Best computer to play WoW for around $1500

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wrugen

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Jan 20, 2015
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The title is self explanatory. Need help deciding on which parts are the best for a gaming pc that will mostly be used for World of Warcraft. Want to play the new expansion on Ultra and be able to play future expansions on Ultra at 1080p. $1500 pc build that doesn't include the monitor, mouse, keyboard, and windows. Any help / suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Eximo
Overkill, you could spend half that and max out WoW.

But if you insist:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($319.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($86.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($125.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($74.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($134.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($78.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card:...
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Eximo

Eximo

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Overkill, you could spend half that and max out WoW.

But if you insist:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($319.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($86.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($125.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($74.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($134.00 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($78.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card ($338.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($67.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($76.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($90.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1395.91
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-01-20 14:22 EST-0500

Case doesn't support a DVD drive, so pick a different one if you wish.

Without the OS, you could go up to a GTX980, but, not much point at 1080p.

To spend your budget you would need to consider multi-GPU setup or a switch to Haswell E and DDR4.
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Mar 25, 2010
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I was playing WOW on Ultra at 60-80 FPS on a system that is likely worth $300 now. A first gen i7 CPU, GTX 460 video card, 6 gig of RAM.

You can build a very nice PC for $1,000 that will play any game, although maybe not any game at the top settings, but WOW you can max out on a $1,000 PC and have some speed left over.

I'd save the $500 and get a more mid range system with an Intel i5 and maybe a Radeon R9 280 card.

I have to say the best thing I did for games was to get a better monitor, went from an older TN screen to a pro level IPS screen. Soon as I turned on the computer it felt like I had a whole new system with how much better things looked in a game. Maybe spend that few 100 on a monitor instead of speed you won't use.
 
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wrugen

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Thanks for the suggestion, looks good to me. I know WoW isn't that demanding, but assuming they keep making new expansions, I want to be 100% sure I can max it out easily.
 
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Eximo

Eximo

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Unless they decide to redo the game engine and all of the content (probably looking at hundreds of millions to do that) they are pretty limited by their platform.

Over the years they have increased the texture size and environment sizes, and the polygon count to adjust to the lowest common denominator. But it just can't grow much beyond the engine's DX9 limitations.

And being an MMO, the limiting factor is CPU performance. More specifically single threaded performance.

I basically already have the proposed system and it runs flawlessly until there are several dozen people on the screen attacking something. Nothing to do about that, the CPU is trying to handle all the incoming information from each player and then direct your GPU to render it. All MMOs have this flaw.
 
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wrugen

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Jan 20, 2015
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Thanks for the suggestion. What monitors could you recommend that are nice and around $400?
 
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wrugen

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Interesting. With this problem what do you think the target FPS is on a 1080P monitor for the build you just created for me?
 
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Eximo

Eximo

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Town: 60FPS (unless there are LOTS of people, then it hovers around 50)
5-man dungeon : 60FPS
10-15 man raid : 60FPS (With occasional dips depending on the # of enemies)
25 man raid: 50-60 FPS (With occasional dips depending on the # of enemies)
Engaging a world boss: 20-40FPS (Lots of players and all their spell radius and effects, a lot of data to process)

And that is since I got this GTX980 when it came out.
 
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