Which card for WOW (mainly).

[Dervious]

Had a request to build a machine for general use and mainly to play Word of Warcraft. There's a good chance that the machine will be used to play a few other games (Diablo ?).

I'm thinking Haswell i3 or i5 with 8gb RAM (possibly 4gb to keep cost down), an SSD.

Any suggestions for a decent graphics card that will do the job and not push the budget too far. My first thoughts were to go with what I own, an HD7950 (sub £200). Even that might be adding a bit too much to the overall spend. Having said that, the customer may be willing to pay that bit extra if there is a decent performance advantage.

I'm not a fan of Nvidia (after very bad experience with a GTX460), but I suppose I'd supply one if it's the "right" card for the system.

 

[tamzzy]

are you averse to getting 2nd hand items?
if not, then get to 1000 posts and snag yourself a deal on the members market =s

 

[Dervious]

I'd prefer brand new, as I'm supplying for a customer.

Any suggestions ?

 

[tamzzy]

7850 2gb, if you can source one close to the £100 that they were going for 1-2 weeks ago imo

 

[Dervious]

Yes, a 7850 was my second choice, something like......

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-191-MS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

 

[Mr Krugga]

Any Core i5 with any one of these cards would do.

 

[LambChop]

The right card manufacturer for wow is nVidia - buy what your budget allows.

 

[Dervious]

The right card manufacturer for wow is nVidia - buy what your budget allows.

I`ve read that somewhere before, but is going with Nvidia going to be much of an advantage ? I tend to prefer AMD (my own recent experience with Nvidia was poor).

If I do go with Nvidia, what is the cheapest card that will max out WoW ?

Ah, I think this answers my question......

Any Core i5 with any one of these cards would do.

 

[los]

WOW favours NVidia I'm afraid, although I have no problems on a 7970, but thats a bit out of budget.
You can get a 7950 or a GTX760 for about £185 at the moment or a 660 for about 150. Depends on the budget really?
Or maybe a 7870? http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-068-HS&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=411

 

[LambChop]

I`ve read that somewhere before, but is going with Nvidia going to be much of an advantage ? I tend to prefer AMD (my own recent experience with Nvidia was poor).

If I do go with Nvidia, what is the cheapest card that will max out WoW ?

Ah, I think this answers my question......

It is an advantage, wow simply runs better with nVidia. Remember, even though you have had a bad experience this machine is not for you.

I would 100% get the 8GB RAM for the system and stick in a GTX770 at around £230.

WOW with all bells and whistles and latest expansion/patches is quite demanding.

 

[Dervious]

Might well go for Nvidia (I assume my GT460(s) were just a "bad patch" for Nvidia.

650Ti boost or a 660 for a bit more £ ?

And I take it that an i5 and 8gb is the way to go for WoW. TBH I'd not be asking these questions, but this is the first request I`ve had for a machine to play a specific game.

 

[Mr Krugga]

Here's an example build you could do under £600:

 

[Dervious]

It is an advantage, wow simply runs better with nVidia. Remember, even though you have had a bad experience this machine is not for you.

I would 100% get the 8GB RAM for the system and stick in a GTX770 at around £230.

WOW with all bells and whistles and latest expansion/patches is quite demanding.

As the machine is not for me, it's even more important that it behaves itself ! My GTX460 was a horror story - it's sitting on the desk next to my keyboard, never to light a pixel again !

To be fair, I am not hearing about any common problems about the current crop of Nvidia cards, so I should not let my experience influence my choice.

A GTX770 will push the price up a fair bit (I'm aiming for around £800-900 for the complete system, inc. monitor). However, it may make sense to spend the extra as it will delay an upgrade and guarantee to run the game "flat out".

Thanks for the advice.

 

[Dervious]

Here's an example build you could do under £600:

That looks similar to what I`ve already got in mind. I'd go with a Samsung EVO 120gb (or 250gb), and cheaper MSI mb. I`ve suggested the same Antec case as I own (302), but that BitFenix looks good, and is slightly cheaper.

Thanks.

 

[systemerror]

Get a 770 they good cards and your experience is far out dated. minimum 8gig ram would also consider going amd processor wow favours multi threading it's more CPU intensive the gpu intensive

 

[ubersonic]

would also consider going amd processor wow favours multi threading it's more CPU intensive the gpu intensive

WoW only uses a couple of main threads with a bunch of smaller ones and as such will only really make decent use of up to 3 cores making an i5 a great choice, WoW cares most about performance per core an area which Intel dominate at the moment, an i5-4430 is a great CPU choice for the money in this respect.

 

[kaku]

WoW only uses a couple of main threads with a bunch of smaller ones and as such will only really make decent use of up to 3 cores making an i5 a great choice, WoW cares most about performance per core an area which Intel dominate at the moment, an i5-4430 is a great CPU choice for the money in this respect.

It does, but since it favours IPC so highly wouldn't it be better to stretch to the K-version and hit higher clocks? Since the OP is already grabbing a Z87 motherboard it wouldn't be a huge stretch.

 

[Dervious]

It does, but since it favours IPC so highly wouldn't it be better to stretch to the K-version and hit higher clocks? Since the OP is already grabbing a Z87 motherboard it wouldn't be a huge stretch.

And there's the problem I was discussing with my customer, it's always tempting to spend just a little bit more !

Overclocking has been mentioned, but we have to consider the extra cost of the unlocked CPU and larger heatsink.

I could forfeit the SSD to cover the cost of an overclocked CPU I suppose, but an SSD transforms a PC, and I haven't built a machine without one for several years !

 

[docsonic]

And there's the problem I was discussing with my customer, it's always tempting to spend just a little bit more !

Overclocking has been mentioned, but we have to consider the extra cost of the unlocked CPU and larger heatsink.

I could forfeit the SSD to cover the cost of an overclocked CPU I suppose, but an SSD transforms a PC, and I haven't built a machine without one for several years !

I would not forgo Wow on an SSD given the amount of time spent running through loading screens. I don't play Wow anymore but I'd never want to go back to running it on a mechanical drive if i did.

 

[Dervious]

I would not forgo Wow on an SSD given the amount of time spent running through loading screens. I don't play Wow anymore but I'd never want to go back to running it on a mechanical drive if i did.

I was going to ask about this. I wondered how much time the game spends loading "levels".

So, it's an SSD, GTX770, Overclocked i5 etc.

As enjoyable putting together a gaming rig is, it's also a bit of a nightmare deciding on how much to spend, and what on.