Building a Desktop Computer for Gaming

[Roger01]

Hi, i've been playing WoW for 6 months now and my FPS has generally been around 5, 2-3 in a crowded area (on the lowest resolution with all graphical and audio extras off). At first I put up with it but its really bugging me now and making the game unplayable. So I now really want to build a PC that is:

Up-gradeable, reliable, not too power consuming, runs games on moderate to high resolutions at decent fps levels (60+): (and is cheaper than pre-assembled PC's like this:this )



These are the components that I think could deliver this:

MOBO/CPU - Asus M2N-E SLI Motherboard CPU Bundle - AMD an Athlon 64 X2 5400+

RAM - OCZ Dual Channel EL Platinum XTC 2048MB

Hard Drive - Seagate / 80GB / 7200 / 8MB / SATA-300

Graphics Card - GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB

Computer Casing - Black, ATX

PSU - Xion / 600-Watt / SATA-Ready / SLI-Ready



I would really appreaciate your feedback on this set-up

Also most of the components (as i'm sure you have noticed) are from listings on tigerdirect.com, does anyone know of any good/cheap PC parts suppliers in Europe/the UK?

P.S. I havn't factored in the monitor or speakers as I have a decent monitor and i'm not so fussed about sound quality (i.e. i'll keep the ones I have now); also will it be better for me to run on Vista or XP?

[Schmidget]

Going off of the specs, you would have absolutely no problem running WOW, or any other game for that matter. I'm just especially surprised that you were able to function with a framerate as low as 5 or even 2-3. That is completely unplayable. That's like clicking through a powerpoint presentation.

I'm wondering whether it will be better to switch to an Intel Core 2 Duo setup though. I haven't done any upgrading in a long time, so I can't make any accurate judgments about that.

[Roz_P_89]

AMD seem to have some sort of fetish for changing their sockets, which may be an issue for upgrading in maybe a distant future. Intel seem to stick to the same, and rarely change them. It may sound silly but who knows, could be a useful observation...

Roz

[kyborg]

You're forgetting a very important piece of hardware: the Soundcard. I'd go for a Creative Audigy 2 ZS or better, but I don't think you'd need to get it with the expansion board (that would be more expensive). Instead of that, I'd get a Surround system such as a 5.1 by Logitech or the 7.1 by Creative.
A good number of crashing issues during gameplay may be solved by installing a good soundcard. That's my advice and/or opinion