In wire-electrical discharge machining (W-EDM), the dielectric plays an important role as the working fluid. It affects the material removal rate and the properties of the machined surface. This paper deals with the effects of the electrical conductivity of dielectric and cobalt percentage of sintered carbides on the machining characteristics and the machined surface integrities with deionized water as dielectric. A series of experiments have been performed on sintered carbides having different cobalt contents. Experimental results show that a higher cobalt content of WC decreases the metal removal rate and worsens the surface quality. Lower electrical conductivity of the dielectric results in a higher metal removal rate as the gap between wire electrode and workpiece reduced. Especially, the surface integrities of rough-cut workpiece, wire electrode, and debris were analyzed also through scanning electron microscopy(SEM) and surface roughness tester. By energy dispersive spectrometry(EDS), it is confirmed that micro cracks and some of electrode material are found on the workpiece surface.