Fastest CPU for WoW for under US$200?

[Bosk]

I'm looking to upgrade my mobo/processor and since I'm playing WoW I want something that will run it as fast as possible.

My budget for the CPU is approx US$200.
I also need a motherboard that has an AGP slot because I recently bought a Radeon X1650 AGP that I don't want to upgrade for a few months at least.
Any kind of board that offers both DDR & DDR2 support would be great (but not essential) as I wouldn't have to upgrade from my 1GB DDR at the same time.


I was thinking of getting the cheapest/slowest Intel core duo but I've heard they have issues with WoW and I'd like to know if theres something faster out there for the money.

Cheers for any advice you can offer.
Bosk

[Kalos]

I'd suggest you wait until you're ready to drop the AGP format. They've been trying to ditch it on motherboards for four years, all the new Core 2 Duo processors, the best line of processors a consumer can get right now, have been taken away from architectural support for an AGP slot by a redesign of thier Northbridge. Some companies actually do slap an AGP slot on the motherboard against Intel's specifications, it works, but at a reduced performance compared to an older processor, with an older supporting chipset that were made for AGP rather than the newly designs with the focus on the future slot, PCI-E.

I don't think you'd be happy if you had to switch your graphics card, your motherboard, and processor all over again in a couple of months.

Besides as of which, what do you use now? We can't really plot an upgrade course for you if we have no clue as to the current specifications.

[Clavina]

'Upgrading' to a system with an agp mb may actually be more expensive than getting a board with a PCI-E slot as they are getting pretty rare. My usual hardware supplier doesn't even ship agp boards any more.

You say you've recently bought an AGP card... could you return it and get a refund? Or sell it for some more upgrade funds?

Your request is a bit vague.. do you need a new a new cpu? a new board & cpu? a new board, cpu and video card? or what?

Finally the core2duo processors have overtaken the current AMD offerings in terms of performance but the AMD chips are still perform very well and are a lot cheaper.

[Redmumba]

Not to mention that an upgrade will most likely include motherboard, new memory, etc.. Just stick with what you have until you can afford a full system upgrade... it will be more rewarding in the long run.