Truth be told, WoW scalates quite well with whatever hardware you have. In other words, even if you buy old and slow hardware, you can optimize settings to play with no lag.

However…

That doesn’t mean it’s going to look great. So the best Laptop for World of Warcraft be it for Classic Cataclysm or even the upcoming Worldsoul Saga expansions, as long as it has a dedicated GPU, should let you scale the graphics to at least medium-high (5) without too much heat.

The recommended system requirements published on blizzard’s website are basically to run the game with graphics quality at 7. I know they’re quite vague and written for desktops, we’ll soon make it clear for laptops.

Let’s talk about prices first…

If you want to run the game at  ULTRA (10) & maximum viewing distance and most, if not all, graphics settings maxed out at FHD resolution (1080p) with 80fps.

You need to spend at least 750 bucks.

On the other hand…

If you’re okay running the game at lower resolutions (1-4) at 60fps then you need 500 bucks.

Lastly…

To run the game at beast settings with 1440p resolution. You need to spend more than 1300 bucks.

I know that’s expensive…and you may get more fps with desktops but as asmongold says “It is what it is”.

Here’s a summary of the hardware you’ll find on laptops and their performance. 

Notice how even a low-end laptop with a Ryzen 5 & no dedicated graphics can easily output +90 fps at medium settings.

And a  budget 3060 RTX (running at low wattage) can run the game at 1400p with +60fps.

If you can afford it, the latest RTX 4060 on laptops can run the game at 1440p with +100fps.

Yup, laptops are that powerful these days. Forget that “PC master race”, “get a desktop or go home”  comments, if you’ve got cash you’ll get almost the same performance of desktops.

However..

For PvP and arenas, you should really invest at least 750 dollars. Not a good idea to use low resolution & low viewing distance in those settings. If you want to spot and have better dynamics when fighting, you need higher graphics.

350-500 dollar laptops are okay for dungeons & questing. 

What about me?

Well…I always settle with at least a 4GB vRAM GPU on a desktop and 6GB vRAM GPU (800$+) on a laptop.

I like to Raid & PvP with the highest settings. For crowded places like Tol Barad & Boss fights with 25-40 man raids, I do lower down the settings to 6 or even 4 depending on how difficult the boss. You don’t need high settings for that. I keep them high during dungeon clearing though.

As for classic in Tarren Mill…of course settings always high especially viewing distance for obvious reasons. 

I also use a budget machine when Im on a trip (currently in Japan)

So…

Yup, I’ve been using all sorts of laptops throughout the years and my recommendations should be helpful.

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Recommended Laptop Specs for World Of Warcraft

You are welcome to skip this section and check out the best laptops for World of warcraft I’ve listed. It’s technical stuff for those with no access to my recommendations OR those who rather look for something else.

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When choosing a laptop for gaming, it’s really all about the GPU. Here’s the most recent GPUs as of late 2023:

NVIDIA: MX450, MX550,1050GTX,1050Ti GTX,1650GTX,2050RTX, 3050Ti, 1660Ti,  3060RTX,4050RTX, 3070RTX,4060RTX,3070Ti, 3080RTX,4070RTX,3080Ti
AMD: Radeon Pro RX 555X,  RX540, RX550, RX 560X, RX 580, RX5550M, Radeon RX 6800S, Radeon RX 6700S

GPU
With DragonfLight WoW is now more GPU depending than ever especially at 1440p and 4k. Classic? Wrath? Not really, you only need a 3050Ti (4GB vRAM) for the highest settings in Classic/Wrath. The following applies for Dragonflight (estimates based on previous benchmarks):

Entry-Level GPUs:  Can pull off 50fps at ultra settings. EX: MX450. Approx. 60-70 with the MX550.
MainStream GPUs:  ~70fps on Ultra Settings. 600-700$.
Mid-range GPUs:  75-80fps on Ultra Settings (PvP or Dungeon) , 90-100fps (Questing). Ideal for HIGH settings for long periods of time. $700 dollars (Up to 900).
High-End: Ideal for playing at ULTRA for LONG periods of time. Can play short burts of 1440p or even 4k.
Top tier:  Ideal for playing 1440p for long periods of time.

The footage of these benchmarks and framerates are listed in the last section of this post.

MUX SWITCH & GPU TGP

GPUs performance depend heavily on GPU TGP (how much power they use in watts) & whether or not they have a MUX Switch.  If you’re buying laptops with High-End or Top-Tier GPUs, you must KNOW what they are so please read my posts carefully. Its not a concern for mainstream laptop GPUs (3050Ti and the like). Ignore it altogether if you’re buying mid-range GPUs.

1080p WoW Gaming:

• Ex: You want a high wattage GPU (115 to 130W) for a 3060RTX isntead of 85W. Low power 3060RTX GPUs only perform as good as mid-range GPUs.
• MUX Switch: gives you 15-20% increased GPU performance (15-20% more fps). Having high TGP (power) is more important though.

