Need Help With Building or Choosing a Rig

[KoolKidKaos]

Okay, here's the deal, I've played on ancient technology since I started playing WoW in 07. My first computer ever was purchased at best buy in 2007, I know nothing about my computer internally, or how anything works haha.

I'm completely ignorant to anything computer wise when it comes to what is good with what. Like what will make my computer blow up, or implode.

So I have a very limited budget, and honestly $900 U.S might be pushing it. I don't play anything but WoW, so I don't need some crazy machine. I just need something as cheap as I can go, and still play the current expansion and the next on the highest possible settings raid on 25mans with absolutely no lag, and be good throughout the expansion. I doubt I will play after another 2 years. Any ideas, holidays are almost here, and I'm looking to spend money, not a lot, but spend lol. Plz Halp <3

[Toffie]

Are you willing to spend a 20-30 minutes to learn to build yourself?

Short guide on how to build your own PC below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4Js2...1D9BF9F40D0E5E

[Gorehowl]

Okay so a quick run down of what parts are in a computer and what they do!

case - this is obvious, this holds all the parts inside, preventing damage/wear and tear on the fragile parts.

CPU - this is the brain of the computer, basically tells everything what to do.

motherboard - delivers power to components in the computer, houses the CPU, RAM, hard drives, graphics cards etc etc, basically acts as a mother to the other components and tells them what to do, except the cpu it just gives the cpu power and different amounts of power.

RAM - memory on demand, basically when an application needs memory but doesnt need to be written down it uses this.

graphics card - renders and displays the picture you see when watching your monitor

power supply unit - does this need an explaination :P ? plug components into it, plug it into the wall, boom...power!

ssd/hdd - store data into your computer, ssd are way faster, but more expensive and hold less data per dollar spent usually. HDD is slower but are way cheaper and most of them hold tons of data now.


heres a quick $900 build for you, and ill try my best to explain why each component is good for you and your needs.

cpu - i5 4670 from intel - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819116898 quad core processor, intel generally works better in MMO type games such as wow over what AMD has to offer, when looking at processors, dont pay attention to clock speeds such as 3.4ghz or 5ghz, and dont (usually) pay attention to how many cores a cpu has, cores dont matter all the time, some games and applications cores do matter, such as games like crysis3, more cores do matter, but in games like wow, it uses just one core, one thread. each core can do a single thread. If you get a cpu with hyperthreading from intel, it can do two cores per thread, effectively doubling the amount of work a core can do. This version of the processor i linked is voltage locked, i assume you dont plan on overclocking as you dont know much about computers, there is the intel i7 4670K which is voltage locked, it runs $30 more for unlocked volts, and you can overclock it if you ever want to. The #1 thing that matters in a processor is the architecture it is built on, and right now the i5 4xxx and i7 4xxx series has the latest and greatest architecture known as haswell from intel.

$219.99

motherboard - MSI z87 gd45 gaming series motherboard for intel processors - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130693 with motherboards you have to match the socket it has on it to the processor you have, you cant use an amd processor with an intel designed motherboard, the gold pins on the motherboard socket wont line up, also the chipsets on the motherboard would have no idea what the hell to do and probably kill themselves :P When looking for motherboards, you want to find one with high quality components such as the mosfets (voltage regulation module area which again i assume you dont care about overclocking so this doesnt matter to you) capacitors (higher quality capacitors = longer life = less money spent on blown up motherboards!) on board audio, so you dont have to spend money on sound cards unless youre an audiophile and require the best sound possible. Functionality is the biggest thing to look for. Some mother boards come with a little LED display that will display a code which you can find in the motherboard user manual to troubleshoot why something is going wrong, this motherboard has that, If nothing is wrong it will display AO, basically A OKAY, everything works fine. This particular motherboard has an "easy overclock" setting, basically if you feel you need more performance out of your computer, hit that setting and it will give you a mild boost in performance, still not as good as doing it yourself, but that takes more knowledge than just basics, and patience and practice.

