Looking for cheap gaming PC

Howdy all! I've been playing WoW for about 4-5 years now. In the whole time I've played I've been actually playing on a laptop not meant for gaming purposes. As expansions came out I've noticed that my computer has had to work alot harder which is a given. What I'm looking to do is possibly either build my own PC or to buy a pre-assembled PC for gaming purposes mainly. Right now, the laptop I run wow on can barely even handle running around in the game let alone doing anything else. The specs are really terrible.

- 2ghz processor
- 1gb Ram
- Don't even think my graphics card itself has any onboard memory.

I'm looking to run Wow in high to ultra settings. Money is kind of tight at the moment as I just lost my job, but I do have alittle nest egg saved up to cover some bills while I collect unemployment to get a new job.

I'm mainly looking to get a whole combo as for the monitor, Win 7, tower, etc.

I'm working with 700 dollars, I don't know if I can build my own computer or find a pre-assembled one for that cheap or even cheaper if possible.

I've never actually built my own computer before I've only upgraded like some small parts in a old computer that I had. The thought of it scares me, because I hear all the horror stories of people's PC's blowing up because the components weren't compatible or got too hot. So that's why I came to you experts, hoping that you could lead me in the right direction of building a pretty solid PC. If you need any other info, let me know. Thanks for any input!

You never stated what your screen resolution was.

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Well as far as prebuilds go, there are some HP's that do more than just pull the weight of Cataclysm and some of the other expansions.

First try this:
Desktop HPE-500z get the [2GB DDR3 AMD Radeon HD 6570 [DVI, HDMI. VGA adapter] upgrade here => http://goo.gl/lrLt1 Under $700 and will blast WoW

Laptop DV7T 1GB DDRD3 ATI Mobility Radeon(TM) HD 5650 switchable graphics [HDMI, VGA] - For Dual Core Processors => http://goo.gl/02Bzw

Enjoy

As for laptops, I'm trying to steer clear of them, that's what I have now and from my experience I will never buy another. I'll check those out though, and zooted yea I need both a OS and monitor.

As far as prebuilds go I am liking the $479.99 Hp p6770t series. It is an i3 2100 cpu and 4gb of RAM and os/hdd/psu/case and all that jazz you need for a computer. http://www.shopping.hp.com/webapp/shopping/computer_can_series.do?storeName=computer_store&category=desktops&a1=See+all&v1=series&series_name=p6770t_series&jumpid=in_R329_prodexp/hhoslp/psg/desktops/All_desktop_series/p6770t_series

However this leaves you $220 for a video card + monitor. You can get a LCD 20" for $110 but that leaves you with only $110 left on the GPU while you really want to grab a $150 6850 or 460 gtx. Eek! If you build it yourself I think you can make your own i3 or Phenom x4 system for maybe 400 and have more room for a better GPU.

Just use the excellent


Tom's March 2011 $500 SBM
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 903-9.html


as a guide/starting point