Warcraft PC - Seeking advise for the technically ambiguous

The Game Room
1

My laptop can no longer handle the rigorous demands of World of Warcraft. I used to be able to play on it just fine, then around the time that they added the Blood Elf area patch for Burning Crusade, I began to get some crashes. Now I’m on a steady diet of crashes and BSODs. Not fun, and I’m raid ready, in a good raiding guild, but can’t really do anything more strenuous than a simple instance. Even day to day sort of stuff is starting to cause hardware failures.

Since my laptop technically doesn’t belong to me, and anyway was never built for gaming, I thought I’d seek PC advice. I went to Dell and started a support session and got a little info, plus some info from Blizzard.
I’m seeking out advise, recommendations, warnings, anecdotes, personal experiences, etc. I’m not afraid of technology, just have very little hardware experience. I’d like a machine that can handle WoW for the foreseeable future, plus some minor stuff that should be no problems (internet, lite home apps). WoW is really the only game that we currently play, so my understanding is that I don’t need a high end gaming rig, but I would like decent performance in WoW.

Here’s what Blizz recommends:

Windows® System XP/XP64/Vista/Vista64 OS:

  • Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2
  • 1024 MB RAM (Vista - 2048 MB of RAM)
  • 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better
  • Two-button scroll-wheel mouse

This is above what they say for the minimum.

Here’s what the Dell guy was selling:

First, he recommended a Studio Desktop with 19" inch monitor ($799 w/ $110 Discount)
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo E7400 (3MB L2, 2.8GHz, 1066FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-Bit
Microsoft Works 9.0
1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis
2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz- 2DIMMs
500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
Dell S1909WX 19 inch Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor
nVidia GeForce 9800GT
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
No Speaker Option
Dell Consumer Multimedia Keyboard and Laser Mouse

McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 30-Days

WildTangent Games

Dell Remote Access, free basic service
Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year

No Modem Option
Mouse included with Keyboard purchase
Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9.0 Multi-Language
Integrated 10/1000 Ethernet
Windows Vista™ Premium

I asked if it was possible not to get Windows Vista - I’ve heard it’s a hog with few if any benefits, so please correct if that’s a wrong impression - and then he suggested an Inspiron 530 with XP Pro ($889 w $100 discount.)
Intel® Core™2 Quad processor Q8200 (4MB L2, 2.33GHz, 1333FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista® Business Bonus
Microsoft Works 9.0
1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis
3GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 4 DIMMs
500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache™
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
19 inch SE198WFP Widescreen Digital Flat Panel Monitor
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
No speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)
Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse

McAfee Security Center with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 30-Days

Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year

Mouse included with Keyboard purchase
Award Winning Service and Support
Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9.0 Multi-Language
Integrated 10/100 Ethernet
Vista Premium Downgrade Transactional Desktop

It sort of chaps me that you essentially pay more for not getting Vista (where is the Antitrust group when you need them) and can only get it on the lower level machine. Some of the stuff on the second seems better, but I’m not really a tech head and the guy on the chat line from India was slow to answer and evasive about the questions he couldn’t handle. Big surprise there.

Thoughts?

2

They’re overpriced and the onboard graphics capability isn’t very good.

3

What would you recommend?

4

I recommend getting a Mac.

5

I would not recomend this if your main focus is games. Also many macs are pretty expensive.
If your at least somewhat tech savy you could build to specification, this can at times drop the price. (dont have the need for an SD and 15 other types of card readers you dont have to get it)
If you are not that tech savy then you may not want to go this route, but in reality a couple of hours of research would probably get you to the point where you could buy the parts you need.

6

We have one. It can’t handle the WoW anymore, either. And replacing it would unfortunatley set me back 2-3x what getting a PC to handle this would. If money were no object, then it would be a possibility, but IME Macs are built more for Graphics work than Gaming.

7

I’ve never built a PC, but would consider attempting it if the end result is better OR cheaper. Can you recommend any sites that could lead me through the process? Then I could check them out and see if I could handle it. I’ve opened up and replaced drives and such in older PCs, but it’s been a while.

8

A couple of years ago I replaced my aging computer with an eMachine (the T6540). The reason I chose that one is because out of the box it was already a leap beyond my current computer, but moving forward it was a good springboard for upgrades. In the time I’ve owned it I replaced the power supply, upgraded the RAM, added a fancy video card, and most recently moved everything over to a new case. The initial cost of the machine was around $350 on a good sale, and I’ve added roughly $500 of improvements to it.

