Wow still uses old tech. Pretty much any P.C. made in the past few years will run wow well. It only uses 1 CPU core primarily. Throwing more at it will do nothing but reduce some stutter. I think It maxes at using 4 multithread… That is still pretty old tech. It also has a set amount of useable memory. So throwing gigs of Ram will also not do a lot. The only part that really matters is the Graphics card. Pretty much every bell and whistle in the game uses your graphics memory. Spend as much as you can on that part. I preferer NVidia , But my kid plays great on a Radeon. I hope this helps you out.
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…a $5k budget for a basic WoW “daily-driver” PC?? 
Total overkill… unless this is one of those “subtle-brag” posts meant to flex your money or something
A basic $700 economy-box PC can run WoW just fine 
Actually, WoW is such an old game I am even able to play it with integrated graphics on my $500 laptop…
My current work laptop has AMD integrated graphics (which means no dedicated graphics card), and despite the low-powered specs it gets anywhere from 16-31 FPS in Valdrakken, on a high pop server
As for Classic, the FPS-rates are noticeable higher and seem to hover between 45-60 FPS… on the same exact graphics card-less economy laptop
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And comes with lottery that can give you unstable bad chips. Last year, it even kill itself and the motherboard. Many cases reported. Also, Intel APO for WoW is coming as well.
If you are into tuning, AMD will give you hell. Millions of BIOS updates too. As someone who used 5900X, its not a good experience.
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I used to be heavily into tuning. I agree fully. AMD will have more updates , and more configuration necessary. But that is because AMD boards are usually designed to be tinkered with. That is one of their “features” Intel are way less into allowing you to change multipliers, frequencies ,Voltages , etc…
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While the explosive issue was a thing for a very small amount of people at launch, it was also fixed last year.
I also remember reports of games being unable to launch on intel 12th gen on release without disabling the e cores.
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Just to add to the power consumption thing. Power limit your CPU and it will consume a lot less without noticeable performance hit. Intel still wins by a big margin when its idle.
5 apps idle at stock settings with 32GB DDR4-3600 CL16 tested. Measured from the wall:
12900K + RTX 3080 Ti - 70-100W
5900X + RTX 3080 Ti - 120-150W
The culprit is AMD CPU boosts too easily and motherboard consumes more power.
Now run those tests with heavy CPU load. the 7800x3d will use about half the power of a 12900k outside the boost window, and closer to 1/3d the power inside boost.
And for gaming if you’re doing whole system power, the GPU will probably use more power.
Something for you to read about power consumption.
INTEL & AMD both lied! 
REAL WORLD power consumption is MESSED UP (youtube.com)
Already confirm my findings for 5900X too.
If you’re going to link production focused results, I’ll link gaming focused results (since that’s what this thread is about):
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You said heavy CPU load. Thats what I just did. lol
And idle power is generic. Even on gaming systems. Intel can be very efficient too.
Testing and Tuning the new 13900K for Efficiency (youtube.com)
Got soem smart peeps here… learned more in last few hours than entire life previously.
One last question: If I am getting the 4090, what monitor should I use (or stats I should look for) to get the most out of that?
If you’re getting a 4090+7800x3d for wow, you can go full 4k 144 and actually use it to full performance.
I currently use an LG UltraGear 27GN950, and it looks great.
What is that number?
Thats AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D. The “fastest” gaming only chip.
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ahh… I was looking at intel. damn, just when I thought I had all the info I needed lol
That’s a CPU. long story short, if your game is cache sensitive (which wow is), it will equal or beat the 14900k using less power, and and requiring less cooling, while costing $150-$200 less money.
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I got an MSI prebuilt and a MSI monitor about a year ago, after building my own PC’s for the last 25 years and I couldn’t be happier.
I wouldn’t go with highest end, latest, greatest, just came out last week, anything, as IMO you’re just throwing your money away.
WoW does not require an AMD 7800X3D or an 4090 video card.
Oh, and one of the results for an all core 100% workload, a 14700k did manage to beat the 7800x3d in power efficiency, at the cost of a 50% longer render time than a stock 14700k.
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Current Intel lineup is
Core i9-14900K (8 performance cores, 16 efficient cores)
Core i7-14700K (8 P-cores, 12 E-cores)
Core i5-14600K (6 P-cores, 8 E-cores)
Yeah I get that, but as I said, WoW is liek 50% of my gaming and the other 50% is games that push high high end graphics.