Cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer

Off-Topic Games, Gaming and Hardware
1

So, celebrating my new build, runs WoW quite well at 2560x1440, Ultra settings (with very rare hiccups).

Previous PC:

Dell Optiplex 2012
Intel Core i5 4th gen
GeForce 1050TI
16GB RAM
480GB SATA SSD

That system was okay, but it did struggle on occasion, especially during the encounter inside Chamber of the Heart with N’Zoth sending minions everywhere.

New PC:

Custom - Lian Li Lancool 2 case
850w Gold PSU
32GB Gskill DDR4 RAM
1TB Samsung NVME M.2 SSD
Intel Core i7 10700K
GeForce 2080TI

Man is this thing a BEAST. I was actually surprised that sometimes it does dip below 60FPS on rare occasions. Turning down the shadows did help. In 99% of cases, it’s 80FPS or better, sometimes spiking up to 240FPS. I capped the FPS to 144 to match my monitor.

It was a coin toss for me whether I wanted the AMD 4th Gen or not, but I would have had to wait for that. I also wasn’t wanting to wait for the 3xxx-series Nvidia graphics cards, considering I got the 2080TI with a $300 discount.

The build was about $2600, and now I can play pretty much any game I want.

Really happy with this thing.

For amusement, my previous computers was a 2006 Mac mini (when I started playing WoW), and a 2011 Mac mini (another garbage computer for WoW).

Little did I realize on just how much content I wasn’t able to see playing WoW. Having maximum viewing distance is mind blowing. O.O

WoW is a beautiful work of art.

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2

Ty for this post. I’m going to need to upgrade in about a year (can’t do it before) so I’m saving this for ideas.

Congrats on your new machine. It is a beautiful game.

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I will say this, my specs are WAAAAY overkill for WoW. You can build a decent WoW gaming PC for about half that. Even a 1660TI is decent.

Best bang-for-the-buck graphics card IMO is a 2070 Super, which is within 1-2% performance of a 2080, for roughly $500 or so. My 2080TI was $1079 after discount. The 2080TI is about 20% faster than a 2070 Super, but not worth the price difference, IMO.

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I know very little about computers and although I can learn, I’d rather not and let someone else put it together for me so I’ll probably do that but I’m going to want to tell them the specs and you’ve provided that.

Ty again. I’ve bookmarked this for future ref. Much appreciated.

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Feel free to come back here for help with a build when you are ready to buy; most people around here will give you reasonable, unbiased advice for whatever you say you want your computer to do

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6

WoW is gonna dip below 60fps on anything, given the right circumstances.

Large scale mass PVP, large scale world quest bosses, bunch of people hanging out in Boralus, and some raid encounters to name a few.

I wouldn’t worry about it.

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7

Fair point.

A decent gaming build with a 2070 Super will set you back $1200-1500.

I sell computers for a living, so here’s what I think is a minimum, and what I recommend:

Minimum:

Intel Core i5
8GB RAM
256GB SSD
Nvidia 1660 Super or AMD RX-580.

What I recommend:

Intel Core i7 (Core i9 isn’t worth it unless you also want to do things like video editing, but even that I feel isn’t worth the price difference)
16GB RAM or better (32GB for video editing)
1TB SSD or better (M.2 NVMe is better than a SATA SSD, but both are good.)
2070 Super (You can get by on a 2060 RTX for a decent gaming rig, but 2070 Super is best bang-for-the-buck. Anything higher end than that is just cheddar.) AMD equivalent is a 5700 XT, but I’m biased for Nvidia due to them having better cooling and driver support.

Always get a good power supply, never go cheap on those. A 650 watt is decent, although I went with an 850 watt gold. If you’re planning on running two high end graphics cards, get a kilowatt or better. A gold power supply is recommended, although a bronze-rated is okay.

WoW can run on all kinds of hardware, but running with a 2060 or better gives you access to high quality graphics with smooth gameplay.

A 1660TI is my personal minimum recommendation, but a 1650 will work, too. Before that I had a 1050TI, but at times that struggled.

Also – BUDGET. Don’t go cheap. Look for good sales deals, clearance, used, many times used stuff works just fine and is rigorously tested. My 2080TI is used, and it works flawlessly.

Cooling is also very important, but you do not need to water cool your system. Unless you’re a tinker who likes to mess with computer settings in the BIOS, it really isn’t worth the investment.

Also, 1080p (1920x1080) is good enough for WoW, although I run 2560x1440 (sometimes referred to as 2K). 4K (3840x2160) is far too niche and doesn’t improve UX. Stick with 2K. Also, 4K displays are absolutely punishing to graphics cards, even top-end ones. I wouldn’t bother.

Just my two cents.

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I would definitely go with 16gb - mainly because generally with 8 you tend to get stuck in single channel configuration which in many games will be a big bottleneck. And 8gb dual is a waste of DIMMs.

As far as power supplies goes, wattage isn’t really that important anymore. Unless you’re using some really high end or inefficient setups (14nm ++ high core count Intel overclocked + overclocked AMD GPU) then generally you will be able to get by with a 500w easily. Quality and protections, as well as cable configuration are going to be more important for a PSU.

I ran my 8700k at 1.38v, 5ghz, with an overclocked vega64 and during gaming loads the kilowatt meter never really pulled more than 450w for my whole power strip, which also included my multiple displays and other accessories. Only when loading a simultaneous CPU/GPU torture test did it go above 630w - and that’s including the mentioned displays and accessories.

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Regarding RAM, my past couple machines have been 32GB simply so I never, ever have to give it any thought, even with heavy IDEs, dozens of tabs, various electron apps, virtual machines, etc open. If you have it, a lot more gets used than you might expect.

Totally depends on your usage though, if you are only ever running a couple of browser tabs, Spotify, Discord, and WoW you’ll probably never top out 16GB.

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I went with 32gb simply to populate all my DIMMs for appearance since they are RGB, lol

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As much as I love RBG, it’s like flame decals on a sports car. It looks cool, but that’s about it. The front of my computer case is a giant rainbow, and that’s good enough for me. :slight_smile:

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Well yeah, but sometimes you just gotta look cool when you do it

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is it wrong I use the little rgb I have in my computer as a night light for when I need to grab water from the kitchen?