Computer Upgrades - Looking for bang for the buck

[Tal]

Hey gang - I'm getting a little frustrated with my current frame rates when AoE is going off in raids. I'd like to be able to run with spell effects on and still be able to run things like Recount in 25 mans. So what I'm looking for is where I could upgrade my beast for the most bang for the buck. Here are my current specs:

Motherboard
Processor
Memory
Videocard
Powersupply

I'd thought that upgrading my videocard would be the quickest way to see a Framerate increase but some reviews online make me wonder if there is a problem somewhere else since I generally see 30 to 60 fps in most places - even raids. The big thing is not having a good way to check recount in 25 mans and still enjoy decent framerates for when the AoE goes off.

[Mavfin]

Hey gang - I'm getting a little frustrated with my current frame rates when AoE is going off in raids. I'd like to be able to run with spell effects on and still be able to run things like Recount in 25 mans. So what I'm looking for is where I could upgrade my beast for the most bang for the buck. Here are my current specs:

Motherboard
Processor
Memory
Videocard
Powersupply

I'd thought that upgrading my videocard would be the quickest way to see a Framerate increase but some reviews online make me wonder if there is a problem somewhere else since I generally see 30 to 60 fps in most places - even raids. The big thing is not having a good way to check recount in 25 mans and still enjoy decent framerates for when the AoE goes off.

Without commenting on your specific pieces, I have the same issue with Recount in 25-mans, but I know what my problem is. It's my *old* hardware's slow frontside bus. I'm fixing that issue today, if the Fed Ex guy ever gets here. I've got a vid card that could handle it fine, but I really can't feed it as fast as I need to.

[Concillian]

Processor & video card are likely both contributing. Video sees heavy use in the AoE.

7600GT is getting long in the tooth, you can do VERY well now for <$100.
HD4830 or HD4850 can be had under $100. Some 4830s are in the $75 range after rebate ($90 range before)
The nVidia competition to the 4830 is 9800GT.
If those are too rich, 4670 / 9600GT are cheaper and still very large steps up.

You can keep your RAM if you limit your FSB speed. The most common dual core now is an e7400, but these e5xxx series are reasonably competitive. I have both an e5200 and an e7200 and the e5xxx series benchmarks about the same as the e7xxx when it's clocked about 200 MHz higher. If that helps your comparisons.

e5xxx CPU (pick your speed / price) 2.5GHz 2.6GHz 2.7GHz

mobo then is whatever your favorite P43 or P45 board is.
Gigabyte UD3 series boards get very high marks. I have ASUS boards in my machines, it doens't make a whole lot of difference here aside from having the slots you want and anything special you want to plug into it (like firewire?)

Total damage is under $300 to make a very substantial upgrade for you.

If you want to try a piecewise upgrade, get the Graphics card first and see if that addresses your issue, this is the furthest "behind the curve" I think. It's also the cheapest. The re-evaluate and continue if necessary. There is very little need for much more than a 4850 in WoW at typical resolutions (20" widescreen or less), and they can be had for around $100 now. It's what I use, andI feel it was pretty worth it when I bought mine when it was >$150. I'm very happy with it.

[Tal]

Thanks guys - a good friend is giving me a new video card to try first. I'll be holding onto these recommendations should I not see enough of a performance jump.:)

[Tal]

Okay I've given up my hopes of getting a i7 in the meantime. I'm now looking at this combo:

Intel Core i5-750
ASUS P7P55D LGA 1156 Intel P55
G.SKILL Trident 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000

The video card I was given was the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3

Now the question I have is - with these upgrades will I be able to turn up the settings in wow in both the world and in raid? Will my Powersupply be sufficient for what its being asked to run?

[Concillian]

Okay I've given up my hopes of getting a i7 in the meantime. I'm now looking at this combo:

Intel Core i5-750
ASUS P7P55D LGA 1156 Intel P55
G.SKILL Trident 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000

The video card I was given was the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3

Now the question I have is - with these upgrades will I be able to turn up the settings in wow in both the world and in raid? Will my Powersupply be sufficient for what its being asked to run?

Powersupply will handle it. CPU will be in good shape, video card will be good enough for decent settings.

In 25 man raids, my machine with a ATi 4850 + equivalent of a Core2 e8600 struggles in some encounters unless I pause recount, so I won't guarantee awesome performance in 25 mans. I don't do enough 25 mans to really be able to experiment with what the issue is, it could be there is a setting or two I could put different that would help, I don't really know. Performance everywhere else should be pretty good at any settings (except dynamic shadows, leave those off, I don't like them anyway, but they really suck the performance).

i7 really doesn't offer enough of an advantage over i5 to be worthwhile, unless you absolutely need a quad (since there aren't any quad i5's). So I think you've made a good choice.

