Upgrade graphics card?

[Cyrberus]

Low FPS during massive aoe!

I'm new to lvl 90 and just did Sha of Anger. I was getting around 5 fps around the end of the fight on medium graphics settings with only the view distance set to high. I'm running a GeForce 9800 GTX and am looking to upgrade.

System info:

AMD64 6000 Dual core 3.0 GHz
80GB SSD
500GB platter
8GB RAM
ASUS mobo (don't have model number atm)


The game runs great all the time except during massive aoe during boss fights. It was like this at the end of Cata as well. After looking at some benchmarks it looks like my card already beats out much of the current generation. I'm looking to keep the budget under $150. Are there any worthwhile upgrades for me? Or should I wait a bit and upgade my whole system? I'd prefer a GeForce solution if possible. Thanks for your interest!

[Deleted]

your cpu is more likely to be the issue.

[Asurakai]

The more people around, the more intense it is on both the CPU and GPU so if this is during a 25 man raid, then it is probably both screwing you over. In my opinion, Geforce cards aren't very cost effecient until you are willing to spend over $300 on a GPU, otherwise some Radeon cards are in a very good spot right now. This, however, is based on newegg prices. Usually I'd say the GPU is much more important than the CPU but in your case it is hard to tell. The only Geforce card on newegg within your price range is the 560 which wouldn't be that great of a buy sayin how the Radeon 7850 is significantly more powerful for only $20 more.

A big problem with your processor is that is has a AM2 socket, which are getting hard to find now days. There are some pretty good Phenom processors with AM2+ sockets and if your motherboard has BIO updates for the AM2+ socket, you could take advantage of that but you would likely have to get a used processor on Ebay so I don't know if that is necessarily a good Idea. In the end, ignoring this issue for now and replacing your motherboard and processor in the future once you save up some more money may be a better option.

I edit way too much after I post >.<

[Cyrberus]

The more people around, the more intense it is on both the CPU and GPU so if this is during a 25 man raid, then it is probably both screwing you over. In my opinion, Geforce cards aren't very cost effecient until you are willing to spend over $300 on a GPU, otherwise some Radeon cards are in a very good spot right now. This, however, is based on newegg prices. Usually I'd say the GPU is much more important than the CPU but in your case it is hard to tell. The only Geforce card on newegg within your price range is the 560 which wouldn't be that great of a buy sayin how the Radeon 7850 is significantly more powerful for only $20 more.

A big problem with your processor is that is has a AM2 socket, which are getting hard to find now days. There are some pretty good Phenom processors with AM2+ sockets and if your motherboard has BIO updates for the AM2+ socket, you could take advantage of that but you would likely have to get a used processor on Ebay so I don't know if that is necessarily a good Idea. In the end, ignoring this issue for now and replacing your motherboard and processor in the future once you save up some more money may be a better option.

I edit way too much after I post >.<

Thank you for the feedback. I don't know much about Ati cards so ill take a look at what you suggested. This build is maybe 4 years old or so and I knew that wow only makes use of 2 cores so that's why I went dual. Plus the quads were around 2.2 Ghz and very expensive at the time.

[Saithes]

your cpu is more likely to be the issue.

shroudster is right in saying this. Your CPU will likely be a bottleneck to any modern GPU and upgrading your GPU wouldn't give a significant increase being it'll be limited by the CPU. Even a modern Dual Core is around 3-4x faster than your current CPU