1440p or 4k gaming:

• 3070 RTX & 3080RTX without a MUX Switch & running at low power still outperform laptops with weaker GPUs at these resolution.
• If you can get these with a MUX Switch and especially at HIGH WATTAGE (TGP), you will get MASSIVE performance gains though.

CPU
WoW is more multi-threaded than ever but clock speed performance is still more important. 
While it’s easy to see which CPU has more ‘speed'”clock speed” if they’re from the same brand & same generation (the ones with the higher number 4.5GHz vs 4GHz).
If not, use third party benchmarks or gaming benchmarks on youtube:

Note: The dedicated GPU is far more important. Only pick choose the faster CPU if both laptops have the same GPU stats (MUX, TGP, etc).

*If you need more details here, check the last section.

RAM & Storage
8GB:  WoW takes 2GB. Windows 10 takes 3.5 GB.  Discord ~1GB. This is enough for WoW.
16GB: This will bump up FPS slightly (+10fps). However, it’s a must if you end up with an an integrated GPU (laptop below 550 $ ). Useful for streaming too.
Dual-Channel: If you get x2 RAM sticks of the same stats (size, brand, type) you activate DC mode and get an extra 5-15fps. More on this post.

Storage
256GB:   128GB for Dragonflight (70GB for Classic Hardcore and 128GB for Classic Cataclysm ) + Windows ~64GB. That’s way past  256GB if you plan on installing all three. You’re going to need at least 512GB !

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Top 5 Best Laptops for World of Warcraft

Laptopstudy.com does not list and repeat laptop features and characteristics unncessarily. What we’ll do instead is go over the features that are important for the game and how they affect the game.

If possible show you performance benchmarks and footage with WoW. Now unfortunately, there aren’t many Dragonflight benchmarks so we’ll include Shadowland benchmarks too.

Important: Pay close attention to the GPU section of each review because that’ll determine the laptop’s performance with the game.

 

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1. HP Victus Gaming Laptop

Best Budget Laptop For World of Warcraft – DragonFlight & Worldsoul Saga

  Intel Core i5-13420H

  8GB DDR4 (Up to 16GB RAM)

   RTX 3050Ti 6GB vRAM

  512GB NVMe SSD (M.2 & 2.5” Bay Slot Available for upgrades)

  15.6” 144Hz FHD IPS

  5.13 lbs

  3 hours

It’s almost 2024 and now we have LOTS of options for GPUs in the 700-900 price range: 2060RTX, 4050 RTX, 1650 RTX and of course the good ol’ 3050Ti.

I still ended up listing a 3050Ti laptop this year too for its price/performance ratio. 

World of Warcraft Benchmark: 3050Ti Laptop

Note that I carried the test with a 3050Ti Laptop that has an older CPU so expect all measurements to increase by at least 10 (or 15) fps.

Questing: 100fps ( avg) on Ultra Settings(10 on the graphics bar) – OverClock ON – Outside of Durotar
PvP: 85 fps (avg) on Ultra Settings (10 on the graphics bar) – Out of Combat (OverClock OFF) – Twin Peaks
Dungeon: 54fps (avg) on Ultra settings(10) fighting mobs and 62 fps fighting a BOSS

GPU: 3050Ti (85W) – 6GB vRAM 

Although the 4050 RTX would be the upgrade to the 3050Ti shown here, the 3050Ti STILL gets you past 100 fps on Ultra Settings. That’s of course as long as you OVERCLOCK it, which means, raises the WATTAGE to at least 85W. The laptop I benchmarked had the Lenovo Vantage Software which gives you access to different GPU modes as shown below:

The HP Victus has the OMEN GAMING HUB has a similar feature where you can turn ON/OFF overclocking. I would advice you however to use this laptop on ‘balanced mode’  or even ECHO mode. While nice graphics are nice and all, playing on ULTRA settings at high framerates for several hours, even for classic WoW, will take a toll on the GPU because of the continuous high temperatures.

When doing raids and pvp, you should use echo mode or balanced mode at medium settings to keep framerates as stable as possible .

The GPU runs at a maximum of 85W and does not have a MUX Switch.

3050ti laptops don’t have a MUX switch because the performance is quite LOW for most games anyways , with the exception of games like WoW.

CPU: Intel Core i5-13420H

The CPU found on the Lenovo Idepad Gaming 3 is a 5th gen Ryzen 5 CPU, the HP Victus however has an Intel Core i5 from the latest generation. It has way better multi-core performance than the old Ryzen 5.

If we compare it to the newest Ryzen 5 7535HS, the Core i5 13420H also has better multi-core performance and single-core performance, though only slightly! The Core i5 13420H basically acts like the Core i5 13500H.

Anyways, this CPU talk doesn’t matter much, as long as you get the GPU right, CPUs , as long as they’re recent, will only add 10-15 fps at the most.

It’s still useful to know in case you’re stuck between two laptops at the same price with pretty much every other spec being the same. 

