Seeking a bit of upgrade advice

[WCES Ryan]

I have 2 machines at home, a PC which I use for a bit of light gaming (just WoW really), and an HTPC that is dedicated to running MediaPortal. The hardware on my PC is a bit older (Opty 170 @ 2.4, 7900GTX).

I don't know if this is unusual, but it doesn't seem to run as well as I would like it to. The game gets quite choppy if I try to play with all of the settings cranked @ 1680x1050. First of all, does it look like the hardware I have should allow me to run WoW at full settings?

My HTPC is quite a bit newer, and very beefy for what it needs. It is running a Quad core 2.0ghz cpu with an 8800gt and 4gb of memory. A bit overkill, but it fit into my budget, and I figured I could use the hardware for different things as well if I wanted.

Now here's what I am thinking. I would like to take the mobo/ram/video/cpu from the HTPC and put it into my desktop. My GF has basically the same hardware, and her machine runs WoW very well. The current desktop hardware would basically be retired, and I would get new hardware for the HTPC.

The hardware I'm looking at for the HTPC would be a bit simpler. I was looking at a 780G motherboard, provided it will play back 1080p videos with no problem.

Another thing I would be interested in knowing, is whether or not the 780G would be any good for playing WoW at 1920x1080 on my TV if we were to need a 3rd box for a guest or something. I doubt it would, but the board sounds promising so far, so who knows.

For the rest of the hardware, I'm not sure what I would buy. I would like to go cheap if possible, maybe a dual core CPU and 2gb of ram if it would be sufficient.

So that's my situation, I'm not sure if I missed anything, but what does [H] think?

 

[Dangman]

First of all, does it look like the hardware I have should allow me to run WoW at full settings?
....
Another thing I would be interested in knowing, is whether or not the 780G would be any good for playing WoW at 1920x1080 on my TV if we were to need a 3rd box for a guest or something. I doubt it would, but the board sounds promising so far, so who knows.

Nope. The recent WOW updates (3.0 and onward) pretty much upped the hardware requirements across the board. So yes your current 7900GTX will have trouble maxxing out WOW right now at 1680x1050. So the onboard video of the 780G chipset will definitely be a no-go.

The hardware I'm looking at for the HTPC would be a bit simpler. I was looking at a 780G motherboard, provided it will play back 1080p videos with no problem.

Yup the 780G plus the X2 4850E CPU is all that you need to play back 1080P videos with no problems as long as you set up the software/codecs correctly.