Building or Buy a PC

[stevez0r1]

Well this past weekend I pick up a 14 day trial of World of Warcraft. I'm playing it on the first generation of Apple's Mac Mini. I know I'm going to want to play the newer verision soon, but I know the mini won't handle it. So I'm lookin upgrade, but having a hard time deciding on buying or building. Can any give me recommendations on a pc I could buy? I know this is asking a lot but give me specs on building a pc for playing games like Wow?

 

[kilcan]

Do you have a budget in mind?

 

[stevez0r1]

Originally posted by: kilcan
Do you have a budget in mind?

I would say about a grand.

 

[oynaz]

WoW is very modest in hardware demands, and a grand will definitely buy you a PC which will enable you to run it smoothly. Just make sure you get a decent GFX card.

 

[kilcan]

Intel Duo Core2 e6600 - $315
Biostar TForce965PT Motherboard - $105
2GB DDR2 667 RAM - $136
eVGA GeForce 8800GTS - $280

Some basics for you.. you would have to choose a harddrive, cdrom, etc. This is of course assuming you don't mind going Intel. The video card is actually a stretch for playing wow (you could get away with a 7600GT for $89 and play just fine) but it will be DirectX 10 compatible and if you were looking at getting Windows Vista, it would be a good investment.

 

[stevf]

at work and not enuf time to link everything from newegg, but just put together a system and upgraded a friend so prices are fairly fresh in my mind from newegg

Core2duo E4300 - about 170
biostar tforce 965 mobo - 105
2gb ddr2800 ram - 170-200
160gb hd - 110
xp pro oem - 150
x1950pro - 256mb - 150 - this card will play wow great at this price point
about 900 shipped

 

[stevf]

kilcan - about what I ordered over the weekend except I went with 640 mb version of video card and DDR2-800 ram and I think in his price range my suggested card is better

 

[kilcan]

yep, it would be. althought my order today includes a 160gb sata 3.0 HDD and its running me $53 So he will save a bit there. Right now with technology the way it is, I don't think he will get too many differences in what people reccomend. e4300, e6400, or e6600 processors are the "in" things right now, 2GB RAM is standard (if overclocking go with the DDR2 800), and your gaming cards will start out about the 7600GT and move up from there, with the 7600 running games like EQ and WoW pretty sufficiently.

 

[stevf]

my price would be a 320gb drive now that i think about it

 

[stevez0r1]

Any recommendations on buying a already built PC?

 

[stevf]

nothing off the top of my head as I did compare prices some but as long as it has 2gb (1 would be ok, but get 2) and at least a nvidia 7600 or ati 1650 class video card that should be ok

 

[Skotty]

Are you looking to buy a PC or a Mac?

A GeForce FX 6200 would probably run WoW just fine so long as you don't demand an extremely high resolution. WoW is the least graphically demanding game I've played in the last few years. Though I'd agree with getting a 7600 or ati 1650, as it's excellent bang for the buck. I've tried WoW on an iMac that I think had an ATI X600 and it was a little choppy, but was running at 1680x1050.

Definitely want at least 1GB of RAM. Might not see too much difference going from 1GB to 2GB, but there is a TON of hard drive crunching that goes on while in cities or crowded areas in WoW if you only have 512MB, and it really slows things down.

 

[yh125d]

Get at least a 7600gt. Im playing at 1024x768 at maxed settings and with my 7600gt I avg ~35fps in cities, ~50 outdoors, and ~65 in an instance, and ~45 in a 40 man raid

 

[Zolty]

Originally posted by: yh125td
Get at least a 7600gt. Im playing at 1024x768 at maxed settings and with my 7600gt I avg ~35fps in cities, ~50 outdoors, and ~65 in an instance, and ~45 in a 40 man raid

I have a 7600gs with 1366 x 768 with maxed out settings. I didn't look at the frame rates but I don't notice any choppiness.

You could do what sparkyclarky did and go from the mini to a mac book pro, it runs wow just great.

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: Zolty
You could do what sparkyclarky did and go from the mini to a mac book pro, it runs wow just great.

Sadly, the cheapest macbook pro is $2000 - twice what he wants to spend. :-/

 

[crimson117]

Originally posted by: stevf
at work and not enuf time to link everything from newegg, but just put together a system and upgraded a friend so prices are fairly fresh in my mind from newegg

Core2duo E4300 - about 170
biostar tforce 965 mobo - 105
2gb ddr2800 ram - 170-200
160gb hd - 110
xp pro oem - 150
x1950pro - 256mb - 150 - this card will play wow great at this price point
about 900 shipped

I'd get xp media center instead for about $115 shipped.

as for case and psu:
corsair HX520 - $99 at buy.com
case: just pick one you like (not too small, needs to fit the large-ish x1950pro)