low price cpu for wow

ldc2710 · 15 Jan 2014 at 19:43

hi the wife plays a bit of wow but her amd x2 5000 pc is a bit old now so looking to upgrade it,im looking to spend about £100 tops on a cpu so was wondering which cpu i should go for, ive always been intel but i dont mind which i use for her

cheers

Lunastraza · 15 Jan 2014 at 20:05

For wow? pretty much any of the amd apus.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AMD Kaveri 7850K 12 Compute Core APU w/ Radeon R7 Graphics (4 CPU + 8 GPU Compute Cores) - Retail £139.99
Total : £149.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).

Note there are cheeper ones, but the newer ones are faster by a decent margin and coupled with a decent mobo and fast ram should handle wow without a dedicated gpu.

alex_123_fra · 15 Jan 2014 at 20:06

Largely depends on the rest of the system and res. Does she raid? The game favours intel over AMD.

I would get a decent clocking second hand 2500k at that price or under. Bit more gets you a 3570k. A 4670k would be best but may be out of price range (although second hand won't be far off). Wow is poorly threaded so the best IPC CPU you can get will give the most performance. Technically that would mean a Haswell but at £100, you are looking at a locked one (if buying new) and I personally wouldn't go down that route as it limits options for later.

Sin_Chase · 15 Jan 2014 at 20:20

You want the best single core performance possible.

So don't even bother with AMD.

2500k is a good shout.

ldc2710 · 15 Jan 2014 at 20:46

hi as for rest of system i will be getting a new mobo and ram too as rest of set up is fine,shes currently running a 560ti windforce so might sli in the future,she aint raided in sometime as she took a long break ,dont wanna be spending to much cash as its not like she spends a lot of time on the game,my budget is about £250 maybe 300 at a push before p&p

alex_123_fra · 15 Jan 2014 at 21:06

Ok, I'd personally go for this:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x **B Grade** Gigabyte Z77-G1-Sniper M3 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £110.00
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD38GB1600C11DC) £59.99
Total : £359.58 (includes shipping : £8.00).

The main thing pushing up the price here is the CPU. If you buy it second hand or from elsewhere, you could easily get the total under £300 (a 2500k also goes in the same mobo and gives her an upgrade path later). The other 2 components (mobo and RAM) are a cracking price from OCUK.

Xelene · 15 Jan 2014 at 21:34

n/m reading comprehension.

Avenged7Fold · 16 Jan 2014 at 00:12

If you only play MMOs, an i3 will suit you just as well. Most MMOs are single threaded but if you plan to play more intensive games in the future, a i5 will be worth the premium.

Minstadave · 16 Jan 2014 at 00:19

Surely if single thread performance is what you're after an unlocked 2500k with a decent overclock would be much better than a locked i3.

Avenged7Fold · 16 Jan 2014 at 00:32

Minstadave said:
Surely if single thread performance is what you're after an unlocked 2500k with a decent overclock would be much better than a locked i3.

In WoW you will only see the difference between a 2500k on a high clock and a i3 only rarely (even in areas with many players, people report pretty gd fps on locked i3s). I agree the 2500k is a better option, but many people might not be prepared to go second hand.

Boomstick777 · 16 Jan 2014 at 01:38

A Haswell Pentium or Haswell i3 would be a cheap decent CPU for any game tbh. Wouldn't bother with AMD at all atm, underwhelming older parts and overpriced newer parts don't exactly make AMD an attractive option tbh.

To give you an idea of how the Pentium performs in gaming look at these below. The Pentium G3420 is a £47 CPU.

lucarocks92 · 16 Jan 2014 at 04:10

I would personally go for an I3 if it's only for WoW, if she is going to play other games in the future then an i5 would be the way to go.

ldc2710 · 16 Jan 2014 at 09:30

cheers for the replies guys,yeah it will only be for wow,going 2nd hand dont bother me but if im honest id rather go for a new cheap i3 haswell if its gonna perform well,i did think about going for the i5 option u linked but it would be a waste for just wow

ld2k · 17 Jan 2014 at 08:57

Intel Core i5
WOW and cheap

Dave2150 · 17 Jan 2014 at 13:44

Depends what she plans to do in WoW. If she's going to raid 25mans, then an I7 is the way to go. 25man raids really are that cpu intensive.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 17 Jan 2014 at 14:06

OP there is a rumoured multi-threading update for WoW this year,so I would not get the Pentium dual core and at least get a Core i3.

Regarding AMD CPUs and WoW,I have a few mates with a couple of high end characters and they both upgraded to FX6300/FX6350 CPUs. They seem to get reasonable framerates from what I gather.

Do you have a DX11 graphics card??

DX11 actually increases framerates in WoW.

Boomstick777 said:
A Haswell Pentium or Haswell i3 would be a cheap decent CPU for any game tbh. Wouldn't bother with AMD at all atm

LOL.

Boomstick777 · 17 Jan 2014 at 14:09

CAT-THE-FIFTH said:
LOL.

It's just not worth spending anymore on a budget PC, when you can get this performance for under £50 notes. Also it's on a platform that could be upgraded later on to newer better performing chips.

solado · 17 Jan 2014 at 14:12

If you really want to get a budget chip then I would go with an i3-4330. You could even get a i5-2500k for cheap these days.

As much as I love AMD, WoW is CPU heavy and the budget AMD CPU's just don't seem to do well on CPU heavy games.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 17 Jan 2014 at 14:20

Boomstick777 said:
It's just not worth spending anymore on a budget PC, when you can get this performance for under £50 notes. Also it's on a platform that could be upgraded later on to newer better performing chips.

Still LOL. I have heard this advice before. Yep,it was with the E8400 and Q6600. Luckily I went with the Q6600.

Nah,I wouldn't get the Pentium dual core,unless it was for a older game.

I had Core i3 CPUs in the past,I regretted not getting a Core i5.

However,I would get a Core i3 over a Pentium dual core.

Also,pclabs has had wonky testing in the past. Their BF4 MP article was terrible. They used the tiniest map they found with only a few players and their results were just useless. Sweclockers just embarassed them with that one. They actually tested a map with 50+ players,did long test runs(at least 3 minutes),did multiple runs,etc.

Edit!!

Also,are any of those engines in the games that new??

I suspect within 2 years they will be replaced by new ones.

That is after all why you went with a Core i5/Core i7??

Boomstick777 · 17 Jan 2014 at 14:26

@ CAT the op is after a budget CPU for gaming, look at the graphs, under £50 notes gets you that performance, why spend anymore?

If you wanted to build a mid to high end rig that would be a different story..

The Haswell Pentiums are perfect for budget, low power PC's.