They're not just talking about the game WoW though, in which case you'd be 100% right...
But It's the game + HB using a combat bot @ 60 TPS and using an extensive healing rotation/engine in a mythic raid environment @ high settings 60+fps ... are you factoring that in?
I'd love to save money and go the cheapest route, but I -really- want to hit my goals with this new PC.
Since you are building machine for just under $2k, you are probably taking into account its longevity too (even if you have not mentioned it).
And outstanding several more WoW expansions is a must!
Getting the-best-performance/value components is the best tactic in your situation.
I can remember, when built my first machine, optimized for WoW in Jan 2007, I arranged it with the best on the market:
- Core 2 Duo E6600, selected from the best production week, pretested in the nearby hardware lab for hardcore overclock - from stock 2.4 to stable 3.6 GHz! It was stable even on 4.0, but required water cooling!
Since I already had some good nVidia Geforce VGA, hardware modded to its Quadro twin, I postponed its upgrade.
In tje next year took a 8800 GTS, which got upgraded few years later to 280 GTX, but the good old C2Duo E6600 was still kicking!
In 2011 successfully started to run 5-6 gather bots simultaneously.
In 2012 the botting finally sponsored new machine (i7-920, again overclocked from 2.9 to 3.6 GHz, but it happened to be very "warmy" indeed too!)
So it successfully survived Burning Crusade, WOTLK, Cataclysm, and was well "retired" in Pandaria.
"Retired" is in brackets, because it continued to work as botting machine under my desk for another 2 expansions or 3 years till late 2015, limiting the botting sessions from 5 to 4, then to 3, due to the increased requirements from the WoW client in the years.
And nowadays it is still actually retired as happy home PC in my brothers home - with a fresh Win 10 plus new SSD, booting windows for 10sec - and browsing the web in the evenings!
It is 9 years since then, and the machine is still running - a few years of mindless gaming nearly 24/7, a few years real 24/7 botting, and in the latest years with casual run few hours daily.
What caused this longevity:
- The best Quality components!
The most failing parts are usually Motherboard and the Power supply, so the best on the enthusiast market is supposed to be chosen:
In the case I used the premium Asus MB, made my CPU's chipset (Which is usually bundled with tons of annoying and useless stuff, which most people think that rise the MB's value, but they are terribly wrong - the quality rise it!) and very good, but expensive indeed PSU - Seasonic 400W first and Chieftec/Antec 700W lately, when the hungry GTX 280 had demand for it.
It is usually not cheap enough to get Quality & Performance components, since most people (and web sites) usually compare the performance value in hardware reviews, but the quality ("converted" into reliability & longevity) always pays out!