Every laptop with a 3050Ti should run Classic Hardcore, WoW Classic Cataclysm & Dragonflight at least at 7 graphics for long periods of time. As for the Worldsoul saga expansions, sure you can run them at 5 graphics I would guess (it’s still one year away) but to run the game at QHD or even just FHD with graphics ultra (10), seeing the current trend of MMORPG games and how the graphics are changing, I can assume the worldsoul saga will definitely need at least a 6GB vRAM GPU (the next laptop is a good option with more vRAM)!

HP Victus
PROS	CONS
144 Display GPU Wattage Up to 85W Low Temperatures Great Heat Dissipation GPU performance Modes Ethernet Port’ x3 USB ports	no USB port on the left side (x2 on the right side) Weak Sound System Low Battery DDR4 RAM  Heavy

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2. Lenovo Legion 5 Pro

Best Laptop to Play WoW on Ultra – Worldsoul Saga

  Core i7 13700H

  16GB RAM DDR5

   GTX 4060RTX 140W (MUX Switch)

  1TB PCIe NVMe SSD (2x PCie Nvme slots free)

  16″ WQXGA 2560×1600 165Hz

  5.4 lbs

  2 hours

The most ideal laptop to play World of Warcraft on ULTRA SETTINGs at 1080p for as long as you want. The reason is simple, the 4060RTX is a GPU that can EASILY sustain ULTRA settings while keeping temperatures LOW and SAFE.

4060RTX: 130W + MUX Switch

The 2023 version of the lenovo Legion 5i Pro with the 4060RTX runs at 140W (125+15W) and has a MUX Switch. Though this isn’t listed on the seller’s description, You can corroborate this by checking it on notebookcheck’s table of specifications.

Unfortunately, because this is a new GPU and DragonFlight is also a new expansion, and honestly World of Warcraft being (aside from Wow Classic HardCore) a very niche game, you’d be hardpressed to find Benchmarks of the 4060 on laptops for DragonFlight.

Now you can find dozens of benchmarks for the 4060 desktop version but those numbers are not representative of the laptop version of the 4060RTX. The closest laptop GPU to the 4060RTX would be the 3070RTX.

The settings are ULTRA at 1080P with framerates going well past 130fps. Now if you add the fact that this has Core i7 of the 13th generation, the fps should go at least up to 150fps while keeping temperatures low.

Warning: 4060RTX Wattage

The 4060RTX comes with very different wattages depending on the laptop. If you don’t know what wattage (also called TGP or TDP) please read my article on GPU wattage. It’s very very important you read it before you buy a laptop with these kind of GPUs because performance will be MASSIVELY different depending on the TGP. 

Performance : 3070RTX vs 4060RTX

75W 4060RTX vs 140W 4060RTX:

Wattage of the 4060RTX can range anywhere from 45W to 140W. You don’t have to get a full blown 140W 4060RTX to get the best performance out of it, as long as you get a 4060RTX running at 100W+ you’d get the performance we described above ( close to the 3070RTX performance).

If you get a 140W 4060RTX you’ll have the exact same performance of the 3070RTX (with framerates going up a bit because of the more recent CPU).

However….

If you get a 4060RTX with Wattages well below 100W, you’ll be getting the performance of the 3060RTX.

 

RTX  Ray Tracing : ON & OFF

What about the RTX features? Theyre not really useful in WoW. Whether its turned on or off, the game will still look the same. It does however have a nice effect on characters especially with DragonFlight where characters faces are already very realistic. With the new WoW expansion where you can have all characters together in the welcome screen, it’s going to look even cooler.

But you don’t have to worry about this RTX non-sense because most laptops have an RTX GPU and thus they all support RTX mode. However, if you turn it off, you can get a performance gain of approximately 20fps.

FHD vs QHD Displays: 1440p gaming 

You can run the game at 1400p with either a 4060RTX or a 3060RTX , the 4060RTX would be more ideal for 1400p gaming for long periods of time. More important, it’s to pick up a 16” or 17” thick laptop to do this, as the extra space allows for a better cooling system to be installed which is CRUCIAL to control the high temperatures of 1440p gaming.

Obviously, you need to pick  a laptop that supports 1400p resolution too. This is called a QHD display, it’s worthless to buy a laptop with a 4060RTX and FHD unless you want to run the game at FHD at all times.

Lenovo Legion 5 Pro 16”
PROS	CONS
High TGP 4060RTX (140W) Great Cooling System Latest 13th gen Core i7 16 inch display WQHD 165Hz MUX Switch included Superb sound System	Low Battery Heavy

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3. MSI Stealth 17 Studio

Best Gaming Laptop For World of warcraft – 1440 & 4k resolution

  Intel Core i9-13980HX

  128GB DDR5

  GeForce RTX 4090 16GB

  4TB PCIe SSD

  17” IPS 4k UHD 144Hz

  8lbs

  1 hour (Gaming) 

Any laptop beyond a 4060RTX running at 140W, imo, it’s not that useful for World of Warcraft. The game isn’t very graphically demanding and yes you may get higher framerates with laptops like this model but the performance/money ratio gains are not worth it.