If you’re comfortable working inside computers, this method gives you a low entry price and the ability to add upgrades as you have cash for them. An unexpected advantage to getting a national brand is that many sites allow you to enter your eMachine’s model number to see only those upgrades that are compatible. The biggest drawback I’m experiencing is heat; the case move was to be able to add more fans, and still I’ve got temperature issues which I think are due to the low-end cooling on the processor itself.

9

The Inspiron 530 is actually the more powerful machine of the two (better CPU and bigger RAM), hence the higher price tag. WoW doesn’t need a particularly powerful graphics adapter; running on an Intel GMA 3100 will work, but you’ll probably have to bump down the graphics quality settings to get a decent FPS rate. It will probably run okay on either machine, really.

If you go to http://www.dell.com/, you can customize you own laptop, adding stuff you want and removing stuff that you don’t want/need. You can also ask the sales rep for a downgrade license from Vista to XP. Dell will typically charge you extra for it. Yes, it sucks.

10

Just saw your reply at #7. I use Tom’s Hardware and NewEgg to do all of my upgrades. The former puts out a monthly guide to the best video cards at many price points. The latter has excellent reviews of a wide variety of upgrades, not to mention good prices on most of them. I bought my power supply and memory both from NewEgg.

11

Yeah – don’t bother with integrated graphics. I would definitely recommend getting a computer with a discrete video card. nVidia is nice for gaming purposes, although there are people who will swear by ATI. It’s definitely YMMV there.

And if you’re talking Vista (either 32 or 64 bit), throw at least 4GB RAM at it and make sure it’s Vista SP1 because SP1 improved performance and fixed a bunch of things. 2GB is the absolute minimum, and Vista won’t run as gracefully.

I built my own machine for the first time, based on a system builder guide that techreport.com puts out for newbies and limited-time builders, also with various price points.

+1 for newegg.

12

This is generally only worth the bother if you want a high-end, highly customized system. If you just want something decent that will run things passably well, you’re not going to beat the price breaks available to HP, Dell, and the like (some of which gets passed on to you, after they take their markups). For high-end expensive components, the markup is so large that you really are better off buying and building yourself.

13

Thanks for the info on those sites. I’ll check them out.

For clarity, I don’t have a machine from which to upgrade. We currently use our iMac or my Dell Latitude D630 laptop for WoW. I can’t upgrade the laptop even if I wanted. The iMac is just a bit old for this now and gives gawdawfullag that my son somehow endures and thrives through. I could, however, go the route which Kingspades suggested.

14

If I buy cheap off of the shelf, what are the things that I most need to care about, in other words how do I keep it cheap and/or maximize the performance? For example, does Dual vs Quad Core matter, and to what extent? What about RAM? At what points do I reach diminishing returns on a video card, and will future Warcraft releases potentially change this?

Also, and maybe most important, how important is the brand (Dell vs HP vs Acer vs Gateway vs Lenovo ad nauseum)?

15

Don’t bother with the Dell with integrated graphics. The former will probably suit your needs just fine. If you’re interested in building your own computer(you can usually get better quality parts at a lower cost if you do), try these guides:

techreport
anandtech
tomshardware
ArsTechnica

Also, here is a good link from techreport showing how to put together a PC.

16

Like always, it depends on what you’re going to use the machine for and how much you’re willing to spend. For instance, say your goal is to buy the cheapest machine possible that will last you several years and will reliably run World of Warcraft, business apps (word processor, email application, web browser, etc…), and maybe one or two other typical home user apps (quick-and-dirty photo editing for digital camera pics, iTunes, whatever). In this case, you don’t need much of a machine at all. World of Warcraft will be the most taxing thing you’ll have to run in this situation. Blizzard tends to be good about keeping the system requirements low so that their games can be run on a wide array of hardware.

CPU: WoW’s CPU requirements are low by modern standards. Remember, this is a game that was initially released in late 2004. Even at that time, the hardware requirements for the game were considered modest compared to the typical hardware available at that time. Dual/Quad core isn’t that important. A core is just an extension of multiprocessor design. In the past, if you wanted more CPU power, you could either buy a faster processor or buy a computer that had more than one processor installed. Dual/Quad core is similar to the latter option, except that multiple “processors” are packed into a single processor instead. As an example, a dual core 2GHz processor should perform roughly as well as a single core 4GHz processor of the same core architecture (in reality, the dual core 2GHz would be a bit slower). The processor in any modern computer should be fine, assuming you run XP. Vista is a resource hog and requires substantially more CPU just to keep the operating system going.

