Need a bit of upgrade advice, please.

[Eldonia]

With the new LFR being only 25 man I have ran into some frame rate issues in WoW. It is an older PC that I've done upgrades on myself for years now. I've done some work on my computer before so I of course though that lower frame rate meant the video card couldn't handle what was going on with all the added effects from 25 people. I found out that I didn't know as much as I thought I did and upon replacing my video card I not only noticed that my frame rate didn't increase it actually decreased. I went from a GE force 9400GT 512mb PCI-e where I could average about 25 FPS(good enough for me) outside of the 25 mans and about 1 frame every 3 seconds in heavy graphical phases to a Radeon 4550 HD 1 gb PCI-e card, where I get about 40fps outside and 1 frame every 10 seconds in raid. Well as you can guess, playing a slide show during raids isn't quite as fun as it should be so I think I'm going to take this card back. As I mentioned earlier its an older PC, so I think my graphics card might not be my only issue. I put it together from upgrading one piece at a time over a few years. I'm going to look into upgrading some other parts here soon, but I'm on a bit of a budget(I'm sure almost everyone is this time of year). I'll have about $150 to upgrade some part of my computer to try to at least make this playable. It doesn't have to be high end at all, just some kind of improvement where I'm not watching slides of WoW as its happening. I have tried disabling my second monitor, turning off addons, lowering the settings, changing resolutions, and I see very little difference frame rate wise. Any help or advice would be greatly appropriated and I apologize for the wall of text(long time lurker on mmo-champ forums, first time poster). I'm not looking for anyone to go out and find me specifics(I like doing the leg work). but just a general idea on what would get me going to a better frame rate. Also if I left anything out that could be of help, please let me know.

Edit: I found the links for some of this, but found that since I'm a new poster I cant post them. Sorry about that.

Here's my current setup:


Case-unknown - had it for years
Manufacturer:
Model #:
Name:
Link if possible:

Ram-
Manufacturer:Kingston
Model #:
Speed: 800 mhz ddr2
Size: 2 * 2gb
Link if possible:

CPU-
Manufacturer:Intel
Model #:e7600 core 2 duo
Speed:2.66ghz
Link if possible:

PSU-
Manufacturer:??
Model #:??
Wattage: 450 watt
Link if possible:

GPU-
Manufacturer:Nvidia ge force 9400GT 512
Model #:
DxDiag: 9.0c
Link if possible:

Mobo-
Manufacturer:Asus
Model #:P5q SE
Link if possible:

Operating System-
Name:Windows XP Pro
Bit: 32 bit

Resolution-
Size: 1280 X 1024 on dual monitors

Sound Card-
Manufacturer:Onboard on Asus Mobo
Model #:
Channels:
DxDiag:
Link if possible:

Network Card-Onboard
Manufacturer:
Model #:
Wired or Wireless:
Link if possible:

================
Now what is it you want....

Upgrade or New Computer:

Upgrade on what (you hope): Not sure, willing to take any suggestions.

Willing to Self Build or a Pre-Built: Self Install

How much you want to spend: $150

How much you can spend: $150

What all you plan to use it for: Gaming

What Operating system you want to use & Bit: Win XP 32 bit

What Resolution you hope to be in: Any

What Settings do you Want & how much FPS: Good or fair, and to stay above 12 fps would be nice, but anything better than 1/10 FPS

What Country are you from:United States

What can you re-use: Any of the current parts

Network will be wired or wireless: Wired

[curtains]

pick up a gefore 550 Ti and a SSD best 300$ you will every spend defiantly best bang for your buck

[Eldonia]

First of all thank you for the recommendations. I checked into the geforce 550 Ti card. It looks like a solid card, and from the reviews I read, a very solid gaming card. Ill probably go on a hunt at my local computer hardware store for one or something very similar. A follow up question on the SSD though, Do they really greatly improve the performance of the system over a 9200 RPM hard drive, or is it just the faster access for better loading times in all apps including games?

[Joxer]

You will never regret buying a SSD.
A normal HDD only gets higher access times depending on their RPMs, they are still stuck with 100MB/s transfer times.
A SSD on the other hand can fully benefit from your sata-ports, highest transfer speed on normal SSDs now are +500MB/s Read/Write, and the accesstime is much lower than any normal HDD.

[Spaceshaman]

Your VGA card is fine and can handle the stuff at least on medium. Your bottleneck is your CPU. Check your socket type, if it's 775 you are at max upgrade and need a new mobo.

.... Oh I see you have DDR2 RAM. Dude... you need a new mobo, new RAM, new CPU.

That won't be cheap lol.

[Jakexe]

Go with the GTX 560ti, it's a great card for the price. I'd suggest MTI or eVGA.

Mobo:http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-P8Z68-Del...5432579&sr=8-5

CPU:http://www.amazon.com/Intel-BOX80623...5432650&sr=1-1

RAM:http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-PC3-10...5432697&sr=1-1
or
http://www.amazon.com/G-SKILL-Ripjaw...5432728&sr=1-3

PSU: http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Enthus...5432769&sr=1-2
or anything higher V.

If you want a new case get something like a coolermaster HAF 912 or similar.