I am currently using a very outdated Acer 7720G laptop. This has an Intel Core Duo Processor @ 2.00GHz, 4GB of RAM, with an ATI Mobility HD2300 GPU. I can play WoW on medium settings in 10-mans, but struggle to get anything over 15FPS in 25-mans.
Ideally, I would like a rig that can play WoW on maximum settings, whilst also letting me FRAPS my gameplay. I would also like to play a lot more Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2, also at maximum settings. If at all possible, I would like a high degree of upgradeability from this rig, as I like the idea of being able to swap in new components every few months when my bank balance agrees.
My budget is around £500-600 for the basic rig, i.e. I will happily splash out a few hundred pounds on upgrades (GPU, memory, SSD, etc) in the coming months, so I basically need something that can run WoW, as I have described above, for the time being.
I have a few questions; some obvious, and some less so.
1. Is building a desktop really as easy as people suggest it is? I have seen video tutorials, and must say that they make it seem very straight forward.
2. I want the best 'bang for my buck', so which graphics card would I be best getting to run WoW on maximum settings, and allow me to FRAPS, whilst I save up for something more serious?
3. If I am wanting to FRAPS a lot of gameplay, would an I7 be by far the better choice, or would an I5 be able to cope with this without any problems?
That's all I can think of at the minute. If you could help me out here I would be massively grateful.
Thanks a lot,
Josh