Hoping you might be able to help me out with some advice. I used to have a gaming PC back during the TBC era but have worked with laptops ever since it started to fall behind around MOP time.
I’m looking to put together a new rig that can comfortably run WoW on it’s highest settings while being able to drop into most current generation games at a reasonable level. If possible.
I suspect this will be restricted largely by price, my budget being around the £1000 mark. I’m open to building it myself and making a project out of it, but my expertise in what components would be best suited is seriously lacking so any suggestions about what I should be looking for would be really appreciated.
you’re talking megabucks to run WoW on its highest settings(assuming you mean everything maxed out) as its still CPU bound - the rig im currently assembling (waiting on a couple of parts still) is as follows -
Case - Corsair 780T Full tower
Mobo - Aorus X570 elite
CPU - Ryzen 5 3600
Cooler - Gigabyte ATC800 air cooler (still don’t trust liquid cooling)
RAM - Hyper X Predator 16GB @ 3200Mhz
Storage - 1TB Sabrent Rocket NVME for windows, system and games
1TB Samsung HDD (repurposed from old build)
GPU - Gigabyte GTX1660 super 6GB
Also added some extra 140mm Corsair fans to complete the case
in total £1090 and enough to easily play WoW or anything for that matter
Very good for helping with compatibility if yer not 100% up to date/sure.
First thing to decide is what resolution you want to play at; that’ll help narrow down the Graphics card options, as that’s really all it does in WoW… help with getting the resolution of the monitor get filled.
After that go as ham as you want on CPU; that’s what will be drawing the frames despite what any other game in the last ~10 years does.
After that, factor in an appropriate mainboard for the CPU you chose, 16GB RAM, an SSD (or 2, for Windows & storage) a 500w (minimum) PSU & a case to hold it all in… job done.
Personally, I use this:
Ryzen 5 3600
MSI X470 Mainboard
16GB 3200Mhz DDR4
RX Vega 56 graphics card
Samsung SSD’s; 250GB 840 for Windows, 500GB 850 EVO for Games storage
OCZ ZT750W PSU
Antec P280 Case
Not sure to be entirely honest. 1080p I imagine, but I’m way out of the loop on this kind of thing. I’m not looking for 4k or any kind of VR functionality, that’s the main thing.
1080p will be perfectly happy with most graphics cards at/around the £200-250 (>€300) point; you may get reasonable 1440p for that, too but you may want to budget another £50 (€70-ish).
For someone out of the loop, what is a good resolution to be aiming for without getting into cutting edge stuff? I get the impression from your post that 1080p isn’t all that impressive anymore.
1440p is becoming more mainstream by the day; despite appearances, 4K (3840x2160; four times 1080p) isn’t that widespread; more the reserve of those with overflowing wallets ('cos they can).
WoW is still largely happiest on 1080p due to how long ago the game was first developed…
Alright, thanks. Maybe 1440p is the way to go then, since it will probably fit within budget and is more appealing than sticking with a resolution that’s probably on the way out.
I’ve been told to go with Nvidia cards over AMD, would you say that’s sound advice? Also to go with an SSD drive as the primary and sole drive.
AMD drivers have been a source of malcontent for some, but equally there are as many who’ve had no issues at all… so it’s difficult to say one way or the other.
As for SSD’s, I’d try to go for 2, as you’ll not have to worry about your game installs if Windows decides to throw its toys out of the pram.
Me and a friend put this build together. Going to add a gpu later because apparently its like there will be a price drop soon when Nvidia anounce the next gen in a month or so.
Yeah the Ryzen 5 3600 will do. You’re looking at processors that cost over £1,000 to do the whole WoW setting 10, even in raids. And yet they will still see some slowdown even with those things unless they’re overclocked.
So the 3600 will play wow on setting 7 fine and if it’s a problem in dungeon raids, just lower it down for the dungeon/raid setting.
Their are cheaper B450 boards now that support the 3rd gen Ryzens so you can pick those boards than a X470 if you so choose. Probably the X470 will only support 4th gen which comes out later this year.
As for resolution, 1440p is the standard now, monitors with this resolution have dropped in price enough to make it worth upgrading from a 1080p panel. 4K is still not quite there, even with the 2080ti’s running things. Have to see what the 3080ti will do whenever that comes out this year or next and anything from AMD side.
But for still cheap upgrade route, AMD motherboards still last the longest with cpu upgrades. So yeah, go for the R5 3600 cpu.
The best thing is that you can if you so choose to is to upgrade one item at a time now and again such as put a Ryzen 7 into the same motherboard or add a faster SSD drive, m.2 drive.
How I’ve upgraded my PC over the years, most of the time it was upgrading just the cpu on the same motherboard that lasted quite a while to get that little bit of a speed boost.
Based on the build that I linked earlier https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/DhHdGc, would you suggest the Ryzen 5 3600 as a good choice I’m within budget at the moment which is good, I could even stretch it a little to get something a bit more beefy.
Also does anyone have any suggestions for a good GPU?
My Ryzen5 3600/RX Vega 56 combo gets me 100fps in cities & (earlier today) didn’t drop below 50-55fps on the Uldum World Boss, all on graphics setting 7.
It could probably do a bit more if it wasn’t attached to a 4K/60 monitor, but that’s a problem for me… at 1440p it would be a tad happier as there’d be less ‘dots’ to drive.
