I've been out of the loop for a while, so what does $600 get you in 2013? This isn't for me.... So far I know the basics are about: $27 - 4GB DDR3 1600 $55 - 500W PSU $60 - 500GB HDD $20 - DVD drive $35 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO $30 - Cougar Spike MicroATX case $10 - extra 120mm fan (optional) That leaves about $350 to mess around with for the CPU+Mobo+GPU. It looks like a GTX 650 Ti or AMD 7850 would be ideal. The case I found was $30 and it's MicroATX, so preferably that form factor would be best for this.
Probably looking AMD FX series, AMD A8/A10 or intel i3. I'm still on X58, so don't ask me for the nitty details
Why? It will only run WoW with a mid range videocard. 500w will be enough, unless he plans to upgrade later on.
Only if it's a bad PSU. GTX 650 Ti uses 80-90W on load. AMD A8-3870K CPU uses about 160W on load it seems. Even a 430W PSU would be fine, but I only use 430W PSU's for non gaming rigs.
A 500watt of a quality brand might be adequate but most ppl say that. On the box of a GPU it says "Requires a 450watt to run". Most ppl get confused on that and forget everything else. For the specisic example, a GPU needs 450watt PSU, the CPU will say "requires 120 watt" and so on and so forth. Going with the absolute minimum is the worst idea ever and the #1 reason of most burnouts and faults. If you take into account the full load of every part, OC and some fault building or electric company wiring and faults you can see that the safest bet is to have some extra wattage in stock.
500watt PSU will be fine as long as it's a quality unit.... For WoW....look for a cheap i5 ...2310 or 3350P would work (or 2400, if you can find one cheap). If not in the budget, an i3 2120 would work as well. Go NVidia for graphics....GTX650Ti will work. For a motherboard, the ASRock B75M-DGS would work.
A friend of mine just built a fx 6300 based computer with a 7770 for WoW and he is getting great fps in ultra on 1440x900 and still gets okay fps on 1920x1080 when he plays on his tv. He built his rig for less than $600.
1440x900 is pretty easy for current and last gen graphics cards....1920x1080 is a different story. He's not pulling that off on Ultra without being below 60fps
you've just proved again that you have no clue about what you're talking about. look at my rig. It's running a i5 2500k @4.5ghz, 8gb ram, a heavily oced gtx 480 (which is still to date one of the most power hungry single gpu solutions out there), a sound card, ssd, 4 hdds and a wheel/peripherals. all this on a 650watt psu. Under heavy load (prime and other demanding benchmarks) it'll draw under 500w, if that. For gaming it's under 400w. I'll say this again, if you don't know what you're talking about, stay quiet. this is other people's money and they need good advice not some half wit nonsense. OP, I'll edit my post in a minute with what I would buy for $350 to run WoW (no matter how much I don't see a WoW rig haha). edit: creation, let me enlighten you, read through this. that is an oced gtx 660ti which will need more power than any gpu in op's budget and check the chart for other gpus. you're absolutely clueless. http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_660_ti_power_editon_oc_review,7.html
I've actually given up on looking for the parts, seeing as I'm not sure where the OP is getting them from etc but yeah, feel free to go for it. Am I right in guessing that WoW runs better on nvidia cards? or is that a thing of the past?
Nope, still runs better on NVidia. On "high" my HD7870 struggled to keep 60fps at 1920x1080 whereas my GTX660 stays at 100+ and surprisingly my GTX560Ti could stay around 60fps on "Ultra"....
CreationP, I used watt meter to measure what wattage I could hit when running furmark and prime95 at the same time. Result was 380W. With lighter specs, I doubt he hits 300W. 430W quality PSU would be more than enough. Next time you write something, at least google, if you dont have tools to backup your words.
Which is why I said okay anything above 30 fps is very playable. BTW all I was trying to say with my post is it don't take much to run WoW OP could probably run it with a FX 4100 and a 650ti. That is all my post was getting at.