What is the best PC for World of Warcraft?

According to the World of Warcraft System Requirements it will run on about any new PC you could buy today as long as it has a current nVIDIA or ATI GPU inside.  As a game originally released in 2004 it has always had low system requirements, which have inched up with the new expansion packs that they release every couple of years.  The latest upcoming expansion pack will take advantage of newer technologies for better graphics quality.

A common point is that WoW players will play for hours on end, and when you play using lower end GPUs they end up failing due to being over worked.  So, while a stock KillaRad™ Kilo PC is powerful enough to play WoW well, the integrated graphics are not intended to be over worked, especially considering that the cooling isn't designed for it.  You really need a discrete GPU, which you get by adding a graphics card to the system.  So, on a budget a Kilo multimedia PC with a graphics card upgrade to a GeForce GT 430 would play World of Warcraft very well, along with its latest expansion packs, including Cataclysm.  Considering that World of Warcraft's graphics are somewhat low-fi by 2010 standards, choosing more CPU power and better graphics such as the GeForce GTS 450 will give you a more well rounded gaming PC for playing a variety of other popular games.  For World of Warcraft alone, a KillaRad™ GamerNova™ PC is total overkill.  You can't go wrong with a Radical Value™ iX.  One tweak you can do if you wanted to spend more money for more smoothness would be to choose a 10,000 RPM Velociraptor hard drive which will speed up loading new areas.

Another point of interest is that WoW is sometimes used more as a 3D social networking experience rather than being glued to the game all of the time.  In this regard some players multi-task by running dual monitors with WoW on one monitor, and a web browser or other productivity going on with the other monitor.

Ultimately the answer to the question of the best World of Warcraft PC will involve the variable of your budget.  If you factor in the need for a new widescreen monitor, or a surround sound speaker set, that can change the equation.

KillaRad Webmaster
Updated November 4, 2010