I need a cheap WoW casual gamer build

I would look into going for an AMD build with your budget.

^^^^^ He is so right, AMD is very good for budget builds and you can do alot of combos with them as well.

I read that Intel performs better for Blizzard games on raw processing power so I wanted to really go Intel for this build after several years of being an amd fanboy.

I went for the 2500k + mobo deal from Micro Center for 240 after taxes. figured I can spend a little extra on processing power after all.


for the rest, i'm waiting for my preferred account at newegg to be sorted out since I plan on paying the rest in installments. While waiting, can I have critique on:

case: RAIDMAX Quantum ATX-798WB Black SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 54.99 (44.99 after MIR)

psu: APEX|AL-D500EXP 500W 44.99

Graphics: XFX|HD-687A-ZNFC HD6870 184.99 (169 after MIR)

HDD:1.5T|HITACHI HDS723015BLA642 $64.99

RAM: 4gbx2 GSKILL F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL $54.99

Monitor: ACER|LCD 23" 5MS G235HABD $139.99

so all in all the system costs around $670ish before rebates

can I sacrifice a bit more (besides cpu + graphics) and still achieve my goal?

WOW is the number 1 game you will be playing ?
If so get a 460GTX with a good factory overclock or a 560 (non ti)
WOW favors Nvidia
and some form of AMD setup

If your going Intel the 2500k is def. the way to go very fast overclocking,which MOBO is it? And yes WOW does prefer Nvidia and Intel. I would go with a 460GTX preferably the MSI.

http://www.amazon.com/MSI-Geforce-460GTX-PCI-Express-Gr...

Newegg was soldout by the way.

the mobo was this: DH61BEB3 LGA 1155 H61 mATX Intel Motherboard


i looked at this chart from this thread and it looks like the 6870 is ahead of the 460. i wanted a DX 11 minimum card and wouldn't like to shell out the extra dollars (newegg preferred account purchase as close to 500 as possible) for the GTX 560 considering i can get the 6870 for 160 after rebates.

also found a link to http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_6950_1_GB/17.... and it says that theres only a 2 fps increase from 6870 to 560 ti on 1080p. so i guess i'm going to stick with the 6870

Good choice by the way, i love the 6870! And everything else looks good to me up there. Now get to building and post some pics!

geez he doesn't need a 6870 to run WoW. Just throw a mid-range cheapo card in the rig (hell, a Llano chip would probably even run it) 2-4 gigs of ram (it's cheap anyways) a cheap (msi/asrock/foxconn) mobo and whatever dual core chip you want and you're off to the races.

WoW, as it stands even after the cataclysm pack, is a ram hog, the graphics are wildly outdated and so long as you have a dual core chip over 2.4 Ghz you should run it fine, even moreso if it's an i series with dedicated gfx.

Edit, just re-read OP's post. go with the 6870 if you're going to be playing tf2/sc2, 4 gigs of cheap ram, a cheap mobo, and an AMD Tri or Quad core. Valve games should support multithreading IIRC.

Not too into AMD cores but the low end ones on the tom's cpu sheet are Athlon II X3 455 and Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition for 80 and 115 respectively.

I didn't say he needed a 6870 for WoW, you can run that on an old 8500GT. Didn't know if he would be into playing anything else in the future. It could be a possibility.

But yeah i agree it doesn't need much and you can play those on high settings with what you mentioned above.

i was running the one that just broke down on basically 1 8600gt (my sli was crap i think) and it was slowly getting into the low end of the graphics settings. I couldn't do 25 man raids at all even with low settings iirc.

i think that I'm comfortable with this $660 budget pc so far.


also i was wondering if I could reuse this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... from my dead computer. i'm pretty sure that it still works well. it's roughly 3 years old so it might be nearing its lifetime though. it has 2 pci-e connectors and i don't know if it works in pci-e 2.0 cards

Yes it should work fine, i would just stick to your build you had planned everything should work out just fine.

Alright thanks everyone for the help. i think that I have my #winning rig now that I will order Thursday

CPU: Core i5 2500K LGA 1155 Boxed Processor 179.99

Motherboard:DH61BEB3 LGA 1155 H61 mATX Intel Motherboard 44.99

Case: NZXT Gamma 35.99 + $6 shipping

PSU: Antec True Power Trio TP3-650 650W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply with Three 12V Rails $0 since i'm using old one

GFX: XFX HD695XZDDC Radeon HD 6950 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 259.99 -30 MIR

MEM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) 38.99

DISPLAY: Acer G235HAbd 23'' WideScreen LCD monitor 139.99

HDD:HITACHI Deskstar 7K3000 HDS723015BLA642 (0F12114) 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" 54.99

Micro Center $246.92 after taxes
Newegg: $535.94 -30 MIR

Final Build cost for tower after rebates: $612.87  

That is one hell of a casual WOW machine, enjoy

Also if your planning on Overclocking get a good CPU cooler like the hyper 212+ for $30 on amazon. Didn't know if you had one or not.

^^ thanks. i think i'll be happy with this.




yeah i'll eventually overclock it. i've read good reviews for that and the H60 watercoolers. I don't have to do it now though so I think i'm going to leave that out for now.

Yeah alot of reviews and arugements over the Hyper and the H60 lol but yeah you def. got a future proof system.

>>Building Casual WoW Machine

>> 2500k, 6870, 4g Performance ram to run 7 year old game

lol.

yeah I know it's been patched since i'm just being facetious

i'm tired of getting boned in 25 man raids with 3 fps   hopefully 80 fps on whatever place in the game the above benchmarks got fixes this.


i also watched the battlefield 3 trailers and i think I want to play that too.

Best answer selected by 1rkrage.

i finally ordered and after some thought i went even further with the graphics card and went for the XFX dual fan 6950 2gb.
I'm hoping to play Battlefield 3 when it comes out so i wanted a 2gb card   570s wont do as my PSU is not up to par apparently with only 19 amps on the rails

then replaced the 1.5tb with a spinpoint 1tb since it was on sale.

can't wait to test this on tuesday/wednesday  

Oh yeah! You will def. enjoy the 6950, cant wait for BF3 myself along with some others. Tell me how everything turns out.

parts are here. trying not to open the H61 mobo i have right now since i caved in and also bought a P67 open box mobo but it's coming on thursday  

these parts are looking nice  

+1 on the P67, hope you enjoy it now all you can do is wait....  then you get to install and enjoy!

and enjoy i am doing right now   this thing is fantastic. able to play Bad Company 2 on max


i kinda failed on the gamble on the open box mobo though. No I/O shield. so i'd have to redo the motherboard when I get the panel in a couple of weeks.

Also. had some trouble with cable management on the Gamma. I had to step on the side panel to close it.