[Tal]

Powersupply will handle it. CPU will be in good shape, video card will be good enough for decent settings.

In 25 man raids, my machine with a ATi 4850 + equivalent of a Core2 e8600 struggles in some encounters unless I pause recount, so I won't guarantee awesome performance in 25 mans. I don't do enough 25 mans to really be able to experiment with what the issue is, it could be there is a setting or two I could put different that would help, I don't really know. Performance everywhere else should be pretty good at any settings (except dynamic shadows, leave those off, I don't like them anyway, but they really suck the performance).

i7 really doesn't offer enough of an advantage over i5 to be worthwhile, unless you absolutely need a quad (since there aren't any quad i5's). So I think you've made a good choice.

Well its been officially ditched. My car and my wife's car have both reached the point where they're needing new tires (and an alignment for mine) and any available cash is being shunted to covering THAT cost.:(

[Tal]

Powersupply will handle it. CPU will be in good shape, video card will be good enough for decent settings.

In 25 man raids, my machine with a ATi 4850 + equivalent of a Core2 e8600 struggles in some encounters unless I pause recount, so I won't guarantee awesome performance in 25 mans. I don't do enough 25 mans to really be able to experiment with what the issue is, it could be there is a setting or two I could put different that would help, I don't really know. Performance everywhere else should be pretty good at any settings (except dynamic shadows, leave those off, I don't like them anyway, but they really suck the performance).

i7 really doesn't offer enough of an advantage over i5 to be worthwhile, unless you absolutely need a quad (since there aren't any quad i5's). So I think you've made a good choice.

What a long strange road this has been. Thanks to the generosity of my brother's employer and cash for christmas from relatives I've been able to push through the following upgrades:

Motherboard
Processor
Memory will be 6 gigs of G.Skill 240-Pin DDR3 1333
Running Windows 7

And the Videocard I link above. Do you think I'll be able to turn up a lot of the settings on the videocard? I hate having to turn everything to low to play in Raids. Would grabbing a second of the card above in SLI help?

[Concillian]

And the Videocard I link above. Do you think I'll be able to turn up a lot of the settings on the videocard? I hate having to turn everything to low to play in Raids. Would grabbing a second of the card above in SLI help?

SLi is not worthwhile on any card less than about $200. Below that you get significantly more benefit just going to a higher priced version and selling your existing card on ebay or something. Also, AMD chipsets don't support SLi, as they kind of compete with nVidia, so that's not even an option. I still use a 4850 and it's similar performance to the current get 5750, but cheaper. They're down to $100 now. 9600 GT hasn't really moved in price in close to a year, still around $75. Can probably sell on eBay for $40-50.


955 Phenom II is a well priced quad and you should be able to get better performance, but I don't have enough experience with 25 man raids to know how much you can push up the sliders. As has been mentioned a lot of that is addon related too.

You can tell right now if the video card is limiting, just change the resolution lower and see if it gets better. Resolution is almost completely independent of CPU. If video is limiting your current settings at all it'll be better with lower res. I suspect you aren't very video limited right now, but in raids, bosses can get lit up pretty good with all the spell effects so that video card could potentially be an issue. Tanks and sometimes healers can often point in a direction to minimize this though.

[Kevin]

I'm bringing this thread back from the dead for my own questions.

I've currently got:

NVidia 7600 GT
Opteron 170 running at 2.1 GHz (It's a 2.0 base, I've had it up to 2.4 and running for over a month but the environment the system was in was cooler then)
3.5 GB DDR 333 RAM

I want to replace all of this. My Powersupply should be good for some bigger upgrades so I'm not worried about that.


The tricky part, and the biggest reason for the posting is that I have $150 I spend now and I'll have about $200 I can spend next month. I can wait and save the $150 and and have $350 next month, but I was figuring I could safely get a video card now and the mobo/process/memory next month. I could even probably put $75 towards things in September. Since I'm going to be Windows XP for a bit longer, I figure that means I can go with a little less memory and then get more later when I'm going to have an OS that will utilize it later, which is where potential September budget can help I figure.

Since I won't be getting anything cutting edge at that budget, I'm not worried about trying to forecast prices a month or 2 out.

Target applications are Starcraft 2 (which runs on the current config if I turn everything down, but I'd rather not have it all turned down). Diablo 3 in the future as I'm not likely upgrading for another 2 years and I'm sure I'll be back in WoW at some point (which this system handles acceptably, though I have to tweak stuff from time to time). Everything else I currently play, my current system is fine or overkill for.

