Hi all, 15 yrs ago I fell in love with WoW and played it all through college and still have RL friends from it. Now 15 yrs later I want to have my kids experience it as well /w me as I rejoin WoW Classic with them. I want to build some new PCS so everyone can play at 1080p 60+ FPS. I have 2 PC's already that should handle it ok but want to build another 3rd system. As I've been out of the game for so long I wanted to ask the experts what type of system I should go with if possible. My children and I would really appreciate any input.

Here are my 2 current systems:

Main PC;
AMD Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor
Asus TUF B350M-PLUS GAMING Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Samsung 970 Evo Plus 250 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB FTW Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card
Acer GN246HL 24.0" 1920x1080 144 Hz Monitor

2nd PC;
AMD FX-8350 4 GHz 8-Core Processor
Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 R2 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard
G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB FTW Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card

I figure those 2 systems are fine but need 1 more system to build, something designed specifically for WoW Classic 1080p 60+ FPS and nothing more. IS there a go to system you all are building that will do WoW at high fps with zero issues? Was WoW classic more CPU heavy or GPU? I can't remember which was more important back then.

Thanks in advance!

If your not looking to spend alot, I would look at the 2nd Gen Ryzens since they just slashed the prices because the new Gen 3 just came out.
And the Gen 2 and still very fast and good! I dont have a specific build to help you but the only thing I see costing more than you want would be graphics cards everything else is fairly cheap if you go for the previous version.

Is money no object or do you have a budget?

glenbales wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Was WoW classic more CPU heavy or GPU? I can't remember which was more important back then.

I believe the client WoW Classic is based on scales on 1 CPU core, and the higher the clock speed of said core, the better. If you want to keep it budget-friendly, the i5-9400f is an excellent choice from the current line-up of Intel processors. It does not have integrated graphics, however. You would need to buy one seperately.

My advice would actually be to go for the new Ryzen 5 3400G processor. It has integrated graphics that should power through WoW Classic with relative ease, so you won't need to buy a dedicated graphics card right off the bat. It also comes with a CPU cooler in the box, so you can save a bit of cash on that too. Make sure you pick up a RAM kit for it with speeds of at least 3000Mhz and you are golden. Everything else is just a matter of preference, although I would recommend having a good look at what motherboard you should get. 3rd gen Ryzen is very new and support for it is a bit all over the place. This board offers excellent features for the price and is ready for 3rd gen Ryzen out of the box, no BIOS updates required.

Edit: Did another fact check and it looks like the memory tops out at 2933Mhz for this particular processor.

PC Part Picker is a pretty good resource if you're not familiar with current hardware:

https://pcpartpicker.com/guide/

It's got a bunch of different reference builds at different pricepoints and stuff.

Although realistically, this game is so old that you're not going to have huge hardware requirements. Especially if all you're looking for is 1080p 60FPS. I'm playing on a TBC private server right now with a 1440p 144hz display on an Intel Core 2 QX6850, which I got off Ebay for like $20. It was a $1,000 CPU in 2007, but is so old now it can be had used for $20-$40 But it's paired with a GTX980 I had laying around, and I'm still getting 100-140FPS at max graphics settings on 2560x1440 with a high end CPU from 2007 and a high end GPU from 2014. The GPU is going to be more important than the CPU, but again even my 5 year old GPU is overkill here and I could have gone older and probably not impacted my performance in this game much.

You might be able to save some good money and buy used hardware. You should be fine with just about any quad-core CPU from the last 13 years and a relatively modern graphics card and be able to hit 1080p 60fps with this game.

Mambo wrote: ↑

5 years ago

My advice would actually be to go for the new Ryzen 5 3400G processor.

Remember that 3200G and 3400G are not on 7nm which means they don't get the same FPS boost like the rest of 3000 CPU's. If there's a noticeable difference in the price, you can just go with 2200G or 2400G.

Thanks for all the suggestions! I will spend as much money as need be to make sure my kid gets full 1080p 60+fps, I suffered on low graphics during my first WoW days and had a slideshow during raids so I want it to be a beast for WoW Classic, but not spend more then I have to if you know what I mean, this PC will be purely dedicated to WoW Classic only. So anything better than it needs would be a waste for me. I am having fun with PC Part Picker as suggested. I love that website now.

glenbales wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Thanks for all the suggestions! I will spend as much money as need be to make sure my kid gets full 1080p 60+fps, I suffered on low graphics during my first WoW days and had a slideshow during raids so I want it to be a beast for WoW Classic, but not spend more then I have to if you know what I mean, this PC will be purely dedicated to WoW Classic only. So anything better than it needs would be a waste for me. I am having fun with PC Part Picker as suggested. I love that website now.

Luckily for you, spending as much as you need to for 60fps in WoW Classic isn't very much

When I have kids one of these days they're getting a damn Pentium 4 with an 8800GTS, they're going to get 5 FPS, and they're going to hear me bitching about having to run dungeons uphill both ways in the snow back in my day. And they're gonna like it.

MMO Champion have a "Build of the Month", for every taste.
https://www.mmo-champion.com/content/16 ... -the-Month

glenbales wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Thanks for all the suggestions! I will spend as much money as need be to make sure my kid gets full 1080p 60+fps, I suffered on low graphics during my first WoW days and had a slideshow during raids so I want it to be a beast for WoW Classic, but not spend more then I have to if you know what I mean, this PC will be purely dedicated to WoW Classic only. So anything better than it needs would be a waste for me. I am having fun with PC Part Picker as suggested. I love that website now.