Video card or RAM?

[Argument]

The Burning Crusade seems to be a little much for my poor machine, so I think it's time for an upgrade. I'm only getting 10-15fps out in the world, Shattrath is hellish and Hellfire Ramparts (because it's outside, I assume) is a nightmare. My current setup is:

Windows XP Home
AMD Athlon 3600+ processor
1GB RAM
Radeon X300 256MB graphics (onboard)
I'm not sure of my motherboard, but it definitely has both AGP and PCIE slots and space for more RAM.

So, my question is, am I better off getting another gig of RAM or a new graphics card? I'm on a budget, so the cards I'm looking at are the likes of a PCIE 512MB Radeon X1950 Pro (around £100). I'm after the biggest performance hike, particularly for 5-mans and raiding, as at the moment I am sometimes prevented from pulling my weight in groups.

Thanks for your advice. :grin:

[Kalos]

The graphics card would be better. The X1950 Pro is a good card. I should warn you however, that next to no motherboards actually have both AGP and PCI-E slots. You should really ID it so that we can confirm you actually can run PCI-E cards. It wouldn't be the first time this month that someone mistook a PCI slot to be the same thing as a PCI-E slot.

[Tunga]

Is that an Athlon 64 or an Athlon XP? And the RAM is DDR or DDR2? This makes quite a difference on how much you'll get from an upgrade.

Regardless though, the graphics card looks like it will be the bottleneck in that system, at leats more so than the RAM, so if you want to upgrade it an X1950Pro isn't a bad choice for the money at ~£80 on eBuyer:
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/126420

[Kalos]

In answer to Tunga, that has to be an Athlon 64, there weren't Athlon XP processors produced with such a high rating of performance, they maxed out at 3200+ The remaining could go either way.

[Argument]

Thanks guys, looks like a graphics card is definitely the way to go then.

Kalos, you're right, my processor is an Athlon 64, and my RAM is DDR rather than DDR2. Thankfully last night a friend mentioned that he had a spare drawerful knocking around, so it looks like I'll be getting a free RAM upgrade as well! As for the motherboard, I recall checking when I bought it (around two years ago) that it definitely had a PCIE slot, and the guy in the shop insisted it had 8x AGP as well, but I will be craking the case to check before I buy anything just to make sure.

Thanks again for your help.

[Tunga]

Okay, wasn't sure what the highest XPs were. Well that's makes your CPU reasonable anyway.

If you want to check the motherboard specs without opening the case (though having a look is always a good idea too), grab CPU-Z:
http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
This will provide your motherboard model and then you can look it up online (or post it and we can).

For the RAM, if you're going to add some then you should make sure it's the same speed and ratings as your current stuff, and make sure you run it in matched pairs (see your motherboard manual or check online for which slots you should use). Ideally you want to run identical RAM in all slots to avoid any stability issues, but at a minimum it needs to be identical in pairs.

[bubkusjones]

Is that an Athlon 64 or an Athlon XP? And the RAM is DDR or DDR2? This makes quite a difference on how much you'll get from an upgrade.

Regardless though, the graphics card looks like it will be the bottleneck in that system, at leats more so than the RAM, so if you want to upgrade it an X1950Pro isn't a bad choice for the money at ~£80 on eBuyer:
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/126420

DDR vs DDR2 will not matter as much as 1gig vs 2 gig.

XP (32bit) can see a maximum of 4 gigs of ram, though the actual maximum of physical ram it can handle is roughly 3.2 gigs (swap space will take up the rest). Any more and it'll start crashing.

Though it's a bit of a personal choice, I'd avoid ATI. They do make some nice hardware, and can often have better specs than nVidia's offerings, but nVidia has much better, more reliable drivers. And why have a kickass card if it makes your system crash often?



I'd reccomend something in the Geforce 7*** series. I wouldn't go for the 8*** series unless you really want a high-end card (8800 GT Ultra with 640 megs of ram, for example) or you specifically want to be able to upgrade to Vista/DX10 without changing your card. Of course, a lot of the DX10 capable cards will be unable to use the next version of DX10, when it's released, so that's another reason to wait for that upgrade.

A 7600 (or, if you can find one, a 7900/7950) should do you nicely, if you're playing WOW for the majority.

[Tunga]

DDR vs DDR2 will not matter as much as 1gig vs 2 gig. That wasn't in debate. The issue was the speed of the RAM and whether it would be the bottleneck in the system compared to the graphics card. Adding an X1950 to a system with 1GB of PC2700 isn't really worth it.

Though it's a bit of a personal choice, I'd avoid ATI. They do make some nice hardware, and can often have better specs than nVidia's offerings, but nVidia has much better, more reliable drivers. And why have a kickass card if it makes your system crash often?Any source no this? I've never seen anything to suggest that is even remotely true.

Right now the GF8s are probably a better choice than ATIs new cards, in terms of performance per pound, but there's really not a lot in.

The 7900GS is still decent for the price (basically an overclocked 7800GT if I remember correctly).

[Argument]

Just wanted to update you lovely folks... It's taken me a while to get a new video card as I have a regrettable tendency to spend all my spare cash on beer, but last night I installed a 256MB PCIE Radeon x800GTO, and I'm seeing roughly a four-fold increase in my framrate across the board, up from 14 or so to 60 in Outland and from 8 to 40 in Shattrath.

So, thanks for the advice, guys! My machine is happy to run WoW again, which means I'm happy too.