable) so that should not be of any concern.

 

Just tried that coupon... $900 shipped for an i7. Man that's nice. I need to read more about refurbished tho before making that decision.

 

Does anyone know if WoW is having problems because of the graphic card switches?
Is there anything like punkbuster on WoW?

 

hee hee, glad to see I'm not the only one who snagged that deal!

 

I’m not a big refurb guy normally, but with Dell you get a great warranty that covers anything that could go wrong just like a new one. Yes there is a chance you get one all scratched up, but from my experience the ones I get have always been in great “like new” shape (bought 4 refurbs over last 4 years for myself and family). It’s a bit of luck (good or bad) but for 2/3 the price of a new one in my case I was willing to take the chance. I’m glad I did.

WoW does not use Punkbuster so you don’t have to worry about those driver issues. The only “problem” I’ve had graphically is with the new patch that just came out my water doesn’t show up unless I lower the slider down a couple from ultra. It’s a known issue though so hopefully they will fix that.

I think any WoW player should be happy with the m11x performance as long as you’re realistic about it. You can play on Ultra at a reasonable screen resolution as long as you’re not expecting 60fps in populated areas/raids. You can choose to play at a higher resolution with lower settings, or just lower settings in general to maintain a higher FPS. However it is unrealistic to play at ultra settings, at 1920x1080, with 8x AA and still have 60 FPS in Northrend.

 

After reading a lot more of the threads on here (and other places) I decided on the R1. I'm pretty casual when it comes to gaming and the fps gain doesn't seem to be to great in WoW. I did get the refurbished, can't wait for it to come in. Should be here next week!

 

Congratulations! Just don't expect to run all on Ultra in battlegrounds/raids and you'll enjoy it!

 

Congrats, I love my R1. It plays every game that I've played on it and sometimes better than my M17.

 

I run WoW on my M11x R2 I7 and I can barely tell a difference between it and my quadcore desktop with a 8800GT at the same detail settings. So all in all it runs fine for me. I use both at 1920x1080 on an external LCD

 

I'll be honest I can't visually tell a difference between Medium and High settings on WoW... especially on the 11in screen of the M11x R2 i7 that I own.

That said, I do usually keep it on high though when I connect to my 22" Samsung ToC when I'm at home for longer stretches of play.

... though for what its worth my wife also plays on high when she connects it to the 40" TV in the living room.

 

I have an OC M11x R1, with the SU 7300 processor, I quest with ultra-high with 25-30 fps w/o a problem, never tried raiding with it, but I imagine with a medium settings, it won't be a problem.

 

Runs wow fine upto 10 player (25 can do but some fps drop)
Don't OC the GPU, this seems to be one of the main issues with hanging in WoW
Throttle Stop seems to make a big difference, not raided yet with this.