Looking to build budget WoW computer

Need to know a few things first.

Does this budget include items such as Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor, OS? Knowing if this stuff is included or excluded from the budget will make a huge difference.

(I can't wait for sc2 and D3 to come out *rubs hands together* )

I have all of the above, although my OS is 32 bit Vista.

Gracias

MB: $125, $110 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Ram: $57, $27 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

HD $75
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

DVD/CD Burner: $21
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Case: $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

PSU: $100, $80 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

GPU: $145, 130 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

CPU: $185
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Total: Before rebates: ~$778. After rebates: ~$698

This rig however would require a 64 bit OS to be able to fully see all the memory (ram, vidoe ram ect...).

If this is still to pricey there are still a few more corners we can cut. Let me know what ya think.

I would change a few things from the above build

E8400 and 650tx combo (e8400 is enough power)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite...

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB (higher capacity and cheaper)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

LG 20x dvd SATA (the above poster’s drive is a IDE)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (faster timings and lower voltage but no rebate, but still same upfront cost)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Antec 300 ($60 and free shipping) other case does not come with free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

I would keep the Asus p5q pro and the 4850 Kubes suggested

Total with shipping before any rebate is $737.52

Total with shipping of Kubes build before any rebate is $818.55

If you need to shave more money off then you have two options in my opinion

Downgrade the e8400 to a e7400 (the $120 processor)

or

Downgrade the 4850 to a 4830 which comes really close (maybe equall to i'm not 100% sure) to a stock 4850 once the 4830 is overclocked.

That looks like a great comp, maybe we can trim just a little fat.

Alright, I think i will settle with a 4830 instead of 4850 and e7400 instead of e8400.

I was thinking about getting this right now since they are running a sale @ 84.00

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

e7400
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

4830
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102803

Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB (higher capacity and cheaper)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136319

LG 20x dvd SATA (the above poster’s drive is a IDE)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827136149

G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (faster timings and lower voltage but no rebate, but still same upfront cost)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231209

Antec 300 ($60 and free shipping) other case does not come with free shipping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] ntec%20300

MB: $125, $110 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131299

Will this PSU work?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Do I need a fancy heat sink or will a $15 job work just as well?

Don't get that PSU. PC Power & Cooling Silencer 500W is a better choice.

The stock HSF is fine even for mild OCing.

So if I purchase that cpu will it come with a stock hsf?

yes

I would still get the 650tx if you can afford it but the minimum i would suggest that still allows for 4850 crossfire (according to amd's site, so i'm assuming it works with 4830 crossfire aswell) would be the 550

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

You save only $15 but it still supports crossfire so you can upgrade to 4830 crossfire at a later date if you so desire.

the 4830 by sapphire you linked above is good, that is the one I would buy if I was in the market for a 4830

Ok, here it is then:

$20.99 CD/DVD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$59.95 Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$74.99 HD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$94.99 Vid Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$84.99 PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$54.99 Ram
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$124.99 Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$119.99CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Total before Rebates $635.88 - after Rebates $590.88

Will all the locks and keys fit?

Antec 300 will house everything with room to spare.

Newegg reviews confirm that the PI Black works with the p5q pro so there should be no compatability issues there.

Your Optical and harddrive are both SATA so you wont have to deal with some reported IDE issues with p5q pro (although i'm using IDE dvd drive and it works fine on my p5q pro)

Powersupply is plenty of power and allows for some expandability

I would get the 640gb black harddrive in your above post you have the 500 which actually cost more

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Change the HDD to Caviar Black 640GB, it's a bit faster for $5 more.

Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R is also an excellent mobo.

Otherwise looks great.

unless im linking the wrong one its actually $5 less

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Frankly i'd pay the extra $$ and go with the E8400. Not that the E7400 isn't a good CPU, but the E8400 is better.

They must've just changed the price.

For a budget build, I'd actually go with E5300 and OC.

I think I will go with the items I have posted making the suggested HDD change.

Do the benefits outweigh the costs to justify spending the extra $ on the E8400 - E7400 - E5300. I believe the difference in costs are approximately, $160 - $120 - $90, respectively

E5200 is $73, should easily hit 3.5GHz. By far the best bang for the buck.

^True that.

I'm sorry I actually meant to link the WD Black 640gb verison not the 500gb verison. So ya their right. Go with the 640gb verison. Its a real solid HD. Other than that, it looks like your build has shaped up really nice.

And if u are planning even for mild overclocking then y not invest abt 30 or 40 bucks for a gud heatsink...Dont skimp on tis...

The OP really made no comment about overclocking and since his build didn't contain a HSF my thoughts are that he isn't going to be overclocking this system and he'd be better off with the E8400 at 3.0GHz with the 6MB of cache. Also since his motherboard choice is the Asus P5Q Pro there's a - $15 combo deal with the E8400 so he'd only be paying an extra $29 for the upgrade in CPU.

Here's a dirt cheap build for ya.

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$30 Rosewill (get 2 120mm fans and replace their POS fan)
PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$41 Thermaltake 430W
MB: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$40 Foxconn M61PMV (decent stable board, just completed a similar build with this one)
CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$38 AMD BE-2350 dual core buisness class proc 2.1GHz (OEM)
HSF: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$16 Arctic Cooling Alpine64
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$42 OCZ DDR2 800 2x2GB
HDD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$50 WD 320GB (OEM)
DVD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$25 ASUS 22x DVDR retail
Vid: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$110 XFX 9600GSO 1GB retail
Fan: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$15 for 2 Enermax UC-12EB

Total: $392 + S&H (not counting MIR, or combo/special)

WOW is not all that graphics intensive, I have friends running it fine on an 8500. So the 9600GSO is overkill for it.