RAM: More is better, up to a point. If you have extra RAM just sitting idle, the extra expense does you no good. On the other hand, RAM is cheap right now.

Video Card: This will be the big one for WoW. If you get a cheaper video card, you will need to set the graphics detail settings for WoW lower. Some people love the extra detail, the fancy lighting, and all that jazz, and for that you’re going to need an expensive video card. Me, when I played WoW, I was perfectly happy to play on the lowest graphics quality settings and used a cheap $60 card.

Again, if the goal is just to get WoW to run decently on a laptop and then run some business apps when you aren’t playing, I would get something modest like:

-Intel Core 2 Duo (2.0GHz cores)
-2GB RAM (3GB if Vista)
-256MB nVidia 9000 series/256MB ATI radeon 4000 series graphics adapter
-A big enough hard drive to store all your files (depends on how much of a pack rat you are; people look at me in horror when I tell them I’m perfectly happy running on my 36GB hard drive. YMMV.)
-$750 price tag (if you’re spending over $1000, you’re spending too much for a simple laptop system like this)

Vendor… eh, they all use components from similar sources; it comes down to tech support if your machine breaks or you get a lemon. I’ve never had a problem with Dell or HP support before (although I know others have). But I’m also an IT guy who deals with their support departments pretty often, so I kind of understand their troubleshooting scripts and procedures (if I tell them <THIS>, they will make me do <THAT> and they will do <THIS OTHER THING> for me). I’ve never had to call Acer or Gateway support before, and I only have limited experience with Lenovo support (which I felt to be generally inferior to HP and Dell support).

17

Thanks, that very useful.

May I ask what some of the terms in the Dell stuff mean, such as the parenthetical stuff behind the processors, and the 2GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz - 2 (or 4) DIMMs?

Also, I’ll need to get a monitor, and possibly some speakers. Would I do better in a bundled deal, or is it better to pick these up separately?

Also, the Inspiron Dell is the only one that they sell with the “XP downgrade”. I have a gut feeling that I would hate Vista, although I’m not sure I’m prepared not to have it.

18

The Vista ignorance train keeps rolling along I see.

ShibbOleth, Don’t listen to people who tell you vista is a resource hog. The OS will run just fine consuming only a little bit more RAM than XP on modern hardware. It’s also a safer OS with some other neat features which you’ll probably learn to love, and even if you don’t and completely hate the way it looks/operates for some strange reason, you can get it to act, look pretty darn close to XP if you really need it too.

In other words, if it comes preloaded on your PC, stick with it. There is absolutely no reason to switch to an outdated OS.

That being said, if you want to build your rig yourself instead, I would instead go with windows 7. this way you save some bucks until you have to purchase a licence summer of next year.

As for the parenthetical stuff in the Dell’s specs:

For the CPU it lists the L2 cache size (this is not important to you. It’s just the amount of local memory available to the cores, right on the cpu die). It’s followed by the speed of each core, and finally by the speed of the standard front side bus, or the speed at which the CPU communicates with graphics and system memory. Again, not something you need worry about.

The memory specs simply point out the type of module (DDR2) SD RAM, and the speed of memory clock (800 Mhz). The DIMMS just points out how many RAM slots are available/used.

19

Here is what I recently bought for work for about $800 at Newegg. The links are to each of the parts at NewEgg.

Seagate Barracuda 250GB 7200 RPM SATA HD $55
Logitech Keyboard $9
LG DVD+/-RW $25
Acer X223Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor 300 cd/m2 2500:1 $160
mushkin 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) $70
GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3L LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard $95
Rosewill R220-P-BK Mid Tower ATX Case $25
Radeon HD 4670 512MB $75
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8200 2.33GHz $165
Rosewill RG530-2 530W 80Plus Certified, ATX12V v2.3/EPS12V v2.91, SLI Ready, Active-PFC Power Supply $45

The power supply is overkill, the case is fugly, but it’s a nice monitor and the insides are more than adequate to play WoW.

Buying a dual core would make more sense for WoW and your other intended uses. There is very little in gaming that takes advantage of quad core processors. In addition, I saw a copy of XP home for $90 at Newegg, and if you use that then you can probably go cheaper on the memory.

In the future, the motherboard allows you to easily upgrade the processor and graphics card to what is at the top-of-the-line today.

I was really nervous the first time I built a computer, but once I got it up and running I never bought another branded computer. It is well worth the time and the people on this message board can guide you to all the freeware to replace whatever Dell might throw in.

20

I quite like the case.