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Need Advise on WoW based computer

M

Mesquite

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 28, 2005
Messages
118
Hello all, I have a friend that wants to start playing wow and needs a computer that will run it well. Anyone have any thoughts on what he could get for a barebones on this? He is a cheap bastard, doesnt want to use PC for anything but WoW, so doesnt want to pay more than what is absolutely needed.

Should he just get a Dell or HP or something like that? Will it work? I am not a fan of cheap "out of the box" PCs, but like I said he is a fan of cheap.

Thanks for any help.
 
WoW minimum specs are intentionally very low. It will play acceptably on virtually any PC. There will be some hiccups in big populated cities on machines with basic video cards, or when raiding, but other than that it should be fine.

A Dell or HP would work good. If he wants the best performance for the least money, buy a dual core PC (Intel Core2Duo) with at least a gig of RAM, and put in a better video card (nVidia 8600 or 8800).
 
WoW is very CPU and RAM dependent. Any modern video card will play it so I would focus on those two aspects of the system you chose
 
Unless you want to take the time to build him a custom PC, dell is probably your best bet. You can get a core2 duo machine with 2 gigs ram, pci-express slot with an OK video card, he could always upgrade later. not to mention with dell he'll get a warranty, that might give him peace of mind if ever something happens.
 
Would WoW run well on most modern laptops with on-board video like the Intel X3100? Assuming that one has a Turion x2 or Core2Duo with at least 1GB RAM?
 
Volume said:
Would WoW run well on most modern laptops with on-board video like the Intel X3100? Assuming that one has a Turion x2 or Core2Duo with at least 1GB RAM?
Click to expand...

To a point.
Onboard video is onboard video. Any desktop with a graphics card thats been made in the past 8 years will beat it by a large margin (even lower end cards).


Honestly, go for a used s939 with pci-express. Toss in a 7600gt or 6600gt and any AMD dual core processor, and you are set.
 
lloose said:
To a point.
Onboard video is onboard video. Any desktop with a graphics card thats been made in the past 8 years will beat it by a large margin (even lower end cards).


Honestly, go for a used s939 with pci-express. Toss in a 7600gt or 6600gt and any AMD dual core processor, and you are set.
Click to expand...

WELL... I agree that onboard video is going to be crappy compared to just about anything, but... last 8 years? The best card money could buy in 2000 was the GeForce 2. The X3100 WILL beat a GeForce 2 in terms of performance.
 
i have just what you need an eVGA 7600GTKO 40$ shipped pm if your interested
 
I used to play WoW on a P3-800 and Geforce 3 ti200. Those were the days...

You could just go with the cheapest off-the-shelf box that will fit a full-sized graphics card, then add a Geforce 8600 or 9600.
 
If you're really going for budget performance for WoW, you can cut down a lot.

Forget dual core. I don't know why everyone is suggesting it. WoW wasn't even released when dual cores were mainstream, and it actually had problems with dual core machines at one point (not that it just couldn't use the second core, but performance actually suffered from having two cores, thankfully that's fixed... I think).

Do not even consider a laptop. Yes, it will run great on many laptops, but you could also get a PC with equivalent specs for significantly cheaper.

The worst video card I've ever run WoW on is a 256MB 6800GT, and it ran nearly as well without AA as with my current 8800GTS with AA; WoW just doesn't push much. Only the most rudimentary shader effects, really low poly count models, and things that really don't pass as actual shadows are all that's happening. Your mileage may vary if you use obscenely large monitors, but I doubt that since your friend is a cheap bastard (for reference I played with a 1280 x 1024 monitor on both those cards, although now I use 1680 x 1050).

The worst CPU I've run WoW on was an old Athlon 3200+, which is actually not sufficient. For the vast majority of play it ran very, very well, however there are a few places where the CPU was definitely the bottleneck. If your friend goes really hardcore WoW (as in high end raiding) I really suggest something a little more powerful, but not much more. An old 4000+ would probably be sufficient. But your friend won't even get to see those areas of the game until well after he hits the level cap.

I would suggest 2GB of RAM. If you're going cheap, you're going with a DDR1 system, and DDR1 is twice the price of DDR2 (go figure), so while I'd like to say the more, the merrier, it would probably be too costly for your friend to go beyond that. Less than that is probably not so hot simply because Windows + any game + browsers + vent + addons + other programs = lots of RAM usage.

Get a good hard drive. Really any current-gen hard drive is going to be fine though. You don't need to nitpick on that. How you partition and install and maintain that hard drive will be more indicative of performance gain than the actual model/brand.

Overall a system like that would probably run like... <$300 barebones if you get a really budget case and already have peripherals like monitor/mouse/keyboard. The most expensive part will be the RAM unfortunately (probably around ~75-ish for 2GB), or possibly the hard drive if you get one of the new big ones (which are actually significantly faster), but I'm guessing a 320GB one will be just fine. Each of the other components could be had for <$60 a piece.

If you're not willing to put it together yourself and be his tech support buddy, you'll probably have a hard time finding an OEM package like that. There's just no one that makes stuff that old anymore. Dells do get pretty cheap but their cheap packages also have completely inadequate video card solutions.

I would highly suggest getting a better computer than that though, because you know once your friend starts playing WoW with that computer, he's going to start wanting to do/play other things. Ask what the max price is, and see if you can push that price a little higher. Don't mention the <$300 price.
 
