Wow on low settings for $500

[Moobious]

acquire it elsewhere? Like a student upgrade, or stealing it?

I thought suggesting the latter was a no no.

Student copy is the best bet. You can also use a key from an old computer.

[Naroul]

Student copy is the best bet. You can also use a key from an old computer.

Then that is an option only a select population can take advantage of. I personally think one should just purchase W7. The OEM editions are fairly inexpensive.

[vesseblah]

Student discount using the account of some friend/relative is legally on the gray area (reselling the OS to third person, software EULAs might not be legally binding but there are no precedents yet) but it's usually the best way to get legit software cheap.

Another way to find sometimes really cheap licenses for (usually previous versions of) Windows is purchasing some scrapped computer that comes with license sticker intact. If you have bit of extra money to spend and some use for it, you can often pick rather nice few years old computer fit for home server when you install linux on it, and use the Windows license that comes with it for your gaming computer. If you're really lucky you might be able to buy totally stripped computers (with HDD and RAM missing) that still have the license sticker for a price of just the case.

Same applies for your own or some relatives' old computers also. If you're scrapping 6 years old junk from some big brand OEM, odds are it came with legit windows XP you can transfer to new computer without any problems as long as you delete it from the old disc.

[Falrinn]

That computer?

It will likely run WoW at 60 fps on low settings, if not more if your monitor can support it. My laptop is a lot worse then that, and I can run it on mid/high settings with a consistent 20-30 fps, almost never dropping below 15. WoW is not a resource intensive game by a long shot.

[DarkBlade6]

CPU: Core i3 540 - 115$
MB: EVGA P55V - 100$
RAM: ANY 2x2gb 1333mhz for 100$ish (ive seen some kit going for 70$ish)
VGA: GTS 450 - 120$
HDD: Any SATA 500gb - 40-50$

thats 475$ (before mail in rebate) (Canadian dollar)

now you'll need a case and a 450-500w PSU + Monitor and keyboard

With this rig you could run WoW with everything on ultra on a 1920x1080 screen by turning Shadow OFF

Edit: just saying but WoW hate AMD processor (read tom hardware benchmark test some1 posted it already)