Will this plat WoW?

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The acer with integrated graphics and no monitor is $550 compared with the dell that is only $450, add a hd 4650 to that you are at the same price as the acer with much better performance. Besides he is replacing a broken pc that had a monitor so that shouldn't be an issue as he can reuse the old one.
 
OP should be able to reuse the old PC case too. Just rip out all the old components and put yours in. This is not optimal, but will save you ~$50 that you could then put into a better GPU or mobo. You may also be able to reuse the power supply from the old pc which would save another $50-$100.

You should also check out the old ram and see if it can work with your new build. Anything to save a few bucks!
 

The manual for the motherboard is immensely helpful for a newbie to computers. The connections are extremely confusing on the motherboard. But you are right, if you have the time and patience to figure it out, anyone who is fairly intelligent can figure it out.
 
E-machines are about the biggest POS you can buy. Dont waste your money. They have loads of problems as it is and do not have any room for expansion short of a new PSU and good luck getting the MB to take new hardware.

Yes that machine will play WOW. An old 9800 will run WOW for graphics. Any 7600 or above card is what you want. AGP or PCIE does not matter as the game barely has any graphics to speak of. Its an online cartoon pretty much.
 
If you want your own machine, build it.
Go to newegg.com
Get you someone who has experience with building computers, get msn messengerr or anyother messenger, or you can even have them set you up a "wish list" on newegg. Simple, I could easily make you a computer online and have you check it out, if you like the budget then buy it piece by piece. You can easily build a computer for $550. Newegg is top of the line. Big discounts and will never fail you. If you want to see what a computer would look like at that price range, give me an email. w.b.morrison2007@gmail.com
 


I didn't know that. Was that in the old thread? The one thing I do recommend a 780G or 790GX for is that if the GPU fails and has to be RMA's (happened to me) you can still game with the IGP. That's not possible on the Dell. That was my only caveat. Otherwise, the E7300 is quite good.

You don't work for Dell do you? :na: Normally I recommend a Dell only if the alternatives are E-Machines or Dell. A friend bought a Dell for $2000 awith one of the early Conroes and an 8600GT. He could never get their tech support, so he called me for help instead.

Sounds like he's going to give building a new PC a try. There's always a first time, and one has to risk screwing things up, but most of the time it's not that bad.

WoW might be an old game, but WotLK ups things a bit just as MoM does LOTRO.
 


I am only recommending it because of the price and as you can see in his post below, he is going to need multiple PC's and the dell with a HD 4650 would bridge him over nicely until he can build his own. Plus I'm pretty sure that the integrated intel graphics can play WoW at a low setting as it only requires a Geforce2 level card to run.



 
Like I said, the Dell's better than the E-Machines, but the 8650 in the Acer's not far behind the E7300 (it's really the 8750 that's competitive). No one's going to overclock an OEM, so I'd recommend the Acer for future proofing, even if he builds later and uses the OEM as a second PC.

I was ribbing with the Dell employee comment, looks like you took it too seriously. My experience with friends and coworker's Dell's are not very positive. Dell's good in a business workstation environment but the Dell's people have bought for home desktops generally aren't that great compared to custom builds at Fry's, small PC shops or self builds.

Low res graphics in any game is lame. A discrete GPU is best. That Intel IGP might play WoW at low res, but would that include WotLK? My 780G can play Oblivion at low res, but why would I even want to?

It did play LOTRO at medium/high mixed settings long enough for me to appreciate it. No one should put up with an IGP for long, but if one has to rely upon one, I'd choose the OEM or the motherboard with the best as a backup.

Too bad ATI can't make chipsets for Intel. An E7300 with a 780g would be nice for many people compared to the dreck that Intel puts out for an IGP.

Sorry if you got upset, my apologies for ribbing you.
 
No offense taken, its just that i've been helping the OP out since his first thread and alot of people are just joining in late with suggestions and not knowing the whole background.

I definitely think a homebuild or custom build is the way to go but he needs something now. As much as I like AMD (all of my desktop procs have been AMDs) I just cannot see how you are justifying that acer over the dell. It may have a slightly better IGP but that doesnt justify paying $100 more than the dell.

Bottom line is for the same $550 the dell plus a radeon 4650 is better than the acer with only a IGP.
 



I'm justifying it mainly on futureproofing. A triple core does better than a similarly priced Intel duo in apps that use more cores. Games are starting to use more cores and that should only make things better in the future.

Perhaps I'm just biased from my experience with Dell plus Intel IGP's? If that Dell had an Nvidia IGP, I'd recommend it because the E7300 is a good budget processor right now.
 
but you are totally forgetting about adding in the radeon 4650 and i find your argument that a triple core is futureproofing to be unconvincing. Besides you continually forget that he needs it mainly to play WoW and unless they make a totally new game engine for it, more cpu cores are not needed.
 
Haven't games been patched before to support more cores? The patch prior to Mines of Moria for LOTRO practically changed the nature of the game's combat system. The new WoW expansion has destructible buildings, and that's a similar change. MMO's aren't as static as FPS.

I agree that he'd need a new GPU down the line and you agree that he'd need a new build. It's up to the OP. He might bypass either OEM choice and do well on his first build. That's why I provided the Anandtech article as recommendations to consider. The Dell's price does make it attractive. I just don't trust Dell's declining quality.

Admittedly, I don't know Acer beyond monitors, but there I've been impressed. I'm getting their 20.5" 1920 x 1080 LCD with an LC Blu-Ray drive when the income tax return arrives.
 
I've played WoW on a geforce 5500, and only 768mb of ram.
If your going nvidia way, 8800 gt is simple, recommend the 9800series though, still cheap to buy.
If your going ATI, dude i run a hd 3870 on farcry 2 noproblem, cod4 med/high settings, no problem. Your worried about getting a 4650.. you can still go cheaper. OCZ memory works great aswell if your wanting cheap memory. GKillz and OCZ are memory Recommendations for me.

If you want building help hit me up on my email Jaywarren or sit here and keep trying to go dell or build a computer. Have you tried calling in to dell to have them build you a computer, you tell them what your looking for and they will build it and ship it...

w.b.morrison2007@gmail.com

 



Looks like you missed out, that was such a great deal. Now that system went from 450 to 699 but you get a 19" monitor with it. The system they have now only has a E5200 and 3gb Ram, which is ok but stinks compared to the original deal for a E7300 and 4gb ram. Now it looks like you'll have to build your own to get similar performance for the price.

Let me know if you need help with it. In the meantime i'll see if i can find another oem build that will suit you.
 


radeon 4650 is slower than your 3870 and is less than $70
 
Then I must have mistaken the card for another card. Still if he's going to build the computer. Price out a piece by piece on a wishlist and see what the outcome is. pretty sure he can go higher than a 4650.
 


I as well as several others did this for him in his original thread which i assume you havent read.

 
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