Should I upgrade my video card?

[aquafino]

I have a little bit of money to spend, about 200-300. I was wondering if it was worth it to upgrade my graphics card or should I spend it on something else? Is the jump from 8800GT and 9800GT a big difference?

I hate to admit it but I run Sims 2 and all the expansions. I hate the loading screens. Is that because my computer is a peice of junk or because the game is demanding?

I'm also playing WoW at 60fps but with the money I have, maybe I could bump it up a bit.

Here are my computer's specs at the moment:

OS: Windows Vista Home Premium
Processor: Intel(R) Core 2 Duo E6850 @ 3.00GHz
RAM: 4 GB
Hard Drive: 300GB (98G free)
Video Card: 8800GT (pci-e)
PSU: 750W

 

[turboflame]

A 9800GT is just a relabeled 8800GT, you would see no performance increase.

If the loading screens are the only thing that are slow you could buy a faster hard drive, but other than that your system is already overkill for the games you've mentioned.

 

[coozie7]

The 9800 GT is a revised 8800GT, so you`ll see little improvement.
If it`s playing WoW well, I`d leave well alone, we`re seeing a lot of posts from people who have upgraded to more powerful cards (HD4870, GTX260 mainly) only to see little or no improvement and configuration problems.
If you are experiencing long load times you should try giving your system a spring clean: uninstall unwanted programs, delete unwanted files and finally defragment the hard drive.

 

[leigh76]

+1 turboflame

And as coozie7 suggests you may actually benefit from a defrag, takes time but really does speed stuff up

 

[aquafino]

Thanks everybody for your input and saving me a bit of cash. I guess I'll set it to defrag tonight and see how it goes. I don't know anything about harddrives so if someone could leave me a message, I'd appreciate it. I buy all my computer hardware online anyways so you could help me purchase a new one and I'd thank you 100 times over.

 

[leigh76]

Do you know what speed your curren HDD is?

ie 5,400 7,200 or 10,000 rpm?

To be honest though your system should be owning those games

 

[aquafino]

How do I find out? I just downloaded HD tune and none of the numbers I see relates to the ones you just posted.

 

[aquafino]

Ok I went into device manager and googled it. It's 7,200 RPM. I might wanna bump it up a bit.

 

[leigh76]

As you can see thats the middle of the 3 speeds. That should be fast enough to be honest.

Id go with a full defrag (do it overnight maybe) Im 99% sure that you will notice a difference, then you can spend that dosh on your girlfriend or something ^^

 

[aquafino]

Haha awesome, Thanks Leigh! Good idea. Btw, do you know a good website where I can learn how to reformat w/windows vista home premium? I tried it last time and it made this funky new folder called "Windows.old" and took up most of my harddrive. I think that's why it's so slow lol I deleted most everything in it and it took about half an hour.

Sorry admins if this stuff is totally out of subject but I don't wanna repost everything

 

[leigh76]

Yeah vista is great at doing loads of thing you dont want it too

How attached are you to your current installation? Would it be a right pain in the bum to wipe your hard drive and start over? re-installing Vista I mean?

The windows.old thing, I think, means that that pc was upgraded to Vista from say...Xp.

 

[aquafino]

lol. maybe i'll just buy a new harddrive. it's such a pain in the butt to reinstall vista. and nope. i built my computer and that was my only installation of windows.

 

[TrueMarine]

Look for a 10k RPM hard drive if you buy a new one and use the old HD to place music, videos on.

 

[aquafino]

Hey Props TrueMarine! That's an awesome idea. I never had 2 harddrives in my computer before.