Question about WoW hardware requirements

[JerseyDevil 0]

I am considering an affordable PC to play WoW on. The seller claims the PC will support WoW, but I would like to get your thoughts on the following specs. Any guidance is much appreciated!

Brand: HP
Model: Pro 6300
Form Factor: Small Form Factor
Processor: Intel i5-3470 3.20Ghz Quad Core 3rd Gen.>br /> Installed Memory: 8GB DDR3
Installed Hard Drive: 250GB Hard drive
Optical Drive: DVD-Rom Drive
Graphics/Video Controller: Nvidia GeForce 1030 2GB Video HDMI & DisplayPort
Other Ports: 10 USB Ports, Audio In/Out, Ethernet Port
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64 BIT
 

[jinsu2301 273]

5 hours ago, JerseyDevil said:

Brand: HP

That's a red flag right there.

And looking at the rest of the specs, yes, technically it will run WoW. And technically my grandma can run a marathon, it just takes her 5 weeks.

The CPU is about 8 years old and borderline good enough for WoW. You might run into issues in raids.

The GPU is severily limiting. It's good enough for webbrowsing and watching videos. It's also completely pointless since the CPU has an integrated GPU that does just as well in those applications. It will handle WoW fine on low settings. Make sure it's the GDDR5 version and not just the DDR4 variant! 

The hard drive is too small for an HDD. Also, it's an HDD as the main system drive, which is kinda unacceptable in 2019. SSDs are dirt cheap.

 

This is clearly an office PC. And even there, it's kinda shite without an SSD. All components are ancient at this point, except for the GPU which is just bad. And you probably can't even upgrade most of the components since it's an HP. HP uses tons of proprietary components that can't easily be switched out. The fact that it says "Small Form Factor" instead of an actual industry standard like ATX says it all.

To be continued...

[jinsu2301 273]

I'm not sure if I can post a newegg link here without getting blocked (thanks Icy Veins!), but if I were to build a budget system, it would look like this:

AMD Ryzen 5 2400G; a B450 motherboard; 2x 4GB DDR4-3000 RAM; Crucial MX500 500GB SSD; a power supply with at least 500 Watts

The Ryzen 2400G has an integrated GPU which beats out the 1030, and you can easily upgrade later down the line if necessary. The AM4 socket of the B450 motherboard also allows for a future CPU upgrade. 2 sticks of RAM are important so they can run in dual channel (make sure the motherboard has 4 DIMM slots so we can simply download add more memory in the future). You could go for a smaller SSD, but that would only save you a couple bucks, 500GB is currently the best value. A 500 Watts PSU might seem like overkill, but that's for future proofing if you want to upgrade to a dedicated graphics card.

All in all this would be about 450 bucks plus however much you want to spent on a case. You can go with a super cheap one, or maybe even find one for free somewhere in some dump. Or you can go with a quality case since it's a part that theoretically you will never have to upgrade.

The keyword for this build is "future proofing". All parts are up-to-date, and can be easily replaced down the line. Mainboard, RAM and power supply will likely last you 6+ years. That's the reason why I don't recommend used builds that are past a certain age. If you wanted to replace the CPU in that HP build, for example, you had to also replace the mainboard and RAM.

The thing about used hardware is that the people who sell it usually know that it is good, so they price it accordingly. It's hard to find actual decent deals that are worth forgoing any kind of warranties.

Edited April 20, 2019 by jinsu2301

[JerseyDevil 0]

That's a lot of great information. Thanks very much!