Ballin on a Budget

[Mightyzoltin]

Looking to upgrade and see if it is possible to get a CPU, Mobo, case and ram that will play WoW on ultra in a 25man raid setting at good fps for 350$$.

i have a sapphire 7770 gpu right now and just would just like some feedback on something that will fit my budget and needs

[Incognito Noctix]

You would probably be able to run on Ultra with the 7770, as long as you tune down a few settings (Shadows, Anti-Aliasing).

It should be easy enough to fit an i5 (smaller model maybe), a suitable motherboard and 8gigs of ram into a $350 budget. A case doesn't really affect performance (other than cooling ofc), so you might want to get something in a cheaper pricerange there.

Example:
CPU: i5 2310 @ $180
MOBO: AsRock H77M Micro ATX @ $70
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x4GB @ $55
Total: $305. Leaves you a bit for a case.

This is really just a quick example build, you might want to check further yourself.

[Mightyzoltin]

I know you should overlook the negative reviews pertaining to DOA mobos but aside from that, does asrock typically have good products?
And is sandy bridge or ivy bridge better by any means atm? i see there is an i5-3350p ivy bridge for the same price

[n0cturnal]

Yeah don't buy a Sandy bridge CPU when you can get an Ivy bridge for almost the same price.

[Incognito Noctix]

Apart from the issue I had with the sandy bridge chipset in one ASRock motherboard (which was an Intel issue, not ASRock), I have been perfectly happy with my ASRock purchases.

I tend to stick to Gigabyte or ASUS, when budget allows it. Though ASRock and MSi should do you good as well (from personal experience atleast). Just be sure to check up on reviews of the specific motherboard you might be looking at.

Yeah don't buy a Sandy bridge CPU when you can get an Ivy bridge for almost the same price.

Derp moment, sorry. An i5-3330 is probably the better choice. As mentioned, it's such a small price increase ($10 I believe). Again, apologies.

[Deleted]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/DTjj

No use going new and expensive tech when you can go lackluster stuff that's cheaper and drives most games flawlessly on max graphic settings and stable 45+fps during the most intense fights. And you'll have 40 bucks over for drugs and whatnot.

[Mightyzoltin]

Ya know i was looking at the phenom 965 be as it has had great reviews. it is still holding up strong in the ratings these days? all the wow reviews on it were from 2011 that i could find so i was not sure if mop changed much. some more food for thought on it, the possibility of the character model updates in 5.3, do you think this would wreak havok on the performance of this?

[Deleted]

Ya know i was looking at the phenom 965 be as it has had great reviews. it is still holding up strong in the ratings these days? all the wow reviews on it were from 2011 that i could find so i was not sure if mop changed much. some more food for thought on it, the possibility of the character model updates in 5.3, do you think this would wreak havok on the performance of this?

It's starting to get old that's for sure, but it's still holding up strong even in newer games. I recently tried the Crysis 3 beta with a similar if not exact build (performance wise) and had no issues with stuttering or fps on high settings. A bit on maximum but I'm sure that's a product of the game being in beta. My computer which has the same mobo/ram and cpu (Got a gtx660 which is a bit different I guess) ravages WoW even under the most intense moments (Sha of anger) on ultra. I can almost guarantee you'll get a nice budget build that'll holds up for another year or two.

This is how my build which is similar handled Unigine benchmarking on absolute ultra (Way more demanding than wow will ever be ): http://i.imgur.com/tYhnEZx.jpg

[stalkerzzzz]

I wouldn't get the phenom.

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($183.79 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B75M-DGS Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($59.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($52.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $336.75
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-16 12:48 EST-0500)