Vista - Help! IR NEWB

Running VISTA 64BIT
Mainboard: ASUS P5LD2 SE
RAM: Kingston 4G @ 800 MHz
Graphics Card: ASUS EAX550HM512
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.00GHz 3.01GHz

Okay so i want to know if i upgraded my graphics card to 'NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT' will my system run 'CSS' (CounterStrike Source) smoothly. I have a buget of $340 - $440 AUS and i might be needing a newer power supply, it's 350W lol.
Really i wanted 'NVIDIA GeForce GTX 250 - 295' but i don't think i can afford those if i need a power supply upgrade.

So i guess what im asking is what kind of graphic card do you suggest. I idealy want to run WoW really well.

you want a new graphics card to run world of warcraft?
last time i checked, world of warcraft ran smoothly on intel integrated cards, so im sure your present GPU can run it no problem

yes a 9800gt will run it very well (although it will be a tad bottlenecked by that cpu) However i would try and get hold of a second hand 8800GT , its the same card with a differant name (trust me) and it will be alot cheaper.

NVidia needed a bridging card between the 8 and 2 series cards so came up with the 9 series , but all it seemed they did was rebrand the 8 series performance wise

you will ahve to update that PSU though

Okay how about this? NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT, Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 CPU and 650W CoolerMaster Extreme ATX Power Intelligent Fan 20+4 2X PCIE 3X SATA 6X HDD.

Or mabye NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT if i can find one. All i want to know is will the above specs run WoW and CSS smoothly? With WoW i do 25 mans or i go to dalaran and i get like 5-10 fps... normally questing around places i get around 30-35 fps which i great! and again 25 mans i get like 3-8 fps :S

Yes mate it will run it lovely , look at mt specs below i have an 8800GT . CSS is an old game i run it 1600x1200 maxed with 8aa and 16af i even have v sync enabled for CSS and its smooth. You wont get them settings with the 9600 but i bet you can get close , wow will be fine too again its an old game the graphics aint the best even at high settings

I dont like the 9600 card its a bit of a dog , they stugle with newer games , if you can afford it and you cant find an 8800 try and get the 9800 , or a low end 2 series , its nice to see someone choosing a decent psu people normally try and save money there and its bad idea

Hi Onslaught.....


Archie has given you some great info there mate....

i would stick with the 98 or the 8800, the 9600 will struggle a little, its a great card but these really excel in SLI..

the 8800 would give you great performance on this game... if possible try & find a dual slot cooled card rather than the single slot solution, the G92 gets pretty toasty....

the 8800 & 9800 require a PSU with at least 24A on the 12v (28A is recommended, but not essential) & a dedicated 6pin power plug....

i would recommend this unit...





SK

Are those prices American? for the

CORSAIR CMPSU-520HX 520W ATX12V v2.2 and EPS12V 2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply - Retail

I have a secondary machine here that plays wow great on a 7600...

GPU's dont play a massive part with wow....memory>cpu>gpu or so it seems. Then again, latency>all.

Wow does not need that much. An 8800 would be perfect. I used one of those for a couple of years almost exclusively on warcraft and it was pretty much overkill.

If I let my current machine off the chain, with wow, I have seen fps of well over 120....but with the same settings, you walk into Dalaran and you are looking at 20-30fps....Lich king should not have been released...Seriously. Everyone has cruddy performance in Dalaran.

Back to the hardware.

Your level of memory is fine.

You can currently get a GT 9800 512mb OC edition...say a Gigabyte one for around $200 in oz atm. Which would be a decent buy. Or maybe try an ebay 8800.

As mentioned earlier, your cpu, would probably be a bottleneck, especially in the later content of the game. It will handle vanilla wow easily, but the new stuff will push it. I think I started playing wow with one of those though...

That Corsair power supply linked earlier in the thread retails in aus for around $130 or so and is a solid unit....so you can most definately get a card and a ps for around $300 Australian.

Check wholesalers...prices can vary at the moment.