Help me choose a video card

[Mills]

I use my PC for gaming. I just got my new monitor last night, and my FPS is terrible (under 10 fps) when I have a lot of people on my screen. (I play world of warcraft and at times you have 40 people in 1 spot).

19" Viewsonic Widescreen (1400x900 resolution) VA1912wb
939 Socket MSI K8N Neo4-F Motherboard (1000 fsb, pcie)
MSI Geforce 6600LE 256MB (passive cooled, huge heatsink)
AMD 64 3700+ San Diego
Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM HDD
1x1GB Crucial DDR400

I'm thinking my problem is my GPU, so anyone have any suggestions on what video card to puchase? You can see my monitor and what res I run at, which card would perform well enough without costing me a fortune? (I like nvidia)

 

[Samsa]

An eVGA 7800 GT is fairly affordable and certainly much better than a 6600LE (I avoid the LE models like the plague personally). They run for $284 after rebate and include a free copy of Quake 4 over at NewEgg.com right now. This is probably the best bang for your buck right now.

eVGA 256-P2-N515-AX Geforce 7800GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express x16 Desktop PC - Retail

I'm sure you'll still bottom out a bit with 40 players on your screen in WoW, but that's the nature of the beast.

If you like higher resolutions (and have money to burn), you might consider upgrading to an SLI capable motherboard and getting a second 7800 GT. That would roughly cost you another $400 all told.

More than likely though, the reason you're dropping to 10 FPS is because your current video card does not perform well at 1400x900 with new games. The 6600s are better running at 1024x768 or 1280x1024 in WoW. If you drop your resolution, I'm sure you'll do much better.

EDIT: If you think $284 is too steep, I'd go for a 6800GS which are around $200 right now at NewEgg.com.

 

[Mills]

Cool. I found out that it hadn't been 30 days since my 6600LE purchase, so i'm working on getting a refund.

In the meantime, I went ahead and purchased that card that you linked from newegg. I had been looking at that one because its the cheapest out of the bunch of 7800gt's and comes with quake 4. I'm not a big quake fan... but i'll take a free game

 

[Samsa]

Cool. I found out that it hadn't been 30 days since my 6600LE purchase, so i'm working on getting a refund.

In the meantime, I went ahead and purchased that card that you linked from newegg. I had been looking at that one because its the cheapest out of the bunch of 7800gt's and comes with quake 4. I'm not a big quake fan... but i'll take a free game

Glad I could help. Enjoy the new card and good luck with the refund.

 

[Mills]

Thanks for your help

 

[dudeofdahouse]

hey dude
umm if u want nice card get something like the 6800 gt i have it and no matter what it runes smooth as hell and i play world of war craft also , even when they are alot of people it runes SMOOTTTHHH its da best ,its vga 4x/8x
see ya