Now if you have unlimited cash like Asmongold and don’t mind paying thousands of dollars, this right here is the best laptop for gaming in 2023 with the latest GPU & CPU on it. 

GPU: 4090RTX 175W

This is currently , as of end of 2023, the most powerful GPU available on laptops running at full wattage. While you may find it on thinner laptops too it’s best to buy it with thicker and bigger laptops if you want to experience its full power.

It doesn’t run at higher wattages than 175W however this is as good as it’s goingto get for laptops.

I dont see this much power being useful for WoW dragonflight and even the upcoming three expansions of the WorldSoul Saga, including, the Last Titan won’t require this much power since.

Unless…

You want to run the game at 4K which then yes it is a good good investment. 4k gaming, no matter the game, can be extremely taxxing on most commodity machines so it only makes sense to use the most powerful laptop available to make sure your laptop lasts you long enough.

Performance: The performance should be close to the desktop 4080 RTX according to notebookcheck. Below a video of the performance under different resolutions. Expect framerates to be about 20-30fps lower because the desktop CPU is MUCH faster than the laptop CPU.

 

Display: 4k 17 inch

Of course you need a 4k display to run the game at 4k resolution (full screen), most 4090 RTX laptops don’t have a 4k display so be sure to double check yours has IF you want to play the game at 4k.

For 1440p, this isn’t a bad choice either. It will hit far more framerates than the 4060RTX at 1440p which makes GPU temperatures and the game more stable.

PROS	CONS
128GB RAM Latest High Power GPU 4090RTX Great Sound System Large 4k Display 4TB PCie NVMe SSD Storage Massive number of ports Fastest CPU on Laptop Can play ALL games at the highest settings	Extremely heavy Very Low battery Extremely Expensive Overkill for WoW

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4. HP Victus 2050 RTX

Best Cheap Gaming Laptop For World of Warcraft

  AMD Ryzen 5 7535HS

  8GB RAM DDR5

   2050RTX 4GB vRAM

  512GB PCIe SSD (Free 2.5” Bay Slot)

  15” FHD IPS 144Hz

  5.06lbs

  3 hours (Gaming)

All laptops we went over so far, with the exception of the 3050Ti, are expensive for WoW. Most people are not after super high quality graphics or even high framerates. Most people just want to quest, PvP and explore the world especially with WoW Classic Hardcore taking over the gaming community as you can see on Twitch.

If you are on a budget and if you look long enough, you can find the 1650GTX and the 2050GTX below 600 dollars ! 

GPU: 2050RTX and 1650GTX

Both GPUs have the same performance as shown below:

Unfortunately, there aren’t 2050 RTX benchmarks for World of Warcraft. However, we can use the benchmarks I carried a few years ago with the 1650GTX to get a sense of how well a 2050RTX will perform with Dragonflight or Classic:

Now here’s the kicker…despite the 2050RTX being released 4 years after the 1650GTX. It will most likely get you slightly less framerates than the 1650GTX laptop above.

The reason? The 1650GTX though a bit old has a MUX Switch and if you read my post on MUX Switch it means you’ll get a 15-20% compared to a laptop of the same GPU performance without a MUX Switch. This of course comes with the downfall of having almost no battery (1h-2h). However, since gaming is pretty much a plugged in experience, having a low battery is not a deal breaker.

Display: 144Hz vs 60Hz

The problem with old cheap laptops like the Lenovo Ideapad 3 is that they only have a 60Hz display. You’re definitely going to hit higher framerates at 7 graphics quality so a 120Hz is a minimum if you want the game to look very very smooth. Unfortunately, only the modern laptops with the 2050RTX have a 120+ Hz display. However, if you don’t care about how smooth the game looks (it is not noticeable to the average gamer), then you can get much much cheaper laptops with a 1650GTX.

PROS	CONS
RTX mode  Cool Temperatures 144Hz Display Lots of ports Latest DDR5 RAM 512GB storage out of the Box Latest Ryzen 5 CPU Cheapest laptop with a 2050RTX GPU	Heavy Low Battery

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5. Lenovo V14 G4 R5

Best Laptop For WoW Under 500

  AMD Ryzen 5 7520U

  8GB RAM DDR3

  AMD Radeon 610M

  256 GB PCIe NVMe SSD

  15” IPS full HD 1080p

  4.4lb

  8 hours

This is probably the best bang for your buck laptop that doesn’t have a dedicated graphics. Despite the fact that it’s only around 400 dollars, it’s got the latest 7th gen Ryzen 5 CPU (which of course comes with a beefy integrated graphics). 

CPU: 7th Ryzen 5 7530U vs 13th Core i5 1355U

Although the Core i5 13th gen CPU performs slightly better than the 7th gen Ryzen 5 (at least on paper) with single core performance, the Ryzen 5 performs better with multi-core performance.

