New PC for WoW, feedback needed.

[Deleted]

So I bought a new WoW laptop for Christmas for my fiancée, she can maintain high steady fps on ultra. It looks like a new game!

I'm sitting in the corner crying with my 4 year old AMD based PC topping 40 fps on fair..

So I'm looking at buying a new PC for wow, but need advice before I order. Max around £1300. This is what I had in mind so far. Anything I should change, remove or add?

Case
FRACTAL DEFINE R5 BLACK QUIET MID-TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel Core i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS Z97-PRO GAMER: ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)

Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 970 - 1 DVI, 1 mHDMI, 3 mDP - 3D Vision Ready

1st Hard Disk
250GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD20EZRX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Processor Cooling
Corsair H80i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler

Extra Case Fans
2 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD

USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTs

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

Thanks in advance!

[Tommi]

I'd replace the water cooling with a Noctua NH-D15. I used to have exact same cooler and found it to be rather noisy compared to the NH-D15, which is whisper quiet.

[potis]

1)4790K is overkill not a bad choice but you cant really OC it much unless you get lucky.

2)Your CPU cooler is overkill unless you wanna play around and hope you got lucky with a chip that can OC past 4.6.

In other words if you plan to OC that cooler is an overkill waste of money.

If you plan to OC then 4790K is a waste of money since 4690K can do the same for 100$ less.

Or if you simply wanna brag you have water cooling and the best cpu you could get for your money keep both but do note pre-made water cooling can be "loud" with the pump and fans and all compared to air cooling. Be Quiet/Noctua are recommended for air cooling.

3)What 970 is it?

4)650 is overkill for a single 970, are you planning to put a second one and SLI? If not, look into a decent 500W one, or just a 550W.

5)Motherboard is overkill too a Z97-A will do the same stuff as the "Pro gamer".

[Deleted]

Thanks for the really quick replies!

Trying to find a quiet, effective system. Buying from an online company that only have a certain options in their configuration options.

1.****So*Intel Core i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690K (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache would be more enough if I don’t have any plans to over clock etc?

2.****Just saw good reviews on the CPU cooler and picked it. Another option they have is*CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler, would that be ok? No plans to brag, too old for that haha.

3.****Actually not sure which 970 they use, will find out..

4.****The reason for the*CORSAIR 650W is that its suppose to be ULTRA QUIET? Or is it not a big difference?

5.****Only £10 difference between Z97-PRO GAMER and the Z97-A

Thanks again!

[potis]

Most PSU's are ultra quiet unless they are shit quality/company its 2015...There are some that the fan doesnt even turn off unless a certain temperature is reached but i dont remember exactly which ones right now.

Thats not what i said:

WoW runs on 2 cores because its an old game and is affected by higher Ghz because of that since its a raiding game aka lots of info , lots of processing etc.

The 4790K is already at 4.0Ghz and turbo boosts at 4.4Ghz which is almost like overclocking a 4690K to 4.5Ghz, its the same performance.

You either get 4790K with the Hyper 212 Evo to keep it cooled and silent. ~340$.

Or you get a 4690K with as example a Noctua ~80$ cooler, and overclock it to 4.5Ghz to have the same performance. ~300$

It all depends on what you want to do and how much you wanna bother doing it.

Or you get a 4790K a proper cooler like the Noctua one and overclock it to 4.5K to gain 2% performance increase compared to the turbo boost..or you pray to every single god out there to get a good chip that can OC to 4.8 or past it to gain 10% performance compared to the turbo mode..

Generally its up to you if you wanna play around with settings and your PC and save 40$ or not.

Generally the fact is that all MMOs existing right now run on old engines that cant use the CPU's properly, therefor the higher the GHz, the less dips in performance you have (More max FPS means more minimum FPS, aka less spikes which is the whole reason of overclocking actually but most people dont know that) and reaching ~4.4 is rather easy on most CPUs cause you basically read a guide and do it so its the trend the last couple of years.

[Deleted]

Ah, thanks for clarifying to an old man lol.

Looks like I will go for the 4790K with the Hyper 212 Evo to keep it cooled and silent. Want it simple without having to poke around too much.

Will get back to you once I have more info on the 970.

Thanks a bunch : )

[Deleted]

...Why only a single module for the RAM? You lose out on considerable performance by not utilising a dual-channel kit.

[potis]

Last note..

I dislike the caviar greens a lot they are really crappy even for storage, if you are 100% sure no game or program will be run from them then no issues but if you arent sure i would recommend:

WD Blue 1TB WD10EZEX for storage instead so if you are forced to run something from it it wont be completely slow.

[Deleted]

Good question! I don't know is the answer, that's why I come here for advice. If they don't have 2 x 4 modules, is it an idea to go with 2 x 8? Sorry for my lack of knowledge, hopefully it makes you laugh at least lol.

[potis]

...Why only a single module for the RAM? You lose out on considerable performance by not utilising a dual-channel kit.

It makes no difference in daily usage and games apart from synthetic benchmarks so i didnt even bother to comment on it.

Let them put 1 module to put another 8 in the future is 16GB are ever needed, much safer/easier for someone that doesnt seem to know much.

[Mifuyne]

With the money you are dropping into this beast, you might as well go with 2x8.
Makes them viable for later as well.