But I'm thinking I can push into a $125 - $150 video card this month, then mobo/proc/ 4 GB of memory in the $200 - $225 range in August, then if I get an OS where it matters, more memory in Sept. Does that make sense?

With that in mind what are some thoughts on parts to get? Especially video cards.

[Kevin]

I'm thinking I can do a 5770 if I push the $150 price point (might have to do a rebate or catch a sale for that but it seems doable), I've seen 5750's for $125, or maybe an Nvidia 250 in $115 range. The 260's which don't seem to be as good as a 5770 look to be in the $160 range.

But if my research was right the 5770 performs around the old 4870 but has DX11 support in hardware. The 5750 is slower of course but still gives the DX11 support.

Or am I way off base? Trying to figure out quickly what video card is better is a bit of pain even with some of Tom's charts and other sites, you see 3 or 4 generations of cards in the mix. I think I'm willing to spend a small premium for a more current generation as I've seen what happens down the road with older cards that don't have some of the hardware support, they fall behind what had been a slower next gen card to the point where things can be unplayable but you can squeak by on the newer one. So I can see a future where a 5770 is beating a 4870 because of some of the hardware support, and while both are slugs compared to the new stuff, the 5770 would still be serviceable. Remember I can handle playing WoW at 7-15 FPS, I can deal with SC2 on the lowest settings. I don't want to, but I can. It will be different games then of course, but that's what I'm trying to get at.

[LavCat]

I'm thinking I can do a 5770 if I push the $150 price point (might have to do a rebate or catch a sale for that but it seems doable), I've seen 5750's for $125, or maybe an Nvidia 250 in $115 range. The 260's which don't seem to be as good as a 5770 look to be in the $160 range.

But if my research was right the 5770 performs around the old 4870 but has DX11 support in hardware. The 5750 is slower of course but still gives the DX11 support.

Or am I way off base? Trying to figure out quickly what video card is better is a bit of pain even with some of Tom's charts and other sites, you see 3 or 4 generations of cards in the mix. I think I'm willing to spend a small premium for a more current generation as I've seen what happens down the road with older cards that don't have some of the hardware support, they fall behind what had been a slower next gen card to the point where things can be unplayable but you can squeak by on the newer one. So I can see a future where a 5770 is beating a 4870 because of some of the hardware support, and while both are slugs compared to the new stuff, the 5770 would still be serviceable. Remember I can handle playing WoW at 7-15 FPS, I can deal with SC2 on the lowest settings. I don't want to, but I can. It will be different games then of course, but that's what I'm trying to get at.

Gratification delayed is gratification denied, however if you can I'd suggest waiting till the next video card refresh, probably at the end of the summer. The current lines of cards should then drop in price.

I don't know about Starcraft, but with WoW my current limitation seems to be memory. Because of height issues I can't populate more sockets with the same memory sticks I have, so I'd have to buy all new memory. I wish memory were not so expensive. That said, my next system upgrade will probably be a copper pot for making Hollandaise.

[Kevin]

Gratification delayed is gratification denied, however if you can I'd suggest waiting till the next video card refresh, probably at the end of the summer. The current lines of cards should then drop in price.

Well NVidia and ATI both released new cards at the end of May, so really this isn't that far out from that mini refresh. It wasn't a full cycle, but it still was a minor card refresh and did impact prices.

That being said, not really wanting to wait any longer. I've been delaying for about 8 months as it is.

[Lissa]

I'm thinking I can do a 5770 if I push the $150 price point (might have to do a rebate or catch a sale for that but it seems doable), I've seen 5750's for $125, or maybe an Nvidia 250 in $115 range. The 260's which don't seem to be as good as a 5770 look to be in the $160 range.

But if my research was right the 5770 performs around the old 4870 but has DX11 support in hardware. The 5750 is slower of course but still gives the DX11 support.

Or am I way off base? Trying to figure out quickly what video card is better is a bit of pain even with some of Tom's charts and other sites, you see 3 or 4 generations of cards in the mix. I think I'm willing to spend a small premium for a more current generation as I've seen what happens down the road with older cards that don't have some of the hardware support, they fall behind what had been a slower next gen card to the point where things can be unplayable but you can squeak by on the newer one. So I can see a future where a 5770 is beating a 4870 because of some of the hardware support, and while both are slugs compared to the new stuff, the 5770 would still be serviceable. Remember I can handle playing WoW at 7-15 FPS, I can deal with SC2 on the lowest settings. I don't want to, but I can. It will be different games then of course, but that's what I'm trying to get at.