However, the Ryzen 5 is much much cheaper and you can find it on laptops below 500 dollars. Whereas you’ll only find 13th Core i5 CPUs on laptops above 700 dollars (for which you might as well get a dedicated GPU!).

 

GPU: RX Vega 7 vs 610M

The performance of the RX Vega is pretty close to the Intel Iris Xe graphics found on the Core i5 too. Whether you buy the Core i5 or Ryzen 5 CPU really doesn’t make much difference. You should only buy the laptop that costs less. There is nothing to worry about cooling systems because these CPUs & GPUs do not generate much heat. 

Whether you buy either CPU (with its corresponding graphics), the most important here is to up the RAM to 16GB preferably in dual-channel mode.

This will do two things. One, if done in dual-channel mode (which this laptop supports), the CPU will efficiently be fed more frames for processing increasing framerates by 10fps. The extra RAM will also add ‘vRAM’ to the GPU making it perform more closely to a dedicated graphics.

AMD Radeon 610M:

This laptop has a 610M instead of the Radeon Vega 7. Its significantly weaker than the RX Vega 7 or Intel UHD but you can again increase performance by upping RAM to 16GB RAM. Ideally, if you could find a laptop with either of the other two cards, you’d get about 10-15fps framerates.

If you’re playing WoW classic hardcore or just Classic, this works out well because if you set graphics to ‘classic mode’, in other words, how the game looked back in 2006, then yes this integrated GPU can obviously render those graphics.

Display: 1080p 

Now before you do all of that or even consider buying a laptop with a Core i5 or Ryzen 5, you HAVE to make sure said laptop has a FHD display. Otherwise, the laptop becomes useless. It is very easy to fall into the trap of buying a cheap under 500 dollar laptop with the latest Core i5  and even with 16GB RAM only to find out later it has a HD or HD+ display making the graphics quality be reduced dramatically.

PROS	CONS
Cool Temperatures Thin and Lightweight Cheap	Slightly Weak Integrated GPU DDR3 RAM

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How To Buy The Best Laptop For WoW

The following buying guide will be based on Benchmarks found on the laptopstudy youtube channel and several other youtube channels. 

It’s going to be very long so unless you want to know everythiing there is to know about how the game uses computer hardware ( perhaps if you’re building a desktop or want to extract every single framerate out of your rig), do the following to save yourself time: 

World of Warcraft Laptop Requirements

a) If you’re budget is anywhere from 350-500 bucks, just read the upcoming budget section since dedicated GPUs are NOT available in this price range.

b) If you’re budget is above 550 dollars or unlimited. Skip this “budget section” and jump right into the  GPU section that follows because it’s FAR more important than CPU (at least on laptops for reasons you’ll see later).

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A) World of Warcraft Laptop: 500 dollars and below

1. CPU: Recent

Because a budget below 500 dollars cannot get you a dedicated GPU (unless you go refurbished) the CPU will be the single most important hardware behind high framerates at medium or low settings.

Doing so sets you up with the latest “integrated GPU” too. It’s called “integrated” because it’s “integrated” into the CPU.

Thus a good modern CPU is paired with a MODERN integrated GPU.

2. GPU : Integrated

The best integrated GPUs are paired with the best and most recent CPUs. For example:

CPU	GPU
Core i3 1135G5	Intel UHD Xe G4
Core i5 1135G7	Intel Iris Xe 80 (1600Mhz)
Core i7 1195G7	Intel Iris Xe 96 (1700Mhz)
Ryzen 3 5300U	RX Vega 3
Ryzen 5 5500U	RX Vega 7
Ryzen 7 5700U	RX Vega 8

CPU	GPU
Core i3 1215U	Intel UHD Graphics 64EUs
Core i3 1315U	Intel UHD Graphics 64EUs
Core i5 1240P	Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 80EUs
Core i7 1255U	Intel Iris Xe Graphics G7 96EUs
Ryzen 3 7320U	AMD Radeon 610M
Ryzen 5 7520U	AMD Radeon 610M

The above are just the most common examples, you may find CPUs that are of an older generation or CPUs that are of a more recent generation (12th) thus the integrated GPUs will be faster or slower.

Core i3 & Ryzen 3: These are the bare bone minimum to play the game. Forget about Celeron, Pentiums and any other CPU that doesn’t have these words on them. Although they have weaker GPUs, if you opt for the modern (most recent ones : 10th or 11th gen) you will get a decent integrated GPU capable of running the game at low settings.

