"Sweet Spot" Build

[Duntix]

I actually have a question about the $700 and the $1000 builds. I am currently going from a laptop to a desktop, so I will have to buy monitors, keyboards, mouse, etc in order to have a working desktop. The intent is for gaming for the near future, but mostly now. I am currently working with a laptop that gives me 1 fps during the Beth'tilac fight - which means no going to the raid even. So I need a computer that will not slow down and will give me good fps even during heavy CPU or GPU loads. I don't care if I'm there first in loading screens, I just want to have whatever I need to handle normal 10-man raids.

With that in mind, will the $700 build give me whatever is a good amount of fps during raids in WoW? Or do I need to go up to $1000 in order to get that level of performance? If I get the $700, will it be compatible with the 8GB memory from the $1000 build? Will the $700 build be "future-proof" or at least have the minimum needed to handle newer games besides WoW? Can someone just compare/contrast the two in terms of what each gives and whether its necessary to buy the $1000 or the $700?

Thank you in advance for anyone who helps!

From my knowledge of the specs of the $500 and $700(the ones I've actually looked up and done some research on). They should be fine and in the note before listing the build all builds can play on ultra so I'm going to say that in a raiding environment you'll get a good 30-50 fps on mid or high and if there are any problems with the fps after that I'd suggest downgrading the shadows as that has always been(for me atleast) an fps sink

[Vallin]

Quick power question.
I probably should have asked this before i finished buying all the parts for the 1k build, but i switched out the recommended gui for http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130604. Will this cause a power issue with the recommended ps. I can still RMA if necessary.

[haxartus]

Quick power question.
I probably should have asked this before i finished buying all the parts for the 1k build, but i switched out the recommended gui for http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130604. Will this cause a power issue with the recommended ps. I can still RMA if necessary.

You won't have any problems.

[BicycleMafioso]

Quick power question.
I probably should have asked this before i finished buying all the parts for the 1k build, but i switched out the recommended gui for http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130604. Will this cause a power issue with the recommended ps. I can still RMA if necessary.

Anything with a quality 450w PSU or bigger should have no issue powering that card.

[SylarAC]

As of 7/17/2011 at 2:40am eastern time the GPU you have a link to in the $700 build is "out of stock" and "deactivated" according to newegg. So would like to know a nice replacement for it for the build...and also wondering if the $135 "Zotac Amp!" GPU is worth the money or something that should be disregarded.

Edit: link to Zotac Amp! GPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-194-_-Product

[Deleted]

I'd probably look at AMD's 5830. $129.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102946

To summarize, here is a quote from Anandtech

At the end of our 5830 review last year, we said the issue came down to $20: the 5830 was $20 too expensive for what it offered. It’s fitting then that this seems to be the same problem with the 6790. If it were a $130 card it would fit in well between AMD’s other cards; it would beat the GTX 550 Ti, and it would make NVIDIA think long and hard about what to do with the GTX 460 768MB

Source

Since the 5830 can now be found at that price point it would be difficult not to recommend.

[haxartus]

I'd probably look at AMD's 5830. $129.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102946

For that price you can't find anything better.

[SylarAC]

Will that be compatible with a PCI-e 2.0 slot?

[Deleted]

Will that be compatible with a PCI-e 2.0 slot?

Indeed it will.

[SylarAC]

Will I losing any performance from it that would be noticeable on a daily basis or just minor things?

[Deleted]

Will I losing any performance from it that would be noticeable on a daily basis or just minor things?

None whatsoever.

[SylarAC]

Well thank you for the replies and the GPU suggestion. I greatly appreciate it. :-)

[Vallin]

Couples of things:
1. The ram mentioned in the 1k build has had a price increase to 94 bucks.
2. I just got a mega awesome coupon from newegg that gives me 15% off of crucial ssd's. Are crucial SSD's good and does this coupon make it worth it to get the 64 GB one just to load my OS on? WHich of the Cruical SSD's would you recommend that are the 64GB ones?

[DeltrusDisc]

Couples of things:
1. The ram mentioned in the 1k build has had a price increase to 94 bucks.
2. I just got a mega awesome coupon from newegg that gives me 15% off of crucial ssd's. Are crucial SSD's good and does this coupon make it worth it to get the 64 GB one just to load my OS on? WHich of the Cruical SSD's would you recommend that are the 64GB ones?

I personally have the Crucial m4 SATA III 6Gb/s 128GB SSD, it's amazing. If you want to and have the cash, go for it. You'll probably get the SSD for a decent price too with that coupon.

[Vallin]

I was looking at getting this. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148441. This coupon is amazing. 10% off of ram and 15% off of Asus Mobos. All because I bought a monitor haha. Why did i ever not use newegg lol

[DeltrusDisc]

I was looking at getting this. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820148441. This coupon is amazing. 10% off of ram and 15% off of Asus Mobos. All because I bought a monitor haha. Why did i ever not use newegg lol

Yeah that's not a bad choice at all, same exact SSD version, just smaller amount of space.

