Building a System For WOW

lakuldum

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Jun 24, 2009
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Hi i play WOW on my 15inch laptop, my eyes start soaring after a few hours of raiding :(

I am planing to buy a desktop, after doing some research i have decided to go with the following setup.
Pretty much all i do with the system is play WOW and may be watch some movies.

Monitor:
Dell S2309W Full HD Widescreen flat panel
Monitor
$150 (already bought this one).

Video:
SAPPHIRE 100269SR Radeon
HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
Video
$210 ($200 after rebate)

Video
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler - Retail
Video
$35

CPU & Mobo Combo
X3 720 + ASUS M4A78T-E AM3
CPU & Mobo Combo

HDD
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM
HDD
70 X 2 = $140

Case
COOLER MASTER RC-690-KKN1-GP Black SECC/ ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail
Case
$80

PSU
CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail
PSU
$120


RAM:
G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-8500CL5D-4GBPK - Retail
RAM
$55

i need some help from experts, do you think this system is enough to handle WOW if not in the extreme settings.
i am not really a familiar with build system this is my first attempt. what else do i need for the system to be operational
wireless card, sound card etc. need some good suggestions for what buy.

Lakshman
Server -Uldum
 

Kraynor

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Aug 10, 2007
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What daship said. Looks good overall, no questionable manufacturers creeping in there.

Make sure you grab yourself some high-quality thermal paste, since you're getting an S1283 I'm guessing you care about cooling... it'd be horrible if you ruined that by using the terrible stock goop ;)

Also - just a note for after it's built, WoW will still have slowdowns. It slows down on my rig (see my signature), it's just because of how the game is made. It's not exactly that well optimised, especially with the graphics updates that Wrath brought in, they were introduced on an already outdated graphics engine.

Still, your 25-man raids will look pretty ^_^
 

skora

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Nov 2, 2008
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I'd have to say for WoW, this is extreme overkill. The vid card and PSU especially. Kraynor is correct with the engine being older, I'd say that a 3870 could max the graphics configured correctly. I wouldn't go buying a 3870, but the point of it. A $100 vid card like a 4850 or 250GTS would be more than enough.

This might put some perspective on it. Since you're not running 2600x1600, anything 9800gt up would be great.
http://www.gamespot.com/features/6202200/p-5.html

ALSO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That mobo needs DDR3 Ram!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The ddr2 you have linked won't work.

As for sound card, you won't need one. The onboard sound uses just a tiny bit of processor power, but the X3 won't even bat an eye at it. The wireless card is up to you and how you have your home network set up. If you are placing the desktop near your router, then just use a cable to connect it to the router. That's more reliable anyway.

I use this HSF and its great. Comes with Tuniq TX-2 paste so no need to buy anything else. Keeps my E5200 in the 50s under load OC'd to 3.6 Ghz.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835207004

Hope this helps

Skora
 

dtq

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Dec 21, 2006
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If you are building for mmorpg speed, Id suggest swapping the hard drives for a ssd raid setup or at least running your mmorpgs on a single SSD drive - expensive but very worthwhile in mmorpgs. One of the things that causes slow downs in mmorpgs is seek time on mechanical hard drives. With traditional single player games devs can optimize loading of textures to suit the current level - They KNOW what textures to expect in what area, but in an mmorpg you can have any player texture at any location meaning its next to impossible to prefetch player textures. Seek time may not sound like much of a factor, but you just have to consider how many textures each player represents maybe 14 or more textures so thats 14x your seek time at least for each individual player, if you have 10 players in an area thats at least 140x your seek time, its easy to see how 20-30 players can cause a few seconds of slow down by themselves! Its not the size of the textures its the seek time to each and every texture This is one of the reasons defrags can help on mmorpgs. However a raid 0 SSD setup will have more impact on these sort of population situations than any amount of GPU power.

My wife and I have "his and hers rigs", identical in every way except I run my mmorpgs on a single SSD drive, she runs hers off a raid 0 with traditional drives when running the same settings, in the same locations at the same time her system slows down FAR more than mine in busy population areas, if you pay attention you can see the hard disk light going mad during these busy populated areas when getting slow downs.