New processor and mobo needed

[alcatraz]

I'm in the process of upgrading my Gateway 5404. It has a Pentium 915 D 2.8g processor. So far I've installed an additional gig of ram, for a total of 2gigs. I upgraded to an Ultra 650w psu, and an HSI Radeon 4850. The only game I play as of now is WoW. I'd like to find a motherboard that will support an additional 4850 in Xfire, with an AMD processor. What mobo and cpu would you recommend? Also, would it be worth it to use ddr3 over ddr2? I'm not looking for the most expensive option, just the best bang for the buck. Also, is 2x 4850s overkill for WoW? Thanks in advance for the help, it's appreciated.

 

[The Third Level]

I would go with the Phenom II X3 720 BE + BIOSTAR TFORCE TA790GX 128M.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.190738

 

[alcatraz]

I had actually looked at the x3 processors, but was unsure if they were all that good. Also, would ddr3 be worth the money? I don't want to buy a mobo/cpu now and need to upgrade it a year from now.

 

[AKM880]

The X3 processors are actually pretty nice, they overclock well too.

 

[The Third Level]

The Phenom II line is good, stay away from the original Phenoms.

The 720 is widely known as one of the best bang for the buck processors....it overclocks very well and is only $140.

 

[Kari]

and yes, two 4850 is going to be overkill for WoW

 

[alcatraz]

I figured they would be, but I'm getting tired of bottoming out during raids (I mean 6-8fps bottoming out.) Right now, after installing the 4850 and installing the latest drivers, I'm getting around 40fps questing, but still low in the cities. This is with the settings turned down severly I"m assuming that my cpu is the bottleneck at this time. I have an Asus notebook with a Core 2 Duo mobile, 4gigs of ddr2, and an nvidia 9200m which gets around 17-25fps during raids, and I know the 9200m is no where near the card the 4850 is.

 

[Kari]

^^yep, the cpu is holding you back. Pretty much any modern cpu is a lot faster then your PentiumD and wow is rather cpu limited game. The settings allow for a wide range of graphics gards to be used but if your cpu is slow, there's not much the game can do about it.

 

[howardp6]

When you buy the motherboard, make certain you get a micro ATX board, since the case is designed for one and you will not be able to mount a standard ATX board

 

[alcatraz]

After looking up the original mobo, you are correct. This cuts my options somewhat, but after looking on Newegg I've found

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157162
and
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813136068

Both of these support the AM3 socket, so I could still use the x3 processor. I also looked at the Intel chips supported by my current mobo, but the best of them was the Intel E6700, and it is no longer available anywhere I look.

Edit: After looking a bit closer the ASRock has only 1 PCI-E slot, so obviously I wouldn't be able to run dual video cards on it. However, as Kari stated, dual 4850 will be overkill for what I'm doing. My questions then are, is ASRock a good brand, and would the 2nd PCI-E slot and DDR3 be worth the extra $50?

 

[alcatraz]

Ok, this is what I have picked to replace my mobo, cpu, and memory.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157162

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227269

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103648


Any thought/suggestions? Thanks in advance for the help.