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What should I upgrade? The card or the memory?

Forum Graphic & Displays : Graphics Cards - What should I upgrade? The card or the memory?

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Hello and thank you in advance for any advice you may have. I play World of Warcraft on a pretty ancient, budget computer. I just left Alterac Vallley very frustrated because my computer cannot handle the play in there. I am considering a new graphic card or more memory. I also have to deal with a PCI slot for my graphic card. Here are my computer specs:

2.67 Celeron
1500 MB ram
Windows XP
Nvidia Geforce fx 5500 PCI

Is there anything affordable I can upgrade? I am willing to spend up to $200.00. Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

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I upgraded a Dell with a GeForce 6200 PCI card and the owner said it gave no difference over the integrated video.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130466
upgrading the RAM would probably give you more of a boost, but you really have to be careful about dumping money into an obsolete system.

Reply to dirtmountain

GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L LGA 775 Intel G31 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $53
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128357

Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz 2MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor - Retail $70
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819116072

CORSAIR 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail $25AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145184

POWERCOLOR AX4650 512MD2 Radeon HD 4650 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card - Retail $40AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814131133

Thank you for the responses. I am a little leary of replacing the motherboard. I have replaced graphic cards and memory, but the motherboard may be above me. How hard is that to do? Would the suggested items and card make a significant difference over just the purchase of a newer video card?

Reply to cordom757

A mobo is not that hard to replace.

Adding RAM would probably help a little bit, as would a new video card (although there are very few good options with PCI). But you will still be limited by your CPU. The parts I listed would be a significant upgrade, plus the E5200 OCs very well.

As old as the system is, no matter what you spend, you are going to have an old slow system. It is not worth spending ANY money on. You will see very little benefit. You are light years ahead to do a motherboard swap. It's not that hard, but you will have to reinstall Windows and all your programs when you are done.

Reply to jitpublisher

Although your system is very very old, you can give it that extra bang with a 9400GT. 9400GT goes for about 100$ i believe on newegg and should give that graphic boost your looking for, although your CPU is going to bottleneck the card.

Reply to vouslavous

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