[snuzzle]

From my knowledge of the specs of the $500 and $700(the ones I've actually looked up and done some research on). They should be fine and in the note before listing the build all builds can play on ultra so I'm going to say that in a raiding environment you'll get a good 30-50 fps on mid or high and if there are any problems with the fps after that I'd suggest downgrading the shadows as that has always been(for me atleast) an fps sink

Is the extra $200 for the $700 build really worth it over the $500 build? I don't do a lot of raiding, and I don't do 25m ever, but I'm sick of having to turn my particles down to "low" every time I run into a boss with heavy particles or Wrath fire (ie, Dragonhawk in ZA, Drahga in GB, and I have to turn absolutely everything down to get more than 20 FPS on the last boss in GB).

Yes, my computer is pretty crappy because I was stupid and went for a small form PC with a crappy low power PSU, so my onboard graphics card is major choke point.

[DeltrusDisc]

Is the extra $200 for the $700 build really worth it over the $500 build? I don't do a lot of raiding, and I don't do 25m ever, but I'm sick of having to turn my particles down to "low" every time I run into a boss with heavy particles or Wrath fire (ie, Dragonhawk in ZA, Drahga in GB, and I have to turn absolutely everything down to get more than 20 FPS on the last boss in GB).

Yes, my computer is pretty crappy because I was stupid and went for a small form PC with a crappy low power PSU, so my onboard graphics card is major choke point.

The extra $200 invested will make it a faster computer, and more upgradable in the future. The i5-2500K is a "true" quad core CPU as opposed to the dual core, with hyperthreading i3-2100. The 2500K also allows for overclocking and with the Z68 motherboard you can do that, and also have Intel Smart Response Technology, SSD-caching for your HDD if you ever decide to invest in a small size SSD (20GB would be plenty), SATA III 6Gb/s ports for higher speed HDDs but mainly for SSDs. Also the GPU is a more serious gaming video card as opposed to the GTS 450, which is a lower powered video card.

In the end, you'll still be able to play WoW better than how you're describing with the $500 build.

[snuzzle]

In the end, you'll still be able to play WoW better than how you're describing with the $500 build.

Ha. I know I could probably walk into any Best Buy, spin around blindly, point at a computer at random and be able to play WoW better than I currently can. What I'm ideally looking for is something that won't dip below 35-40 FPS in any setting, especially PVP. I'd LIKE to run Ultra... but I don't care about shadows, but being able to see the new water would be nice. I haven't PVP'd in I don't know how long because I just get such a huge performance drop with all the new pretty Cataclysm spells (especially that purple circle warlocks put on the ground... instant single-digit FPS right there).

I guess I was just wondering if I really need to spend the extra $200, being that I don't do anything really intensive with my gaming, also because I know WoW really doesn't require much at all for system requirements. Then again, it'd be nice to be able to run other games on good settings too (really looking forward to GW2 and don't want to be playing it on low settings if I can help it).

I should probably just go with the $700 rig and be done with it, huh?

[DeltrusDisc]

Ha. I know I could probably walk into any Best Buy, spin around blindly, point at a computer at random and be able to play WoW better than I currently can. What I'm ideally looking for is something that won't dip below 35-40 FPS in any setting, especially PVP. I'd LIKE to run Ultra... but I don't care about shadows, but being able to see the new water would be nice. I haven't PVP'd in I don't know how long because I just get such a huge performance drop with all the new pretty Cataclysm spells (especially that purple circle warlocks put on the ground... instant single-digit FPS right there).

I guess I was just wondering if I really need to spend the extra $200, being that I don't do anything really intensive with my gaming. Then again, it'd be nice to be able to run other games on good settings too (really looking forward to GW2 and don't want to be playing it on low settings if I can help it).

I should probably just go with the $700 rig and be done with it, huh?

I wouldn't go that far and say that about the computers Best Buy has available.... especially the ones on the shelves in their stores. Most of them have integrated GPU chips and that is it.

Let's put it this way, the $700 rig Fuzzy has listed would probably blow anything on most Best Buys' shelves, except for the rare $2,000-3,000 Alienware that is out straight out of the water.

---------- Post added 2011-07-19 at 01:32 PM ----------

Here is a link to a build I posted yesterday that has some modifications to the $700 build like a better graphics card and keeps it closer to $700 that I'm about 98% sure I'm gonna go with.

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...ow-s-the-setup

In your thread you say how you may want to do SLI/Xfire in the future... I hope you know that motherboard does not support either by the looks of it, and the second PCI x16 2.0 slot only runs in x4 mode, which is a pretty low bandwidth. And you incorrectly listed it as the better P8P67, it is the LE version which again, is nothing special.