[Deleted]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£173.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Shadow Rock 2 87.0 CFM Rifle Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.58 @ Dabs)
Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£95.96 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£137.34 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial BX100 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£77.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 7K3000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£62.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 285 2GB Double Dissipation Video Card (£173.14 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case (£59.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£70.38 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£72.35 @ Aria PC)
Total: £949.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-01 14:12 GMT+0000

This is what I'd build right now. For WoW primarily, I'd either add another £40 and get the GTX970, or I'd get the GTX 960 WindForce from Gigabyte for around the same price as that R9-285.

[Rosencrantz]

Honestly? This is complete overkill for only WoW. I recommend dropping some intense graphics mods into skyrim, etc, to make it worth your money

If you truly only play wow my 560ti ran it on ultra without hiccups. The processor is absolute overkill, you'd be well served by an i5. The only thing that isn't overkill is the RAM. I'd recommend getting a 16gb kit, 2x8gb or 4x4. RAM is relatively cheap.

I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money, of course, gaming is my hobby and I'm guilty of "over building" as well. If you spend much of your life in front of a single machine, it makes absolute sense to invest in it. Just letting you know.

[Deleted]

Cheers all!

Tenangrychickens, too much work and family stuff to build myself, thanks for your input tho and might downgrade a bit and look at your list = )

Rosencrantz, yeah agree, its easy to "over build". Yes only play WoW, if I play anything else its on the PS4.
Not spending as much time in front of the screen as before, but plan to do casual raiding etc and don´t want to get frustrated with lag etc. You and most others seems to think its overkill, so I should really reflect on it a bit lol

[Kezotar]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£173.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Shadow Rock 2 87.0 CFM Rifle Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.58 @ Dabs)
Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£95.96 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£137.34 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial BX100 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£77.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 7K3000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£62.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 285 2GB Double Dissipation Video Card (£173.14 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case (£59.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£70.38 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£72.35 @ Aria PC)
Total: £949.65
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-01 14:12 GMT+0000

This is what I'd build right now. For WoW primarily, I'd either add another £40 and get the GTX970, or I'd get the GTX 960 WindForce from Gigabyte for around the same price as that R9-285.

I feel this is MUCH better, yet way too overkill on some parts.

Motherboard Don't bother with the 97, by the time OP will replace his CPU there's a new board, no reason to waste on a 97.

Memory? 16GB is overkill. 8GB, absolutely fine for WoW. Even with two monitors with countless tabs of chrome.

HDD Again, a bit overkill, just go with a 1TB, by the time he fills 2TB, which will never happen he probably already has to buy a new one. Talking from experience. I have more than enough games on my PC, yet my SSD is not even full, my HDD is not full and my second HDD? Not touched ( 1 SSD - 128GB - 2 HDD 1TB each. ) But I do use the second for fraps, which I later refine and put on my DropBox or other external HDDs

SSD Again, for WoW. Overkrillin with a 250GB. You're not storing games that you don't play too much but casually there. Why would you? OS and WoW. A 120GB would do just fine.

OS Get it somewhere cheaper, ask your school even. My school gave me a free copy. Just get to know the techies, or other means ehm yarr.

Else I can't say anything wrong with this setup. Much better than what was first listed.

[Daedius]

Can't go wrong with the PC spec listings MMO-C lists every month or so, I did mine with their high-end list @ 1.4k euros... playing everything no problem on max settings

[Kezotar]

Can't go wrong with the PC spec listings MMO-C lists every month or so, I did mine with their high-end list @ 1.4k euros... playing everything no problem on max settings

1.400 Euros for playing WoW at max setting is like buying a chocolate, take a bite and throw the rest. Sure it's great, but you just wasted alot of chocolate.
You could get away with around 800 EUR. And I'm taking the Norwegian prices which pretty much are the same as the prices in EUR. And that's a 600 EUR you could've saved. And no, there's nothing so called future proof, it's the stupidest thing I've heard. I remember the "Go get a LGA 1155." Oh, the 1150 came out. Same goes with 87/97 boards. Just get something that will give you good performance NOW, and that will last for a bit, not something you will be able to upgrade on. Only thing that might be futureproof in a PC is the PSU.

[dejec1989]

1.400 Euros for playing WoW at max setting is like buying a chocolate, take a bite and throw the rest. Sure it's great, but you just wasted alot of chocolate.
You could get away with around 800 EUR. And I'm taking the Norwegian prices which pretty much are the same as the prices in EUR. And that's a 600 EUR you could've saved. And no, there's nothing so called future proof, it's the stupidest thing I've heard. I remember the "Go get a LGA 1155." Oh, the 1150 came out. Same goes with 87/97 boards. Just get something that will give you good performance NOW, and that will last for a bit, not something you will be able to upgrade on. Only thing that might be futureproof in a PC is the PSU.

he said playing everything at max settings, not playing wow at max settings... those lists are very good

[Kezotar]

he said playing everything at max settings, not playing wow at max settings... those lists are very good

Where did I say that those lists are garbage for other games than WoW?
If you haven't realised it, "Can't go wrong with the PC spec listings MMO-C lists every month or so" was what he said. And we know OP is playing WoW.
So what to make out of it. 1400 EUR for WoW? Again, read my post.