Agree! Another overkill rig for WOW under $500

Hybrid Power and you!

I think that IH8U has a great build but i'd be worried about running some of the up and coming games that you mentioned with that rig(SC2 & D3). Not knowing the sys requirments makes it a bit hard to say if his build would run the games at a reasonable game play level or not. That's why i picked some of the parts I picked.

He also mentioned his desire to run d3 which will require a bit more out of a machine.

Personally I'm caught in the e5xxx/7xxx/8xxx debate myself.

The thing to keep in mind with these isn't comparable speeds (after oc) but different levels of features. The e5xxx doesn't support sse4 or VT. The e7xxx doesn't support VT. SSE4 is used in HD playback. While the 7 series only supports sse4.1 (so far that I can tell) that is the instruction set that contains the blu-ray specific details.

I'm really caught up with the pricetag of the e5200, but I'm still leaning towards an e7400 just because of the sse4. I have no clue what VT is for other than virtual machine use. I can't forsee that getting me to spend the additional 60 bucks for the 8 series however.

Other Suggestions:

ASRock P45XE - 114.99, just won the Tom's reccomendation of boards under $100. Only problem I saw with it was lack of RAID support. Does have 2x pcie2.0 slots so will do sli/crossfire when and if you need it for d3. Very overclockable if that's your thing. The Gigabyte mentioned earlier UD3P 134.99 with crossfire/sli UD3R 119.99 w/o. Both support RAID. From everything I've read this is probably the best p45 board (Under 150$) out there.

Antec NSK4480B - Case/PSU combo 79.99 - Another Tom's recommended item from their sub-500$ article. The PSU is an Earthwatts 380w. Almost everyone on my post agreed that this was a solid psu and that 380w was plenty for the basic setups like we're creating. The only downside here is you won't get a crossfire/sli capable psu. I ended up switching to the NZXT Apollo Black 69.99 + XCLIO GOODPOWER 500W 49.99 so that if I ever did want to throw another gpu in I had the ability.

XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 - Fan/Heatsink - 36.99 - Once again a Tom's reccommended item. A budget fan that outperforms fans twice it's price. I'd only suggest this if you plan on oc'ing (why wouldn't you though? the 45nm cores beg for everyone to oc)

SAPPHIRE 100245L Radeon HD 4850 - GPU - 144.99 - One of the better bang for buck values out there. This will easily push wow, probably d3 and if not you always have the option of crossfiring it later.


All together my total setup (minus monitor, but adding mouse/kb/vista64/bluray dvd) currently with an e5200 is coming in at a touch over 700. I've given myself room to grow down the road via crossfire and once I figure out which cpu I'll use it'll be sent.

Those cpu's both have their good quality's. Either one is decent. Granted though you will have to OC the 5200 a bit more to catch up to the 7400.


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811119104 $49.99
COOLER MASTER Centurion 534 RC-534-SKN2-GP Black / Silver Aluminum & Mesh bezel / SECC Chassis ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835150070 $4.99
MASSCOOL FD12025S1L3/4 120mm Case Fan

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16817341010 $74.99 ($44.99 after $30.00 Mail-In Rebate) Free Shipping*
OCZ StealthXStream OCZ600SXS 600W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
Additional $10 off w/ promo code "EMCLNLP34", ends 2/9

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128359 $119.99 ($104.99 after $15.00 Mail-In Rebate) Free Shipping*
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $119.99 Free Shipping*
Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Wolfdale 2.8GHz 3MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835101027 $19.99
ASUS V52 92mm Sleeve CPU Cooler - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16835186020 $6.99
ARCTIC COOLING MX-2 Thermal Compound - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $$54.99 Free Shipping*
G.SKILL PI Black 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814127387 $129.99 ($114.99 after $15.00 Mail-In Rebate)
MSI N9800GT 512OC GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822136319 $69.99 Free Shipping*
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16827106266 $23.99
LITE-ON Black 20X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 8X DVD+R DL 20X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 20X DVD±R DVD Burner with LightScribe - OEM

Total: $675.89 +shipping
$615.89 w/mail in rebates

*Build w/E5200

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $73.99 Free Shipping*
Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail

Total: $629.89 +shipping
$569.89 w/mail in rebates

No reason to pay $110 for a 9600GSO using DDR2 RAM, you can get a HD4830 that performs better for cheaper. Like $75 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
or this excellent cooling solution HD4850 for $125 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
Anyone who plays WoW now knows that it is more graphically intense then it used to be, especially in some areas like Dalaran and in large 25 man raids when details are set on high. Hairodog posted a very good build that was still a bit below his original budget, i just think that using the E8400 would be a good move for a non overclocker that would be worth the small price he'd have to pay.

That PSU is a very poor choice. It only has 18A on 12V.

Thanks for all the input everyone. I plan to start acquiring the parts this weekend and hopefully I'll have everything ready to put together within the month. I think this computer should be plenty good to run D3 and SC2 when they are released. Thanks again.