CPU	RAM (Dual-Channel)?	Expansion	FPS	Graphics	Activity*	Resolution	Benchmark
Ryzen 3 3200U	8GB (Yes)	ShadowLands	51	low(2)	questing	900p	CRSTNBENCH
Ryzen 3 5300U	8GB (No)	ShadowLands	63	Low(2)	questing	900p	CRSTNBENCH
Core i3 10100U	16GB(Yes)	ShadowLands	65	Med(3)	questing	720p	CRSTNBENCH
Core i3-1115G4	16GB(Yes)	ShadowLands	72	Low(1)	questing	720p	CRSTNBENCH
Core i3-1215U	16GB(?)	Dragonflight	66	Low(2)	questing	1080p	CRSTNBENCH
Core i3-1315U	16GB(?)	Draonflight	50	Med(5)	questing	1080p	Hubwood

Ryzen 5 & Core i5: Found on 400-500 laptops. The integrated GPUs are MUCH faster than what you find on Core i3 or Ryzen 3 CPUs. If you go for the most recent CPUs (11th & 5th gen) , you will get an integrated GPU that CAN match the performance of dedicated GPUs (with 2GB vRAM). Can easily pull off medium settings and sometimes even high settings! How? Buy upping your RAM to 16GB (the extra RAM will be used by the integrated GPU boosting performance massively).

Enough talking, you can see the benchmarks below for yourself!

Those are ALL the benchmarks I could get my hands on, there’s a LOT more CPUs available in 2023. The table below shows ADDITIONAL CPUs you might want to consider if they’re within your budget and not more expensive than what’s been shown on the first table.

CPU	Base	Turbo	Cores
i3 8130U	2.2	3.4	2
i3 8145U	2.1	3.9	2
i3 10050G1	1.2	3.4	2
i3 10100U	2.1	4.1	2
i3-1115G4	3	4.1	2
i5 8265U	1.6	3.9	4
i5 8250U	1.6	3.4	4
i7 8550U	1.8	4	4
i5 1115G4	2.4	4.2	4
i7 1165G7	2.8	4.7	4
i7 1260P	3.4	4.7	12

Q: What about the Core i7 and Ryzen 7 CPUs? What about the 13th generation CPUs in the table? Are they good for WoW?

They obviously ARE ! The problem with some of these non-gaming laptops with the latest 13th gen CPUs or 7th gen Ryzen CPUs is the fact that they’re expensive and they can cost about as much as a laptop with a entry level dedicated GPU like the 2050 which we’ll discuss in the next section. 

As far as WoW is concerned, you should only be paying less than 600 dollars for a laptop without a dedicated GPU regardless of how recent and fast the CPU is.  Once you go above 600 dollars, you can get a laptop with a dedicated GPU, which, even if outdated, will run WoW far better than the latest budget laptop with the latest CPU.

Q: What about older CPUs, CPUs not on the list?

I recommend you only buy the CPUs listed on the table simply because they have better integrated GPUs. Older generation CPUs have outdated and much slower integrated GPUs and although you will be able to play WoW at low settings w ~20-30 fps, temperatures on your laptop will rise massively which is not ideal when you want to play for long periods of time.

If you’re just going to join a dungeon for 30 min a day it may be OKAY if you’re DPS (rogue , warlock, mage, etc) but not if you’re a priest or a holy paladin that has to constantly heal everyone and make sure no one dies because those framerates are not going to make it easy to click on the the characters as they move around fighting a boss.

2. RAM for WoW

Integrated GPUs: 8GB vs 16GB

Every laptop above 450 bucks should have 8GB RAM and if your laptop doesn’t have 8GB RAM, you must do the upgrade. It is a MUST.

Although that’s enough to run WoW with no lag AND to handle all the stuff running in the background (Windows 10, Zoom, whatever), if you up the RAM to 16GB RAM you’re going to get a MASSIVE boost in performance ESPECIALLY if you have an integrated GPU.

So imo it is A MUST to upgrade, at some point, to 16GB if you want to play WoW for long periods of time on a low-end system.

Dual Channel RAM

You can squeeze a few more framerates if you do the upgrade in dual-channel mode. Basically having two ram sticks of the same size, type, speed,etc, (just buy them off the same vendor and brand) will speed up CPU-data reading speeds, more details on my dual-channel RAM post.

B) World of Warcraft Laptop: 600 dollars and Up

1. GPU:  Dedicated 

We’ll go over ALL the dedicated GPUs you’ll find on 2023 in groups and post benchmarks for each groups. Older GPUs are omitted and tips on choosing the best GPU (or what you should know before pulling the trigger on a laptop with said GPU) will be outlined in each group.

i. Dedicated GPUs: 500-600 dollars 

NVIDIA GeForce	CUDA Cores	vRAM	Clock Speed
MX250	384	2GB	1582
MX350	640	2GB	1354
MX450	896	2GB	1580
MX550	1024	2GB	1320
1050	640	2GB,3GB,4GB	1493

AMD Radeon	Cores	vRAM	Clock Speed	NVIDIA Eq.
RX 555X	768	2GB	855	MX150
RX 540	512	4GB	1219	MX150
RX 550	640	4GB	1287 – 1476	MX250
RX 560X	1024	4GB	1172 – 1275	1050GTX

MX250, Radeon 610 & Pro RX 555X: I strongly advice against these. They are dedicated GPUs but are kind of weak yet EXPENSIVE. You can get same or better performance out of laptops with integrated GPUS at a cheaper price(see first section).

