New Computer

[Sinpree]

I might be in the market for a new one. I haven't decided on a laptop or desktop and what I would get in either. The only gaming stuff I do is WoW and Starcraft on my computer so don't need the latest and greatest gaming machine but do want something that runs WoW at a solid frame rate in a raid environment.

Since any laptop I would get won't be any kind of a performance powerhouse (likely stay with a Mac if I went laptop route again) so more looking for PC recommendations. Any kind of pre-assembled recommendation is good, I am open to building one but rather not but money saving is probably worth it if I go desktop route. Any help is appreciated.

[Panerai 1]

If you can afford it - a solid state hard drive for windows and wow are incredible

Mmo-champion has been putting 4 configurations up every month
http://www.mmo-champion.com/content/2383-Computer-Setup-of-the-Month-Blue-Posts-MMO-Report

[Sinpree]

Yea, was looking at the mmo stuff earlier today.

[Meraxiss]

Your in that same niche that I am with gaming Sin. WoW and SC2 are not that graphically intense, and so I would recommend the opposite of what most gaming rigs do and save some money on the graphics card and put that into a SSD drive. Depending on the VGA a lot can be easily overclocked to achieve performance levels of cards in higher price points. I guess the other questions are do you plan to do any or a lot of upgrading? Brand preferences? Desire to overclock? A brand or prebuilt machine typically can't be upgraded much or oc'd at all. I would look at tomshardware.com as well, they have lots of component and build reviews. If you do decide to go with a custom the best advice I can give you is; don't skimp on the mobo or the psu. Save the money elsewhere if that's a concern.

[Noodlestein]

SC2 isn't graphically instense? HA maybe if you only play 1v1's.
If you do any custom maps it's intense consididering most games have 600+ units running around exploding.
I'd get a GTX 570 if I were you, simply because they aren't too expensive (I believe they may be up to 590 now?) but they still hold up with any game out there.

For example in one game alone it ended up using 6gb of ram just on SC2 alone for Kayla's machine.. I ended up crashing out because it ran out of memory..

The main map I am referring to I can't quite remember the game but it's a tower defense, but it's day/night and mobs come out at night but when day hit's they all explode in firey glory.. but with all the towers shooting and that happening at the same time, lots of AAHHH. :P

[Meraxiss]

I wouldn't judge a games graphic load based off of one specific players custom map, any game has it's moments of high demand. Regardless the point I made is that he does not need to drop $500 (just a number I threw out here) on a card when cards half that price and less will tear up either of those games all day.

[Panerai 1]

[Sinpree]

Money isn't really an issue to be honest. I made a setup i might get that was a solid build for around 2000 with all the parts, windows, monitor, keyboard, and so on. So deciding on that or getting a 27 inch imac i7.

[Sanakil]

A little off topic, but the comparisons with the SSD's are kind of scary.

Their load times are WAY too long for their HD's, but there is no denying the fact the SSD's are ridiculously fast in comparison.

[Noodlestein]

Meraxiss wrote:

I wouldn't judge a games graphic load based off of one specific players custom map, any game has it's moments of high demand. Regardless the point I made is that he does not need to drop $500 (just a number I threw out here) on a card when cards half that price and less will tear up either of those games all day.

Well yeah, a 2gb GTX 460 runs it fine for the most part (almost full Ultra) though sometimes it even slows during singleplayer. and 2v2's even can slow down in lategame.

As for an SSD, meh... I personally would just get a Velociraptor (10k rpm) since it's cheaper and still fast as hell.

[Noodlestein]

Sinpree wrote:

Money isn't really an issue to be honest. I made a setup i might get that was a solid build for around 2000 with all the parts, windows, monitor, keyboard, and so on. So deciding on that or getting a 27 inch imac i7.

Can you link that setup?

Even though I find macs are overpriced and can't run most games, it may be better for you to get that if you're just used to that interface/OS.

Do you play many games other than WoW?

[Sinpree]

Just WoW and SC2, thats about it. Also not like I can't boot camp a Mac if there is something I really want to play. The hardware on the Mac I am looking at is pretty good, just a lot more money is the thing, but I do prefer Mac OS to Windows 7. I do get a federal government discount on the Mac which makes it a bit less over priced, 10 or 15% off, can't remember the exact amount.

Let me see if I can get you a list of the other setup I was going to do though, going to try to decide today on what I want to do.

Case - Cooler Master HAF 912
Power Supply - Corsair 650TX V2
CPU - Intel i7-2600k
Motherboard - ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO AM3 - AMD 880G
Memory - 8GB G.Skill DDR3 12800
GPU - EVGA GTX 570
SSD - Crucial 128 GB m4

That's at least the main stuff. Monitor was planning to get was a 27 inch Samsung LED.

[Meraxiss]

Thats an AMD board you linked Sin, not compatible with your i7. I would take a look at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131759 if you prefer an Asus.
You'll also want a tertiary HDD for storing your other crap like music files, movies, word docs., etc. SSD performance does require available space so keeping non-performance programs and files on another drive is the best solution for that. Win7 and wow on mine take up close to 50gb, just to give you an idea. Also if your going with an unlocked sandy bridge processor, are you going to overclock? Either way I would recommend getting a better cooler for your cpu, but definitely required if you plan to OC.

[Sinpree]

Meraxiss wrote:

Thats an AMD board you linked Sin, not compatible with your i7. I would take a look at http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131759 if you prefer an Asus. You'll also want a tertiary HDD for storing your other crap like music files, movies, word docs., etc. SSD performance does require available space so keeping non-performance programs and files on another drive is the best solution for that. Win7 and wow on mine take up close to 50gb, just to give you an idea. Also if your going with an unlocked sandy bridge processor, are you going to overclock? Either way I would recommend getting a better cooler for your cpu, but definitely required if you plan to OC.

Haha good catch, thought I check it but it saying AMD in the title was probably a good idea it wasn't for intel processors. Sort of just put this together quickly to get a pricing idea more then actually a purchase item. Also I was likely going to put an HDD on there but just didn't list that since its not really a key item pricing or performance wise.

Yea, I am still up in the air what I want to do. I also don't plan on doing any overclocking. I don't know enough about computers to do it for one, also don't want to destroy the processor either as well as spend tons of money on a cooling system for that.

In the end probably just suck it up with my laptop that isn't running so hot or just get an iMac or just get a new laptop. Just prefer OS X for the type of computer stuff I do and just not that into computers like I was where I will have excitement and fun over building the computer.

Thanks all for the help and recommendations though.

[Meraxiss]

Overclocking can be hard or very very easy depending on how you go about it and what kind of performance increases your looking to get. The chip you selected can be clocked to 4+ghz on air cooling with a few key strokes in the bios (there are caveats to that such as case air flow and fans as well as your cpu cooling but you get the drift). Either way you'll still get great performance, and in a year or two if you want a performance boost you can always OC then, but an aftermarket air cooler will have the advantage of being vastly quieter and cooler than the stock right away http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065 ~$25