Potential Upgrade Recommendation

[Gnu314]

I'm considering looking at an upgrade for my current video card which is an ati 4850 512mb.

My rig is a few years old, Core 2 Duo E7200 Wolfdale, gygabyte GA-EP43-DS3L, 4 gigs of OCZ PC 800 ddr2 ram, PSU is Corsair VX 450. I'm running windos 7 pro x64.

Literally the only game I play is WoW. In high clutter content (cities, 25 man raids) on mid settings I get some choppy playback. I'm currently running at 1680x1050 and I have no plans for a new monitor.

I'm wondering what I should be looking at. It looks like something like a GTS 250 would give me a significant upgrade for a modest investment.

Any recommendations for what would be a solid card based on my rig and habits. I'd like to get back up to buttery smooth 60 fps on my 6 year old game on a 3 year old rig.

 

[Ruoh]

Actually, you may see much better performance from a faster, or overclocked proc. I too was running a 4850, and moved from an E8400 to Q9400, and it was like night and day in WoW. Looks like you can still get a Q8400 off Amazon for ~$130. I don't think you'd see as much a benefit from just upgrading the video card.

 

[djsi]

True,wow is heavily cpu dependant.Moving too a gts 250 would not be a big improvement.A quad core would probably bring better results ,but it would also have too be clocked at 3.0 or better.

A good upgrade in the graphics department would be a 6870 or a gtx 560.

 

[samuelmorris]

A GTS250 is identical to an HD4850 for performance, so you wouldn't see any improvement whatsoever from that.