MX350 & MX350: These are significantly faster than ANY integrated GPU however you should pay no more than 600 dollars for laptops with either of these. Below are the benchmarks of some of these GPUs. You can use the MX450  to get a sense of the  MX350 performance (it’ll be slightly lower).

MX550 & 1050GTX: Both are on paper equally fast (nearly equal) so even if you can’t find benchmarks on the MX550 you can expect the same or better performance from the MX550 (assuming same vRAM) simply because its usually paired with a much more recent CPU (12th or 13th gen Intel or 7th gen Ryzen ).

• 1050GTX will perform slightly slower than the MX450 because it lacks a modern and fast CPU. Thus the perforamance at least for this game should be closed to the MX350 which is usually 500 dollars and thats as much as you should pay
• Although the MX450 and the 1050GTX and even the MX250 can run on Ultra settings, temperatures are too high and you should buy these for Ultra setings but rather high (at the most).
• The MX250 ad MX150 should be used to play the game at Medium Settings (ocassionally high).

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ii. Dedicated GPUs: 600-700 dollar

NVIDIA	Cores	vRAM	Speed
1050Ti	768	4GB	1620
1650	1024	4GB	1560
2050RTX	2048	4GB	1470

• Both the 1050Ti & 1650GTX are more suitable for Ultra settings for long periods of time.
• The choise of the CPU for these kind of GPUs does not seem to matter at least for Ultra Settings
• You can choose either the 1050Ti or the 1650GTX, both perform equally well (more or less).
• The 2050 RTX is clearly above the 1650GTX. There are no WoW Benchmarks with the 2050RTX  released yet but expect performance to be close to the 2060RTX shown next.

iii. Dedicated GPUS: 700-800 Dollars

NVIDIA	CUDA Cores	vRAM	Clock Speed(MHz)
1660 Ti	1536	6GB	1590
3050Ti	2560	4GB	1485
2060	1920	6GB	1680

 

AMD	Shaders	vRAM	Clock Speed(Mhz)	NVIDIA Eq.
RX 580	1536	6GB	1077	~1060GTX
RX5500M	1408	8GB	1327 – 1645	~1660Ti

• All GPUs above perform extremely well for World Of Warcraft on Ultra Settings while keeping tempereatures low. They are ideal to play the game for long periods of time at the highest settings.
• CPU choice does not seem to matter much here either as you can se in the 3050Ti benchmarks thus you can save a lot of money by choosing laptops with cheaper CPUs.
• According to these benchmarks we can conclude that the game is highly dependent on vRAM more than “clock speed” or shaders. This can be seen by looking at the 2060RTX outperforming the 3050Ti (6GB vRAM vs 4GB vRAM) despite having a slower CPU.
• The 3050Ti is the best choice out of this group because it is cheaper and offers similar performance to all the other CPUs.

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MUX Switch & GPU TDP (Wattage)

 Before you even THINK of investing 900 dollars and up, YOU HAVE TO KNOW what these two terms mean: MUX Switch & Wattage. It is CRUCIAL if you want to get ripped off.

These GPU specs make a MASSIVE difference in performance so please take a look at my two posts: What is a MUX Switch?  & What is GPU TDP? BEFORE you check out the following benchmarks unless you already know about the topic.

You can see the difference in wattage here.

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iv. Dedicated GPUs: 900-1300 dollars

AMD Radeon	Shaders	vRAM	Speed	Equivalent
RX 6700S	1975	10GB	1890	~3060

NVIDIA	Cores	vRAM	Speed	Lowest TGP	Highest TGP
4050	2560	6GB	2370	—	115W
3060	3584	8GB	1780	85W	130W

1080P: Ultra Settings

• First CPU does not matter much here. At least not as much as GPU Wattage & MUX Switch.
• Most of the laptops benchmarked above are Lenovo Legion Pros. They usually ship with high wattage AND A MUX Switch.

v. Dedicated GPUs: 1300-2000 dollars

AMD	Shaders	vRAM	Speed	Equivalent
AMD Radeon RX 6800S	2048	12GB	1975	+3070

NVIDIA	Cores	vRAM	Speed
3070	5120	8GB	1620
4060	3072	8GB	2730
3080	8704	10GB	1710
3070Ti	5888	8GB	1485
3080Ti	7424	16GB	1590

1080P

1440P

4k resolution

• All of these are only useful for 1440p or 4k gaming.
• Overkill for 1080p Ultra Settings.
• If you are not carefull with wattages, you may get lower performance than the weaker 3060RTX at 1080p.
• These will also outperform any precedding GPU on 1440p/4k resolution regardless of wattage howeverif you choose a low wattage GPU, it will do so only by a small margin thus it is ALWAYS important to invest on a high wattage GPU

2. CPU : High Clock Speed

Once you’ve got two laptops with GPUs that have the exact same performance because both run at the same wattage and have a MUX Switch, YOU CAN BE PICKY about CPUs. Now. the most important question is…

Which is more important? Clock Speed or #Cores? 

