Suggest cheap computer to run World of Warcraft plz

[termac50]

I need another computer for a LAN party, strictly to play World of Warcraft, nothing else. I just need it to be playable, not looking for 100fps or anything like that. Above 30fps, any resolution, works for me. I'd like to get it as inexpensive as I can, while avoiding horrendous lag and loading times. I'm sure there are some WoW players here, any suggestions? Thx.

 

[Paperlantern]

I dont play WoW but i would suggest a AMD Athlon in the 2300+ range, $65, a mini tower Socket A mainboard, looking at about $55, Kingston 512MB PC2100 about $40, Decent 40GB HDD (western Digital, Seagate) $50 tops, Mini Tower Case, $40, DVD/CDRW drive $40(which is even overkill here you could feasibly jsut get a regular cd rom, or a CDRW only for $20 less. Total comes to $260 - $280 depending on components you find/deals you get. Thats not bad for a complete system, that is no where near outdated. Add your choice of vid card for like $50 - $150 depending on how much performance you really want, a Radeon 9250 256 will probably work absolutley fine and give you 30 - 60ish frames per second on that configuration. I dont know how cheap your looking to go, but this is a pretty happy medium, good performance, should load relatively quick and play pretty nice. Also, i dont usually suggest this but you might get lucky on a whole system, maybe dell or HP has some super hot deals going on, could check there too, but because its intended for gaming, steer clear of the celeron/duron range of processors, youll get frustrated.

 

[AzNPinkTuv]

Originally posted by: Paperlantern
I dont play WoW but i would suggest a AMD Athlon in the 2300+ range, $65, a mini tower Socket A mainboard, looking at about $55, Kingston 512MB PC2100 about $40, Decent 40GB HDD (western Digital, Seagate) $50 tops, Mini Tower Case, $40, DVD/CDRW drive $40(which is even overkill here you could feasibly jsut get a regular cd rom, or a CDRW only for $20 less. Total comes to $260 - $280 depending on components you find/deals you get. Thats not bad for a complete system, that is no where near outdated. Add your choice of vid card for like $50 - $150 depending on how much performance you really want, a Radeon 9250 256 will probably work absolutley fine and give you 30 - 60ish frames per second on that configuration. I dont know how cheap your looking to go, but this is a pretty happy medium, good performance, should load relatively quick and play pretty nice. Also, i dont usually suggest this but you might get lucky on a whole system, maybe dell or HP has some super hot deals going on, could check there too, but because its intended for gaming, steer clear of the celeron/duron range of processors, youll get frustrated.

at 12x10 that will give you 10 fps constnat with all settings on...

 

[Paperlantern]

not sure what 12x10 means, it doesnt appear to be a resolution, but like i said i dont play WoW, plus he said he didnt care what res he used, or what settings, id imagine if you turned stuff down, hed be able to get the 30 hes looking for. Heck he could even go to a Radeon 9600 for not much more.

 

[sniperruff]

buy one of those dell P4's with a 19-inch LCD for like $400.

 

[Effect]

I'm guessing he means 1280x1024, which yea, at that resolution would give you unbearable framerates. A 9600 would be a good bet, but personally, i'd look for a used 6600 (gt if price allows), but it just depends how much you want to give up, might not be worth the cost.

You could go with a cheap socket 754 sempron cpu w/ mobo, 512-1024mb value ram (i hear WoW likes ram), whatever hdd suits (if it's just for WoW, you prolly wont need much space, you could prolly pull a hdd from elsewhere, or grab of a friend for cheap, and for cd/dvd rom, if it's a LAN pc, you mightn't need one, you could possibly get files over network instead, but again, up to you. That might get a little too expensive, but if you can find a combo/deal on any of those, that'd be fine. Otherwise, Paperlantern's build would work fine for the price.

 

[Madwand1]

AT has an excellent article on WoW benchmarking. Unlike some other games, WoW likes a fast CPU as well as a fast video card, and this can really matter in large raids. Rule out Athlon XP's. An Athlon 64 3200+ should be fine. A card in the 6600 GT class should be fine. Both of these are in the budget performance category. For example, there can be a big drop from 6600 GT to 6600 in some benchmarks, without a big real dollar difference if you shop well.

 

[pkrush]

Get yourself a cheap Socket 754 Sempron (2600+ probably), any cheap motherboard with the Geforce 6100 chipset (integrated video that's maybe as good as a Radeon 9600), 512 megs of pc3200, some cheap case, and any hard drive you might have laying around. Should be less than $250 if you already have a hard drive/optical, and it has a PCI Express slot for future video card upgrades, which may not matter much now, but it'll let you get more use of the system later on. Check out the For Sale forum for some good deals on older parts too.

 

[Howard]

Overclock the $90 Sempron + ECS mobo combo in the Hot Deals forum, for CPU/mobo.

 

[WaTaGuMp]

WoW can be pretty brutal on comps in large raids and hanging around IF when alot of people are there. I have an X850 XT PE AGP and still drop below 20 at certain times running 1680 rez and maxxed settings.