Need advice on new PC for shadowlands

Hello everyone! So the new expansion has pushed me to finally buy a new PC and I’m currently looking at the Alienware Aurora R11 ($1,180)
with these specs:

  • 10th Gen Intel® Core™ i7 10700F (8-Core, 16MB Cache, 2.9GHz to 4.8GHz w/Turbo Boost Max 3.0)
  • Windows 10 Home, 64-bit, English
  • NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2060 6GB GDDR6 (OC Ready)
  • 16GB Dual Channel HyperX™ FURY DDR4 XMP at 2933MHz
  • 256GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Boot) + 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s (Storage)

I can upgrade to a NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2070 SUPER 8GB GDDR6 for $150.

Is this system worth it/a good fit, or should I go for something else? I’m open to any suggestions!

1 Like

It really depends on your monitor and if you want to play with ray tracing.

@ 1080p on setting 10 the 2060 is more then enough and the 2070 is overkill for the cost since by the time you would need that performance there will be cheaper alternatives.

@ 1440p 60fps the 2060 can still handle level 10 settings. The 2070 can give you more performance for higher FPS if your monitor can handle beyond 60FPS or you really want to play with ray tracing. Since new cards are coming out from both Nvidia and AMD you can get better performance then the 2070 for equal price or equal performance for a cheaper price making it a hard buy.

@ 4k the 2070 would make sense but like I said about new cards coming out.

CPU wise any modern CPU with at least six threads (6c or 4c/8t) can handle WoW with no issues so you are fine.

1 Like

Specs on the Aurota R11 are nice but honestly, $1200 seems a bit overpriced for that machine. You’re mainly paying for the Alienware asthetics.

$800 at Microcenter:
PowerSpec G507 Gaming Computer
Ryzen 5 3600 3.6GHz Processor
Radeon RX 5700 8GB GDDR6
16GB DDR4-2666 RAM
500GB SSD

4 Likes

Thank you both for the advice. I think I might look into other options based on your suggestions :slight_smile:

1 Like

Thanks. I appreciate the pointer to a better price/performance point.

Would you recommend this for 4k gaming, or is there a different combination you would recommend for 4k on WoW.

Thank you.

1 Like

That’d work for 4K/60hz gaming. You’re not going to get ray tracing out of it but for WoW you’re not missing much.

1 Like

You can build something much better yourself for cheaper. I literally have a thread on this. I included a Guide on how to do it. Its quite simple.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/considering-a-new-build-this-guide-may-help/704690

On a side note the AMD Zen3 series is launching Thursday? They are suppose to be the fastest gaming processors on the market. Id wait to look at benchmarks Friday before deciding on Intel. There will be 3 prices ranges. Let me know if you have any questions.

It’s not a scam it’s a business. Obviously you can build something cheaper and better yourself but not everyone has the desire to do that for various reasons. I myself have been building and buying OEM PC’s for decades. They each have their pros and cons. If we as a PC gaming community want a healthy community, we need to drop the DIY is the only way to go ideology.

3 Likes

Ironically, I started understanding OEM’s more when I started gaming on laptops. Unlike a custom built PC, with laptops you’re generally at the whims of the OEM.

People don’t take into account the time savings buying a prebuilt also gives you. Sure if you’re 16, living with your parents you’re better off building your own PC. When you’re making an actual living wage with bills and dependents though, a well done prebuilt is not a bad idea.

1 Like

It depends - I’m your typical 40 year old husband/dad and while I don’t have a ton of time, I do like to work on PCs as a hobby.

It’s cheaper and more accessible than my other two hobbies, which are not really very friendly in CA (target shooting, auto enthusiast) that I’ve largely given up on.

So computers tends to be my hobby.

3 Likes

I’m really interested on how prices shift in the next three weeks.

1 Like

Me too. However Im a HUGE fan of the i9 10900k atm. Even though it will be slightly slower than the 5800x it offers more cores wat a cheaper price so its going to be your best bang for your buck considering I can get it here at my local store for $485!

Intel your best bang for your buck!? Slightly slower but more cores at a cheaper price!? Sound familiar? BOY DID THE SCRIPT FLIP! :crazy_face:

The main problem is that the 5600x, 5800x and 5900x are a brand new architecture. They will be buggy as can be for the next 3 months sadly.

The i3-10100 and i5-10400 have been pretty solid buys recently, due to inavailability of the 3300x and price hike of the 3600.

1 Like

6/12 is still fine for gamers on a budget that aren’t buying 3090 level GPUs

4/8 chips are fine for specific use cases like esports or WoW only.

Personally I would get a minimum of 8/16, but that’s because budget isn’t really a huge concern and I already have a 6/12 chip.

Ultimately, budget trumps everything.

utilize and need are two separate things, plenty of games can utilize eight cores but few hardly need them

That is completely inaccurate. In four years quads will struggle giving you a 60FPS avg but something like the i5-8400/i5-9400 will have no issue providing playable frame rates for most gamers.

1 Like

if your aim is 60FPS, most quad cores can still manage that as an avg (not saying go out and buy a brand new one). Hex cores and 4c/8t can manage 100fps avg in many games that are not GPU bound.

The OC 9900k, 10600k (aka 8700k) and 9700k all are just 3% behind the OC 10700k and 10900k in Tom’s gaming suite. They all are well above any Ryzen 2 CPU including the 3950x. You see the same thing in the techspot, techpowerup, eurogamer, and PCgamer gaming suites. That’s not knocking those Ryzen, they all make very good gaming CPUs but they are all overkill for any current game will serve you well into the next console generation since the consoles have a relatively weak CPU comapred to modern top tier CPUs. The big leap for PS5 and Xbox X are the SSD drives and graphics power. The CPU portion of the SoC draws little power, only tops out around 3.5-3.8 (depending on SMT and game) and has 25% of the 3700x cache. In laymen terms it would offer Ryzen 1500x raw performance in both single and mullti core. I would expect using console efficiency, developers would draw Ryzen 1600 to 2600 style performance out of it.

1 Like

that statement is personal opinion and you are about to see an entire legion of AMD fan boys trade in their octa core CPUs for Ryzen 3 hex core CPUs

2 Likes

Yeah I have a tendency to go on opinionated rants sometimes you were right so I just removed my comment.

Best to not shoot myself in the foot

2 Likes

I get it, we are all passionate about hardware tech. Thing is the average gamer probably has something along the lines of i5-6400/7400 CPU, GTX 1060 / AMD 5080 video card and monitor of 1080p 60hz. We are arguing about six or eight core CPUs pushing 5ghz and GPUs capable of pushing out 100FPS+ on 1440p+ monitors but we are that top 20% niche that make up PC gaming enthusiasts.

3 Likes

And even then, the majority of “enthusiasts” aren’t shelling out $1000+ on a GPU.

I’d say the reality is even in the “know” crowd, people are spending around $1500 on a gaming PC at most, with an even smaller percentage of them even considering buying these new products launching soon.

As far as 6/12 chips and 3090 level GPUs…it just seems weird to be willing to spend $1500 on a GPU and then only $179 on a CPU. Even if performance diminishes in games regarding CPUs past 6 cores…at the point of spending $1500 on a GPU, we’ve already surpassed that point of diminishing returns anyway. Why stop at the GPU? lol

So generally when I say 6/12 is fine for gaming unless you’re getting a 3090 level GPU, I just mean the above.

1 Like