GF 8800 GTS - Video Card Issue or something else?

[Blackdog]

So I've been having a lot of problems in World of Warcraft that seems to point to graphical lag - my fps will drop from around 30 to 5 at times. I never had these problems with the 6800 I had upgraded from - but all the newer non-MMO games - would not play as well on the 6800. At first I was thinking it was my video card - but this doesn't happen in any other games. Here are my current system specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ Socket 939 Dual Core CPU
ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe 939 NVIDIA nForce4 SLI ATX AMD Motherboard
MSI GeForce 8800GTS 640MB
2 x CORSAIR XMS 1GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
1 x Western Digital Raptor 36.7GB 10,000 RPM SATA 1.5Gb/s HDD
1 x Western Digital 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD
1 x Western Digital 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD
SAMSUNG 204BW Black 20" Widescreen LCD
700 watt PC Power and Cooling PSU

Anybody have any ideas on what I can do other than upgrade my machine? I don't want to have to go that route, but I'm thinking maybe with tax return, I may have to...

I'd try asking on the WoW forums - but there are not as many pc hardware types there...somebody said maybe b/c I'm running at 1680x1050 widescreen resolution that was the problem...but that doesn't seem to me that I'd get that much bad graphical lag in just 1 game...

 

[skizzled]

Its definitely not your resolution as the game itself isn't really that hard on your components. I'm tempted to think its the game itself or driver issues. But, if you haven't, do a clean install of the video drivers using Driver Cleaner to clean them out fully after you uninstall. When I played WoW a few weeks ago, I sometimes had issues of it bogging down in FPS but a newer driver fixed it for me. Also, try turning down AA if you are using it and the filtering.

 

[caw2007]

Your hardware is fine for WoW. It's not a particularly graphics intensive game. I'd look at your internet connection and firewall settings first. Make sure you have your BIOS and drivers updated to the latest and greatest. I guess after that you could start looking at the hardware. It never hurts to change up to a Core2 system or an AMD Socket AM2 system.

 

[Blackdog]

yeah I was thinking of upgrading. just dunno if I should go for a full blown brand new system - or just buy a few components like new mobo / cpu and/or ram - and put the other stuff in a new system.

I'll check some of the suggestions when I get home tonight and post a reply if I have any changes. If not I will just gather the money and buy better hardware.