Hi cheesesubs. Make sure to take a look at the in-depth wow performance guide that Tom's wrote-- here's the link:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/world-of-warcraft-cataclysm-directx-11-performance,2793.html
Recommendations to get far better performance for the same money--
1) Instead of going with the i7-960, get an i7-950. It's $300 vs $570 for the 960 and there is only a tiny difference for in-game performance at default settings. If you OC, it's a crap shoot which you would be able to OC to greater effect (depends on the specific chip). Either way it's not going to net you better performance in-game worth the additional money.
2) Use the $ that you saved from a 950 to go with a higher end graphics card. The 460 can run at about 80FPS average in the tests that were done even at ultra settings at 1920x1200, but that doesn't tell the story of minimum framerates when there is a ton going on (spell effects etc). The test is on a flight path. An additional $270 invested in your GPU will make a far bigger impact on your in-game performance than it will in your processor. GTX 260 1GB in SLI is a great choice and will ensure that you never are GPU limited with every setting maxed in WoW. Single card options are GTX 470 (priced around $250 now) or the GTX 570 (priced at $350- extremely quiet and very fast). GTX 580 is $500 and the fastest single card out, plus very silent as well. Just talking NVidia cards since you seem to be set on green-team, which is ok. WoW is a "The Way It's Meant to be Played" title. Any of these setups are overkill 95% of the time with a game like WoW, but with the high-end system you're looking at, you'll be 100% sure that you don't have a GPU related slowdown. It doesn't make sense to go with a super high end $570 processor and a middle of the road $200 GPU.
Other helpful comments as you go to do your build:
- X58 Sabertooth and Gigabyte UD3R are two of the "go to" mo-bo's for x58 builds.
- If you're not going to OC, don't spend a ton on a top-tier heatsink (something in the $30-$50 range should be good). Tom's does reviews on sub-$40 coolers. Check them out.
- 6GB of RAM is plenty
- HAF 932 is a good value with lots of room (I picked the pricier HAF X which has a few added features). HAF 922 is a bit lower cost with the same look, great airflow, and looks fairly easy to work in.
Hope that (pretty long) post is helpful. Let us know what you decide, how the build goes, and how it runs once you're done! If you plan to post a follow up, make sure you don't select a "best answer" as you won't be able to post after.
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