Which component to upgrade: CPU, Memory, Video Card, or RAM?

moch

Honorable
Oct 18, 2013
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Hi folks!

So I mainly play World of Warcraft, watch movies, and surf the web on my PC. I also play games like Oblivion, Battlefield, etc. Lately, it's been frustrating me because my PC is extremely laggy; software will take forever to load, and just generally be sluggish. If I have too many chrome tabs open, it will start crashing. I get low fps in World of Warcraft in highly populated areas, or raids.

Unfortunately I'm currently in the middle of transitioning to a new job and a new apartment so my budget is tight and I can only upgrade one big ticket item, or purchase two small upgrades to my system.

CPU: i7 860
Memory: 6gb DDR3
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800GTX+
And crappy non SSD hard drives :(.

I'd like to know which component to upgrade. I can probably get either a CPU, or a combination of Memory + SSD/GPU. A complete rebuild is planned, but that's a couple months down the line cause I'd like to go all out when I do that. But for now, my budget is $200-$300 and I'd like to speed up my pc a wee bit.

Thanks for your time, and sorry for the long winded post :p.
 
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Patrick Guenter

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Oct 16, 2013
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10,860


runs crysis 2 on lowest settings
runs far cry 3 on high at dx 9
still its not uptodate but a ssd will improve his pc-experience drastically



reinstall windows on the ssd and try to get a better gpu. the amd one's are pretty cheap atm
 

moch

Honorable
Oct 18, 2013
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10,510


I'm using 3x 2gb RAM. So it seems like a new GPU is in order. I'll probably go for that + an SSD to speed up my pc overall. Thanks for the input everyone.
 

Thegratefulhead

Honorable
Jun 25, 2013
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10,520


I just purchased a HIS 7950 ICe Boost (quiet and cool) for 215 plus a mail in rebate and w/3 free good games. I love it. 3d mark 11 score of 8000 with a 3350P and no overclocking.
 
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