To make it short and sweet, you have to look after clock speed. Yes, WoW like every other modern AAA game is multi-core (it can use more than one core) but NOT to the point of being more important than clock speed.

There’s been hundreds of benchmarks confirming this, the most convincing and complete multi-core WoW benchmark is the one in this link.

Modern CPUs: Clock Speed performance

CPU	Base	Turbo	Cores
Ryzen 7 7745HX	3.6	5.1	8
Ryzen 7 7840HS	3.8	5.1	8
Ryzen 9 6980HX	3.3	5	8
Ryzen 9 6900HS	3.3	4.9	8
Ryzen 7 6800H	3.2	4.7	8
Ryzen 9 5900HX	3.3	4.6	8
Ryzen 5 7535HS	3.3	4.5	6/12
Ryzen 9 4900HS	2.2	4.4	8
Ryzen 5 6600H	3.3	4.5	6
Ryzen 7 5800H	3.3	4.4	8
Ryzen 7 4800H	2.9	4.2	8
Ryzen 5 5600H	3.3	4.2	6
Ryzen 7 3750H	2.3	4.0	4
Ryzen 5 4600H	3.0	4.0	6
Ryzen 5 3550H	2.1	3.7	4

The table above ranks CPUs according to their single-core performance

It’s pretty easy to tell which one has “more clock speed” if we are talking about the same brand AND the same generation.

For example, if you have to choose between a Core i7 12800H & Core i7 12700H, then Core i7 12800 is faster.

Now..gaming is all about SINGLE core performance (although multiple cores help, gaming is mostly single core).

Single core performance comparison between two CPUs of different generation is tricky and even more tricky if they are from different brands. Your best bet is to use benchmarks by notebookcheck or those found on youtube. You don’t need to do this for the CPUs in the table , i’ve already done all that work for you.

AMD vs Intel 

You want to first check on youtube if there are any direct comparisons like the one below:

If there isn’t any check thirdparty benchmarks such as those found in notebookcheck and looking after single core clock speed performance.

3. Heat Control

Bad heat control designs is the main reason why most gaming laptops will last a bit more than year, yes you heard ONE year if you play everyday 8 hours a day.

This is even worse if you play at high/ultra settings or even 1440p/4k resolutions. These much graphics put a LOT of stress on a system. Ideally here you’d want a 3070Ti at least (for 1440p) and making sure it’s on a 17” laptop, wattage doesn’t matter much if you can get that GPU (3070RTX will not be very useful if running at low wattages).

8 hours? Who the hell plays 8 hours?
Well, you’re probably new to WoW if you have to ask that. But it’s very common for laptops to die faster in the WoW community I’ll tell you that much!

Here’s a few more tips:

• Get one from gaming brands like MSI and ASUS. These two have the best cooling systems.
• Other brands are cool too but you’ve got read reviews like it’s the last laptop you’ll ever buy.
• If you read a review complaining about heat RUN.
• Get a cooling and pad and software to control temperatures. If temperatures are above 80, stop playing the game , let it rest or figure out how. to cool it down.
• Budget laptops will overheat massively if you go to high settings and even 1650GTX (low -midrange) laptops will heat too at ultra settings if you play for several hours. Just be sure to switch back to low settings when possible.
• Do not overclock anything.
• Lower down graphic settings after two hours if you’re playing at 1440p.

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4. Storage For WoW

All laptops have SSDs now only old laptops still have an HDD. You must do the upgrade if that’s the case and just use the HDD as a repository. Otherwise launching the game and booting up will take ages.

Size

256GB:  WoW takes 100GB (Shadowlands) . Expect Dragonblight to take 120GB (at least) and if you’re playing classic you need an additional 70GB, that’s almost 190GB. Add Windows 10 or Windows 11 and you’ll make it to 220GB. Since most laptops have at least 256GB you should be alright.

512GB: Super useful to have a few other AAA titles installed. 

128GB: If you’ve got a budget under 400 dollars, this is as much as you’re going to get (assuming you also get a late generation CPU with the latest integrated GPU) just be aware you’ll need to the upgrade (40 bucks)..

Comments?

If you have any comments, suggestions, questions or recommendations please let us know in the comments below or you can send us an email. Laptopstudy takes your input very seriously because to be honest we use it to improve future versions of this post. 

 

Author Profile

Miguel Salas

I am physicist and electrical engineer. My knowledge in computer software and hardware stems for my years spent doing research in optics and photonics devices and running simulations through various programming languages. My goal was to work for the quantum computing research team at IBM but Im now working with Astrophysical Simulations through Python. Most of the science related posts are written by me, the rest have different authors but I edited the final versions to fit the site's format.

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