Warcraft build

[Guest]

I am looking to keep a budget of 600 bucks.
I have a mid tower and DVD drive that I can reuse.
I keep reading that Warcraft is CPU limited and does not take advantage of multi core processors.

I have a
ASUS VH222H-P Black 21.5" 5ms HDMI Widescreen Full HD 1080P LCD Monitor

that I would like to run warcraft at native resolution.
I would like the highest quality with in budget.

I have an old EIDE hard drive that I can use if motherboards still support it, Also have an old DVD burner that is EIDE.

This computer will only be used for Warcraft and maybe looking up a webpage on how to play warcraft.

suggestions are appreciated. thank you

 

[MadAdmiral]

You're most likely not going to be able to use both the DVD drive and HDD. Most boards will only have 1 PATA port.

CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 545 Callisto $93

Mobo: ASUS M4A77TD $70 after rebate

RAM: OCZ Gold Edition 4GB DDR3 1066 CAS Latency 7 $78

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 500 GB $55

GPU: Radeon HD 5770 $155

PSU: OCZ ModXStream Pro 500W $40 after rebate

All of that's under $500. If you need an OS, Windows 7 will take up the rest of the budget. If you don't need the OS, you could upgrade the CPU to an X4 955.

 

[Guest]

since I am in school I think I can get student pricing for the OS software.
I have a laptop for school work and this desktop will be only for Warcraft.
thanks,

Question, is 4GB needed for Warcraft?

 

[MadAdmiral]

Keep in mind you only get 1 copy at the student price...

4 GB are not needed just for WoW, but I wouldn't put any less in a new build. In fact, this build is probably overkill just for playing WoW. It's requirements aren't that high. If they were, not as many people could play it. Really, this is a good all around gaming build for the budget.

To just play WoW, you could probably drop to the cheapest AM3 CPU, a tiny HDD (80 GB would be way more than you need for the OS and WoW), the bottom of the barrel GPU and a 300W PSU well under $500. In fact, I'd be willing to bet any Pre-built PC you could get from Dell or HP or whoever would be good enough. Just saying it's for WoW is setting the bar basically on the floor...

You might want to consider looking into if you can play on your laptop, and get a monitor, keyboard, and/or mouse to play it with. It will be cheaper, and probably won't affect your experience.

I will say that the best thing about this build is that it will be good in the future and for other games. So when you realize you're wasting your life playing WoW, you can play other games. Or when the next time wasting scheme comes around, you can do that too...

 

[Guest]

thanks for all the links, that was great.

 

[Guest]

reading the reviews of the memory some people really hated it, does that mobo have the ability to adjust mem voltage that high?
PS I selected the Phenom II X2 550 because it had free shipping and the other chaged $6 bucks,
I really apprecaite how you put your reply together.

 

[Guest]

how is it that I get emails that you replied but the confirmation email still has not come?
the pop up is annoying!

 

[MadAdmiral]

I wouldn't trust the reviews. Most of them are written by people who should be allowed near technology.

The most common voltage for RAM is usually 1.6V. So the requirement for the RAM isn't that high.