Which piece of PC hardware should i replace first for gaming performance.

I play call of duty and a couple of other titles but mostly World of Warcraft.

I am running a

Amd athlon x2 250 3.0 ghz

ati hd 5450 1gb graphics card

4gb of ram

I'm curious to know what is holding me back the most at the moment. I know the graphics card is pretty bad but i've also heard that Wow is more cpu intensive than anything.I can currently run Wow at 1920x1080 with everything on ultra except Shadow quality and Liquid detail and get about 20-50fps.However i would like to have those two things on ultra as well.Any help given is deeply appreciated.

Depending on your PSU you could probably run a 5750.

Get a new graphics card, yours is really weak for a gaming card. You can snag GTS 250 for under $100 now. Or if you have a weak power supply go for a radeon 5670.ferret-gamer

i completely agree

or if you want to go ati hd 4850 is more or less the same preformance as a 250 for mere pennies more than a 250 :P idk it sells itself.. plus they were bought en mass back in their hayday one can be found used for a good price as well.. 50 bucks ish..

ah okay thanks.I was thinking sorta the same thing. I just found a deal on newegg for a hd 5770 and a 650 psu for about 200 bucks rougly.

ah okay thanks.I was thinking sorta the same thing. I just found a deal on newegg for a hd 5770 and a 650 psu for about 200 bucks rougly.

eastsideboy

Check your power supply and you may be able to save $100 on having to buy a new PSU.

my current psu is a 480w.i could get away with running a 5770 with that?

my current psu is a 480w.i could get away with running a 5770 with that?

eastsideboy

Depends. What's the model? Or if you're willing, open it up and tell me the line that reads something like "12V1 AND 12V2 SHALL NOT EXCEED 360W".

How many amps on the 12V rails(s)? It should be on a sticker affixed to the side of the PSU.

one sec i can check give me about 5 min and i'll pst again.

i dont see any statement that says anything about exceeding anything.what exactly am i looking for?i see a table with some different values for ac and dc output

You should see some graph with 3.3, 12, etc written on it. What does it say for 12V1 or 12V2 etc.

under 12v1 it says 17a and under 12v2 it says 18a

under 12v1 it says 17a and under 12v2 it says 18a

eastsideboy

That's not relevant, what you want is the combined wattage limit, as I said in my previous post.

Example:

What I'm referring to is the 492W (41A) in this pic.

However, I'm fairly certain that 2 rails with 17A and 18A respectively SHOULD be able to power a 5750/5770 guaranteed, regardless of their combined wattage limit.

under 12v1 it says 17a and under 12v2 it says 18a

eastsideboy

i see +3.3V&+5V Max 120W.dont know if thats relevant or not.

[QUOTE="eastsideboy"]

under 12v1 it says 17a and under 12v2 it says 18a

kaitanuvax

That's not relevant, what you want is the combined wattage limit, as I said in my previous post.

Example:

What I'm referring to is the 492W (41A) in this pic.

However, I'm fairly certain that 2 rails with 17A and 18A respectively SHOULD be able to power a 5750/5770 guaranteed, regardless of their combined wattage limit.

You can figure it out from the info given, the 5770 should run.

yeah it doesnt show the combined wattage on my psu

oh okay thanks thats good to know.And you say that the cpu is fine?or should i consider replacing that as well?

yeah it doesnt show the combined wattage on my psu

eastsideboy

5770 should be fine. That CPU will also slow things down, but that depends on the game.

oh okay thanks thats good to know.And you say that the cpu is fine?or should i consider replacing that as well?

eastsideboy

[QUOTE="eastsideboy"]

oh okay thanks thats good to know.And you say that the cpu is fine?or should i consider replacing that as well?

ferret-gamer

Unless you want to play Metro 2033 or GTA 4.

yes i actually have gta 4 and i have to run everything on low and it looks terrible lol.Where as Modern Warfare 2 i was able to run it out of the box fine with pretty good fps.

Sounds right. GTA 4 needs a quad.

Should have gotten a Phenom II x2 550 and have the ability to unlock it into essentially a Phenom II x4 940.

Should have gotten a Phenom II x2 550 and have the ability to unlock it into essentially a Phenom II x4 940.

kaitanuvax

Assuming that works it still won't be as fast as a native quad.

Is at as easy to replace the cpu as anything else?

[QUOTE="ferret-gamer"][QUOTE="eastsideboy"]

oh okay thanks thats good to know.And you say that the cpu is fine?or should i consider replacing that as well?

desertpython

Unless you want to play Metro 2033 or GTA 4.

[QUOTE="kaitanuvax"]

Should have gotten a Phenom II x2 550 and have the ability to unlock it into essentially a Phenom II x4 940.

desertpython

Assuming that works it still won't be as fast as a native quad.

Assuming that works it still won't be as fast as a native quad.

desertpython

I post the same GTA 4 benchmark results as a Phenom II x4 940. Spec for spec my CPU has the same everything as one...except its one .1GHz faster. 6MB L3 cache, same architecture,etc,etc.

If it unlocks it will be as fast as a 940, your are literally turning it into one. But that theory of unlocking is not reliable.ferret-gamer

True, but I stressed the fact that you would have the ability to, which he clearly does not with his current CPU.

[QUOTE="desertpython"]

[QUOTE="ferret-gamer"] Your CPU is a good match for a 5770, if you really want to you can overclock it a bit.ferret-gamer

Unless you want to play Metro 2033 or GTA 4.

It scales with more cores. And who games with a Pentium 4?!

[QUOTE="ferret-gamer"][QUOTE="desertpython"]

Unless you want to play Metro 2033 or GTA 4.

desertpython

It scales with more cores. And who games with a Pentium 4?!

A 4870 is bottlenecking it. You need more than one GPU or a better single GPU. It will scale along with the rest of your hardware.

A 4870 is bottlenecking it. You need more than one GPU or a better single GPU. It will scale along with the rest of your hardware.

desertpython

[QUOTE="desertpython"]

A 4870 is bottlenecking it. You need more than one GPU or a better single GPU. It will scale along with the rest of your hardware.

ferret-gamer

You'd need one or 2 5970's to remove the bottleneck.

[QUOTE="ferret-gamer"][QUOTE="desertpython"]

A 4870 is bottlenecking it. You need more than one GPU or a better single GPU. It will scale along with the rest of your hardware.

desertpython

You'd need one or 2 5970's to remove the bottleneck.

Metro doesn't even look as good as Crysis and it's much more demanding. What does that tell you?

Metro doesn't even look as good as Crysis and it's much more demanding. What does that tell you?

kaitanuvax

It doesn't look good because your rig doesn't have the grunt to jack up the settings. And the plot is way better then Crysis's.

Metro doesn't look nowhere near as good as Crysis and it's so much more demanding that it doesn't make sense. What does that tell you?

kaitanuvax

[QUOTE="kaitanuvax"]

Metro doesn't even look as good as Crysis and it's much more demanding. What does that tell you?

desertpython

It doesn't look good because your rig doesn't have the grunt to jack up the settings. And the plot is way better then Crysis's.

Add in the fact that Metro's environment is (I'm taking a guess) 99% indoors while Crysis's is 99% outdoors.

Add in the fact that Metro's environment is (I'm taking a guess) 99% indoors while Crysis's is 99% outdoors.

kaitanuvax

Add in the fact that Metro's environment is (I'm taking a guess) 99% indoors while Crysis's is 99% outdoors.

kaitanuvax

DirectX 11 on High is better then Crysis unmodded with DirectX10 on high.