Building a computer around only 1 game is probably a bad idea.

You could build quite an old PC to run WOW and not really spend a lot, but what happens if they want to play more games, theres new MMO's on the horizon which MUCH heavier min spec requirements. If you're going to spend money on something you might as well spend a bit extra and make sure you get something decent thats going to last, otherwise they might spend the same amount of money again 6 months down the line to upgrade everything.

Just my opinion...I'd suggest asking them how much they're willing to spend and find a decent build from dell or somewhere like that. Ultimately its best to build your own but thats not for everyone.
 
IMO

a 2.4 P4 cpu
1 gig of ram
nvidia 6600+ vid card

dirt cheap

This setup or equiv. will run wow+bc just fine, anything less and you get tons of slowdowns in major cities and boss fights. The game very simple but raiding and tons of chars in a city can stress a comp out a bit.
 
I would recommend basing it around a Dragon North SPARROW config. (The current God of WoW systems is the SPARROW2 or SPARROW2x.) The key to WoW is a very fast dual core, not a quad core - it scales poorly - and very fast disk.

Intel E6750 or E6850
Abit IP35/IP35-Pro (DO NOT USE IP35-E.)
GeForce 8800GTS or better
4GB Memory (recommended; G.Skill 2x2GB DDR2-800 or OCZ Platinum Rev2 2x1GB (qty 2)
2x 250GB Seagate 7200.10 or 7200.11, 7200.11 preferred in RAID1
DVD to suit.

Rough estimate places this config at around $1200ish. Average FPS in Shatt is 58, due to driver issues and sound engine problems. Adding an Auzen Mystique or XPlosion will take it to 60FPS. Normal play FPS is pretty much never below 60.
 
Dende said:
WoW is very CPU and RAM dependent. Any modern video card will play it so I would focus on those two aspects of the system you chose
Click to expand...

that's not true anymore. You can play with a crap onboard card from like 1-60 but after that there are tons of places in BC where your FPS will just die. You can also make WoW a very good looking game when u max out the graphics with screen glow. but if you don't care much about that, I would buy one of dell's refurb xps 420 with 8800GT
 
big question what monitor and resolution are you planning on.
That will make a difference in what you choose.

Big Worm is good on the mins

worst area in the game is drenai starting area.. MAN that place sucks
8400 at 4.2G and it still lags sometimes.

yep wow only...tomorrow...why won't it run this new game?
 
the back up system in my sig runs wow at pretty much full settings at 1680x1050

only slow downs are in raids and major cities... and that when it drops from like 40-50fps to 20's

its an A64 3500 w/ 2gb of ram and an AGP x850pro

hell my notebook run its at 1280x1024 medium/low settings and i still get 20's in shat

FPS in this game is different then a First person shoots remember.... 20fps in wow is acceptable where as 20fps in a first person shooter would be horrible
 
AreEss said:
I would recommend basing it around a Dragon North SPARROW config. (The current God of WoW systems is the SPARROW2 or SPARROW2x.) The key to WoW is a very fast dual core, not a quad core - it scales poorly - and very fast disk.

Intel E6750 or E6850
Abit IP35/IP35-Pro (DO NOT USE IP35-E.)
GeForce 8800GTS or better
4GB Memory (recommended; G.Skill 2x2GB DDR2-800 or OCZ Platinum Rev2 2x1GB (qty 2)
2x 250GB Seagate 7200.10 or 7200.11, 7200.11 preferred in RAID1
DVD to suit.

Rough estimate places this config at around $1200ish. Average FPS in Shatt is 58, due to driver issues and sound engine problems. Adding an Auzen Mystique or XPlosion will take it to 60FPS. Normal play FPS is pretty much never below 60.
Click to expand...

Thats way overkill.

I played WoW fine on my A64 3200+ X700Pro + 1GB ram.
 
Spetsdod said:
WoW minimum specs are intentionally very low. It will play acceptably on virtually any PC. There will be some hiccups in big populated cities on machines with basic video cards, or when raiding, but other than that it should be fine.
Click to expand...

The requirements are low because the game is almost 4 years old. True, the requirements weren't terribly high for the time, but they weren't miniscule either.
 
Played just fine at 1280x1024 on this:

A64 3700+
512Mb RAM
7600GT

Stuttered a lot in the cities until I doubled the ram to a gig and most of the details on med-high it gets a good 40fps average.

New parts wise:

Processor: E2180 - about $70
Motherboard: any lower priced P35 chipset (Gigabyte, DFI, Abit, etc...)
Graphics: 9600GT or a Radeon 3870 (maybe a 3850)
Ram: 2 gig DDR2
Case, HDD, DVD, etc...

Shouldn't cost more than $400 or so without a monitor.
 
I play just fine on this...

4400X2
7950GX2
2gig of ram
1680x1050 res with AA
 
I'm doing something like this for a friend of mine. Best deal I've found so far was from Dell.

1.83 Ghz C2d, 2GB RAM, 250 GB HD, 20" LCD Widescreen monitor (Vostro 200) = 399+tax
8600GT = $100 (this is the best graphics card the PS will support, can prob find for less)

Total cost with the monitor and tax is around 550. It should run Wow at 50+ fps. Plus I don't have to bust my ass building it.
 
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