Calling All of the Computer Savvy: Questions About a New Computer

[WoWQuail]

Hi Guys!
I recently have been trying to get back into WoW after a leave of about one year. When I played in the past, it was on a Sony Vaio laptop, (yes, it actually did the job) but now that I am trying to get back into WoW and the current Sony is dying, I have decided to invest in a gaming PC. I have done a little bit of research and found a build that seems pretty decent and kind to the wallet. I will post the link at the bottom, please check it out and tell me what you think. Please tell me what I can expect from it, meaning how well it will run WoW and other games. If you think there is a better path to take, please feel free to elaborate, I would love to hear what you have to say. Just to keep in the back of your mind if your going to suggest something else, I would like to stay in the $500-$600 range and hopefully have it be able to run different games on decent settings. I don't mind if I have the assemble it or if it comes ready to go, I am down for either. Thanks for taking the time to help me out, I NEED A NEW PC!
Thanks a TON!
-Ethan

Edit: Since I'm new, I can't post links. The site is digibytes.me and the article is called "How to Build a Gaming PC For Under $500"

[chazus]

I would highly recommend filling out the form here so we can better get an idea what you're trying to do. That said, the article itself isn't entirely wrong, but the information is half a year old. In the computer world, that's just shy of eternity.

Since you're going from a Laptop to a desktop... Does that mean you need a monitor? OS? keyboard and mouse? What is your current laptop? $600 budget if you need -all- of that is extremely tight. You might even be better off looking at a used system, at that point.

[WoWQuail]

I'm looking for that budget to just build the PC itself. I have the monitor, mouse and keyboard taken care of. What OS would you recommend? I am also fine with a used system, so what would you recommend? Should I still fill that form out?

[tielknight]

I'm looking for that budget to just build the PC itself. I have the monitor, mouse and keyboard taken care of. What OS would you recommend? I am also fine with a used system, so what would you recommend? Should I still fill that form out?

Yes fill out the form, we can't do much unless you do.

[WoWQuail]

Budget-$500-$600
Resolution-As good as I can for the lower budget I have
Games / Settings Desired-WoW/All Kinds-As high settings as I can get for the price
Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc)-Ocassional video making
Country-US
Parts that can be reused-None but willing to buy used
Do you need an OS?-Yes
Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc)?-No

[chazus]

So, you can actually get a fairly decent system on $600, I found. It won't do Ultra in raids, but you can certainly play comfortably on Good/High, and quite well outside of raids.

From here, you can go Three ways.

1) Keep build as is.
2) Use a Z77 board for about $30 more, with the intent to upgrade to a 3570K down the road (~$230)
3) Use an AMD board and probably an FX-6300, and overclock it.

PCPartPicker part list
CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock B75M-DGS R2.0 Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($74.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB Video Card ($120.20 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($37.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: Antec 450W ATX12V Power Supply ($38.18 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.73 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $586.05

[WoWQuail]

Man thank you so much for taking the time to do this! One more question, with this build, can I still do raids just not on ultra? And would games like BF3 play comfortably?

[chazus]

You can certainly raid comfortably, just not on ultra (one of our main raiders recently upgraded to almost the same thing, with a slightly lower video card, and he loves it)

As for BF3, with medium settings it ought to do well.

[WoWQuail]

One more thing! Will I be able to customize this down the road? And is there anyway I can check out what a build like this would look like when in action (like what would I type in as a name or is it completely unique)? Thanks again for your time, I really appreciate it!

[chazus]

Define 'customize'

With the 450w PSU, you could upgrade to a 3470 down the road, but at $60 more, I'd probably just do that now.
For about $40, you could get a slightly better PSU, and a Z77 board, and upgrade to a 3570K CPU.
you can pretty much always upgrade the GPU, regardless, unless you were looking at something that overbalances the system (i.e. a $400 video card)

Other than that, just about anything else can be changed at some point or another.

I'm not exactly sure as to what you're saying by 'seeing it in action'. It will perform quite well, but it's hard to be 'picky' about performance. You can either choose a setup, or allow more budget. If you're worried that the performance won't be to your liking, allow more budget. If you can't allow more budget, what are you going to do? Not have a computer? >.>

[BicycleMafioso]

Thread moved to sub-forum.

[WoWQuail]

I mean is there a way to see how a build like this would play games or would it be hard because every part is unique. So would I be able to look up the performance of this graphics card you recommended on youtube and get a good idea of how it looks? Or do all the parts of mine make it different from another one someone else is showing?

[chazus]

Different parts behave differently, and youtube is kinda useless since it's limited to 30fps anyway.

Not only that, but the only way for a video to be 'representative' is by having the exact same hardware, playing the exact same game, in the exact same place, with the exact same settings. Usually it's approximation.

For example... here's that 650ti on BF3. For whatever reason, they don't have a 1920x1080 benchmark, but 1920x1200 is pretty close. the 650ti gets ~34fps... But doesn't indicate WHERE it gets that performance in the game, or even what settings beyond "4xAA" and resolution. I imagine they would use High or Ultra for a benchmark, since people want the best, so I would in turn imagine that, you would get at 'least' better performance at 1080, and good/medium settings.

[WoWQuail]

What would you think of putting an AMD FX-6300 over the Intel Core i3-3220? It is the same in price yet seems to be a bit faster. What do you think and would this change be helpful?

[chazus]

I honestly have a hard time recommending it. As far as I'm aware, even an overclocked FX-6300 is beat out by an i3-3220.