The 5770 is a good card, I'm using it at present. I get around 40 to 50 FPS in Dalaran with everything turned up. Get 50 to 60 in raids when nothing really happening, high 30s during fights (except when tanking Marrowgar near the glacier, that kills the FPS because of the particle effect).

[Kevin]

The 5770 is a good card, I'm using it at present. I get around 40 to 50 FPS in Dalaran with everything turned up. Get 50 to 60 in raids when nothing really happening, high 30s during fights (except when tanking Marrowgar near the glacier, that kills the FPS because of the particle effect).

Got one for $135 after mail in rebate and an instant rebate ($150 after the instant), it's a PowerCooler that is shipped overclocked at 875. The special on it made it cheaper than other cards I saw, so I figured I'd go with it.

[Kevin]

Got one for $135 after mail in rebate and an instant rebate ($150 after the instant), it's a PowerCooler that is shipped overclocked at 875. The special on it made it cheaper than other cards I saw, so I figured I'd go with it.

OK so the video card is ordered and I'm not really going to be changing that at this time. However my computer has hard locked three times now in the last 4 days. Once while using it, once while I wasn't even in the house and it was sitting idle.

So there could be several things, but I have no indications of what the issue is so far. I stopped the overclock on the processor yesterday after the 2nd lock. But it locked up again tonight, while I was out and about.

So advice on a motherboard and processor? I may be accelerating the whole process (by dipping into savings). I have to have a functional home system for work reasons (even with the work laptop, I don't always bring that home and sometimes I have to do some small things for work) so if this one is indeed dying, then I can afford to make sure it's working sooner rather than later (and the processor is 5 years old at this point).

I will run a memtest on it here soon as I have had a stick of this old stuff fail before and I'll run HDD diags as well. But if anyone has some advice. I'd like the CPU/Mobo/4GB RAM for under $300 if possible, but I've seen that RAM is getting a bit more expensive again.

[Lissa]

Got one for $135 after mail in rebate and an instant rebate ($150 after the instant), it's a PowerCooler that is shipped overclocked at 875. The special on it made it cheaper than other cards I saw, so I figured I'd go with it.

OK so the video card is ordered and I'm not really going to be changing that at this time. However my computer has hard locked three times now in the last 4 days. Once while using it, once while I wasn't even in the house and it was sitting idle.

So there could be several things, but I have no indications of what the issue is so far. I stopped the overclock on the processor yesterday after the 2nd lock. But it locked up again tonight, while I was out and about.

So advice on a motherboard and processor? I may be accelerating the whole process (by dipping into savings). I have to have a functional home system for work reasons (even with the work laptop, I don't always bring that home and sometimes I have to do some small things for work) so if this one is indeed dying, then I can afford to make sure it's working sooner rather than later (and the processor is 5 years old at this point).

I will run a memtest on it here soon as I have had a stick of this old stuff fail before and I'll run HDD diags as well. But if anyone has some advice. I'd like the CPU/Mobo/4GB RAM for under $300 if possible, but I've seen that RAM is getting a bit more expensive again.

If you're looking for low price and good capabilities, I'd say go with an AMD Athlon X3 440 Rana with a Gigabyte UD3 AM3 MB. Then you can pick up 4G of RAM for about $100. Total cost of about $260 + shipping (probably around $275 after shipping).

[Tuftears]

Okay I've given up my hopes of getting a i7 in the meantime. I'm now looking at this combo:

Intel Core i5-750
ASUS P7P55D LGA 1156 Intel P55
G.SKILL Trident 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2000

The video card I was given was the GeForce 9600 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3

Now the question I have is - with these upgrades will I be able to turn up the settings in wow in both the world and in raid? Will my Powersupply be sufficient for what its being asked to run?

That's the same motherboard and CPU I'm running, and I defnitely turned up the settings. 8G of DDR3-1600 memory and a solid state drive for booting Windows and I'm giggling over how fast my system starts up now.

[LavCat]

8G of DDR3-1600 memory and a solid state drive for booting Windows and I'm giggling over how fast my system starts up now.

I have a SSD but I use it only for WoW.

[Kevin]

EDIT: Nevermind. I have another option. I forgot that the PSU in the system I have now was used out of convenience, but that I have another one, that is actually newer that was powering an older machine, and it does have the connectors I need. Silly me.

OK so the video card is ordered

I may be accelerating the whole process (by dipping into savings).

So I did get a new mobo/processor/memory as well. They are installed and happy.

The video card though wants a 6 pin external power line. My PSU doesn't have one of these. So I'm running with the old 7600GT right now. The question is are there adapters from the 4 pin lines that I can use here or am I looking at a new PSU as well?

I'll start my own research here as well because I'd like to know if the video card is good sooner rather than later of course.