$149.99


RAM - G Skill trident X 2400mhz series 8gb ram - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231587 Im not a ram expert and i wont pretend to be, Ram is basically used when applications need memory that they arent writing data down on, faster ram, tighter timings and less cas latency = faster ram, ill provide links to what this all means below near the end

$89.90

graphics card - gigabyte windforce3 radeon r9 270x - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814125476 I personally own this graphics card in another rig of mine, and i can tell you it is great, it runs cool, it runs quiet, it runs anything i need it to in that computer. Graphics cards render the images you see on your screen during gaming, the better the graphics card the better the fps. What to look for in a graphics card is stream processors (or cuda cores as nvidia likes to call them) ROPS, memory bandwidth due to the memory bus size, power delivery ability, cooling potential(these cards get hot) power consumption, and other things, i personally am a graphics card addict so im gonna have to limit myself here or else were going to end up with a 50 page explaination of every component and what it does on a graphics card. This card runs wow for me on a 1920x1080 monitor at a good 40+ fps in raids with everything maxxed out, if you want a better explaination of all the technical crap i posted i would be more than willing to explain it to you. I can also give you a run down of good brands, and brands to avoid.

$199.99

Power supply unit - EVGA 600w bronze http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817438014 The power supply literally supplies power to the other components in your computer, without it, nothing would work. Do not judge a power supply by its bronze/silver/gold/platinum rating, yeah its nice to know the efficiency is there, but what you should judge a power supply on is the OEM who makes it, not the BRAND who sells it, the people who actually make it in their warehouse. this unit is made by a company called HEC, who sells them to evga who sticks their stickers all over them. HEC is usually a god awful terrible avoid at all costs company for power supplies, but in this case, they pulled a christmas miracle and actually made a good unit, and its cheap too. cheap is not a bad thing here, this unit has been tested and withstood the stress all power supplies go through to be johnnyguru approved, another good thing about this is EVGA warranty is unmatched, i have dealt with the EVGA RMA/warranty service many times, i love those guys, they are amazing and want nothing more than to make you happy. So you get a good unit at a good price and get unrivaled customer support. Do i sound like a EVGA marketing staff? btw i love everything EVGA makes so...maybe im biased? :P

$39.99

SSD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820147247 SSD, solid state drive, the greatest thing since sliced bread. These are fast. very very fast. they make traditional hard disc drives look like they were designed by a goat herder in the afghanistan desert who only had a toothpick and some old gum to create them. SSDs as i said are super fast, but more expensive per gigabyte of storage, so you will want a traditional hard drive to store bigger items on such as games or movie files etc etc. Use the SSD to install world of warcraft and your operating system, your computer will feel like its from the future.

$99.99

HDD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA2W00YU4026 like i said, theyre cheaper, hold a lot more, and slower, not much else to say. You can store a lot on this drive for cheap but you wont want to install your operating system to it, unless you like your computer to feel like youre mowing your lawn on a riding mower with the gear set to the turtle the entire time and your lawn is a billion acres.

$69.99

Case - cases are 99% of the time chosen for aesthetic reasons and you may love or you may absolutely hate the ones i suggest, so i will try to suggest ones that have good airflow to keep your components inside nice and cool.

CM storm enforcer - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119240 its kinda pricy at this point for you, but the cooling options are really nice.

ATM all the cases that i would usually suggest are going for a bit higher price than normal, so really just look on sites like newegg.com or amazon.com for a case that fits the budget and you personally like.

$79.99


TOTAL PRICE - $949.92 $50 over your budget, but if you want something that lasts, be willing to drop a little bit more for it :P

You may want to invest in a new CPU cooler down the road as the stock ones that come with the intel cpus kind of suck...okay they really suck. But if youre just starting out and not overclocking, you'll be more than fine.

I hope this helps, i hope my long ass explainations dont bore the shit out of you and i hope they help you understand what to look for.

If you want more in depth guides on what to look for please visit overclock.net and check out all the fun stuff we have going on over there, im on it 24/7 with the user name Szeged (can be find in my sig below)

if anyone feels i gave any wrong info in my endless rambling please feel free to correct me.

[BicycleMafioso]

Thread moved to appropriate sub-forum.