My current specs that I'm gaming on are as follows (they are pretty not-HARD, but I've got college loans and stuff these days)
Intel e5300 @3.2ghz
4GB ddr2 RAM
HD 4830
WD 640gb hdd
The brand escapes me, but a nice brand 650w psu (so it shouldn't be a limiting factor here)
19" 1440x900 monitor (ya, lots of people are going to say GET A NEW MONITOR, but I am completely ok with this one I promise)
I mostly play WoW and anything new that my friends get into (L4D2, CoD, etc.)
Believe it or not, on that machine when I play WoW in an active environment (lots of characters/spell effects on my screen) my FPS can drop below 20, which really affects the game play quite a bit.
So I am really focusing on what I can do to help in that kind of environment. I BELIEVE WoW to be CPU bound these days, but I am almost positive that it doesn't play nice with anything beyond 2 cores (would love to be corrected on that one).
If I ask my mom and my brother for something they would probably be willing to spend around $150, and I also have about $50 in newegg gift certificates. I have narrowed down what I want to one of the following:
Option #1
Upgrade HD4830 to GTX 460
Option #2
Upgrade CPU to phenom II x4 945 (or 955 BE if I can swing it). Would have to go with a cheapy motherboard, and then get a new 4GB of DDR3 with my gift certificate
Option #3
Upgrade HDD with an OCZ Vertex 2 60gb SSD. I'm not sure what exactly it is WoW loads from the HDD while playing though.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
Intel e5300 @3.2ghz
4GB ddr2 RAM
HD 4830
WD 640gb hdd
The brand escapes me, but a nice brand 650w psu (so it shouldn't be a limiting factor here)
19" 1440x900 monitor (ya, lots of people are going to say GET A NEW MONITOR, but I am completely ok with this one I promise)
I mostly play WoW and anything new that my friends get into (L4D2, CoD, etc.)
Believe it or not, on that machine when I play WoW in an active environment (lots of characters/spell effects on my screen) my FPS can drop below 20, which really affects the game play quite a bit.
So I am really focusing on what I can do to help in that kind of environment. I BELIEVE WoW to be CPU bound these days, but I am almost positive that it doesn't play nice with anything beyond 2 cores (would love to be corrected on that one).
If I ask my mom and my brother for something they would probably be willing to spend around $150, and I also have about $50 in newegg gift certificates. I have narrowed down what I want to one of the following:
Option #1
Upgrade HD4830 to GTX 460
Option #2
Upgrade CPU to phenom II x4 945 (or 955 BE if I can swing it). Would have to go with a cheapy motherboard, and then get a new 4GB of DDR3 with my gift certificate
Option #3
Upgrade HDD with an OCZ Vertex 2 60gb SSD. I'm not sure what exactly it is WoW loads from the HDD while playing though.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated, thanks.