How much of an upgrade will this be for WOW?

One of my mates is playing WOW on a computer with the following specifications:

Pentium 4 3.2GHZ
2GB PC3200 DDR RAM
120GB IDE hard drive
ATI 9800XXL 128MB DDR AGP graphics card

IIRC, the PSU is the FSP FSP400-60GLC:

http://www.fsp-group.com.tw/english/...=123&proid=143

I was thinking of the following upgrade based upon the following parts I have lying around:

E2140 or E4300
2GB 667mhz DDR2
Asrock Conroe 1333-D667
X1900GT

The Asrock motherboard has had hardly any use. Of course I don't intend to charge that much for the parts especially since I am not using them.

Since WoW is still quite CPU intensive, it should be a noticeable but hardly staggering upgrade. The P4 listed is a single core, HT enabled CPU from memory. WoW happily uses 2 main cores, with reports that it offloads some tasks to a third.

Is the X1900 the model that was basically 2 9800’s packed into a single core or something? Depending on resolution the GFX card would likely be the bottleneck in the new system as well, even given the CPU intensive nature of the WoW client.

I had a slightly more powerful system running WoW at 1600x1200 for the wife several years ago and the FPS wasn’t stellar but mostly playable with eye candy at medium or higher settings.

Basically my mate has a very small budget for upgrades. Probably looking at £20 to £30 for the whole shebang plus maybe some other bits too.

The X1900GT has 12 pixel pipelines and 36 shader units whereas the 9800XXL has 8 pixel pipelines and 8 shader units.

According to this article the AGP version of the X1950 Pro seems to be much faster than an AGP 9800XT 256MB in Oblivion:

http://www.hwupgrade.com/articles/pr...t-1_index.html

The X1900GT is lower clocked than a X1950 Pro but has twice the RAM of the 9800XXL 128MB.

It won't be an awe-inspiring upgrade but hopefully it would be a noticeable upgrade like you said.

I hope the FSP 400W PSU can run the whole lot.

the X1900 is also 2 generations ahead (9*00 then X8** then X1***) so it probably has quite a few other architectural advantages including better shader model.

For the low asking price you are offering him i would definately say its worthwhile, especially if you can do a bit of overclocking.

Will the PSU be upto the job of powering an X1900GT?? I know the CPU consumes less power than the Pentium 4 but the X1900GT consumes more power than a 9800XXL I assume.

I would say the PSU will probably be OK, I was powering a similar system to the one proposed. with a pretty old 300W FSP unit for a while without any issues.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...x1900gt_5.html

Suggests low consumption, pretty sure you will be safe

You should be fine psu wise, main worry will be the shift from +5v to +12v

What resolution is he playing at?
I know from a while back that shifting over from a 6800LE (unlocked to GT level) 128mb to a 7900gs 256mb made a big difference @ 1280x1024 on City of Heroes (my then MMO addiction of choise)
As did going from an Athlon xp2400+ 2ghz to a pentium D 3ghz before that. (both on the 6800LE)

I don't resolution the game is being played on with their current computer but IIRC the monitor is a 1680X1050 one.

There should be a noticeable improvement going from single core to dual core in WoW.

After that, 2GB of ram is enough so it all comes down to graphics speed. Updating to a PCIe capable motherboard leaves things open for another gpu boost in the future.

Overall I would say the upgrade looks like a very positive step.

Yep and it get rid of a load of your clutter ;)

I used to play WoW on an Athlon 64 3200 single core with a GeForce 6800 GT at full settings and I have to say the PC I was running didn't struggle. Then I went upto an X2 3800 and I was hard pressed to tell the difference.

If anything your mate will see a marked improvement over that he's using :)

They have added extra graphics stuff to WOW recently.

I haven't played for literally years !! Must be at least 4 years since I ended my account.

Would sell that CPU and get a bit of a higher one, or you could all ways overclock

dont want to spam the thread but check out tmy thread here i got my e4300 to 2.4ghz and i have seen guides for getting it upto 3ghz (this would be abit of an overkill tho)