Anyone have any suggestions for a cheap PC that will play Epic BG’s with a decent frame rate? The system I have now gets like 10 fps in epic bg’s and it often locks up/freezes completely during big fights. I don’t really play other games either so this would really only be for WoW.
Well for start, giving us a budget to work with is a lot more viable than just saying “cheap”. Cheap could mean $1500 or $150 depending on the person.
Also, what do you have now?
And, are you just looking for a new desktop tower? As in - do you plan to keep your existing monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc?
Are you only looking at pre-built systems? If you are building your own, then depending on what you have, you can potentially cut costs by reusing certain components like your case, power supply, and SSD.
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Thanks for the reply. I was just thinking what would be as cheap as possible, but to throw a number out would $600 be sufficient? If not then $800?
It’s a laptop and specs are below:
Acer Predator Helios 300 G3-571
Processor Intel Kaby Lake Core i7-7700HQ CPU
Video Intel HD 630 + Nvidia GT 1060 6GB
Memory 16 GB DDR4
Storage 512 GB SSD (M.2 NVMe) + 1 TB 5400 HDD (2.5″)
Yeah just a new tower. Keep all of the same peripherals.
Yeah only pre-built.
So to clarify, you are looking to transition from your current laptop to a desktop computer? I’m assuming that you’re currently using your built-in laptop monitor and do not have an external monitor? That’s going to be difficult, since a good monitor on it’s own could easily eat up most if not all of your budget. If you had a monitor that you could re-use and you could devote 100% of your budget just to the tower, then that might work.
You can put together some amazing hardware for very cheap right now. There are some decent ATX cases in the $50 range. You can get a previous generation AM4 motherboard (B450, B550, etc) for $50, paired with some cheap DDR4 and a Ryzen 5700X3D for <$200, which is a great CPU for WoW. Pair that with something like a used RTX 2080 or GTX 1080ti for $150-200, and a power supply and SSD and you might be within your budget, but again, that would just barely cover the cost of the tower only. I’m not sure how you would do that with a pre-built while funneling money into someone else’s pocket, and adding the cost of a monitor on top.
One thing I’ll say is that the specs of your current laptop aren’t really that bad. The 7700 is only a quad-core CPU, but WoW doesn’t really need more than 4 cores. The 1060 is a lower-end GPU, but you have a lot of options at your disposal in the settings to reduce demand on the GPU. You also said that you are having bad performance mainly in places like Epic BGs. It sounds like your CPU is probably throttling due to heat. I would try to see if you can use some compressed air and remove dust from the heatsink on your laptop, and also get a cheap cooling pad to use underneath your laptop. You will see a huge boost in CPU performance if you can stop your laptop CPU from throttling.
While this is true, it’s also both 7 years old and in a laptop, which (going off some other stuff OP’s been saying) probably hasn’t been opened up to be cleaned or repasted since it was new. Taking the 2 of those together, I doubt we’re getting full performance of an i7 7700 here.
Oh no I have replaced the fans and put on new thermal paste. The CPU does not overheat at all (58-62 degrees while playing). None of the resources come close to be maxed out either (CPU, GPU, RAM). It just doesn’t handle WoW well anymore most likely due to the processor just not being very good (average cpu mark is 6914 vs 26287 for aforementioned Ryzen 5700X3D).
I was just hoping for someone to recommend a cheap PC that can run WoW decently. Seems like I may be better off figuring it out on my own though.
Didn’t really look that deep into it
But a prebuilt for $800 would be borderline entry level with todays pricing.
You can look at nzxt player one build or I believe there is a decent one cyberpowerpc prebuilt at Costco for $900.
Without some massive deals your best bet is gathering parts and going to a local tech shop to see if they offer to build your computer for a fee.
Without knowing what resolution your monitor is, can’t really give you an estimate of what to expect either.
Underpowered and overpriced. If you’re paying 800 before tax, you should get something a lot better than a 3050.
NZXT products have a very clear and clean aesthetic, but you typically pay a premium for that aesthetic.
Again I didn’t look too deep into it, but based on the quick searches I did. Seems to be the “norm” if there aren’t any discounts going on if you’re looking for a prebuilt. I believe that is what OP is asking for help with.