Upgrades....

[Hockeyguyinoc]

System Build:
AMD Athlon 5600x2
2gigs of ram
Geforce 9800GT 512mb PCIe
Geforce 8400GL 256mb PCI
Windows XP Pro 32bit
22" Samsung WS
19" Samsung WS

The 22" Samsung is hooked up up to the 9800GT and I run games, mostly WoW in windowed mode I think I have it setup at 1680x1050. All settings in game are optimized for better FPS. The only settings I keep up is distance viewed (I know that lowers FPS) and spell particles about 1/4th of the way the rest are all set as low as possible. The problem is that my frame rates are very low at points well under 20fps. The 19" Samsung is hooked up to the 8400 for browsing the internet.

I originally had the 9800GT for both monitors thinking the problem was the one card trying to do both I put the 8400 in the computer hoping that would fix it. It did not seem to show any improvement. Could my 9800GT be going bad or is that typical?

If it is just components would the following upgrades help:
Core i7 920
6gigs of DDR3 1333
Graphics card for $250 or cheaper(need sugestions).
Unfortunately with this I would be using Windows Vista 64bit probably ultimate version.

Will any of this even help? Should I just run one card in the new system with both monitors hooked up to the one card? I really don't play a lot of other games than WoW, occasionally FPS games, so WoW frame rate being playable is my main concern.

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[doormatderek]

Don't be playing games in 'windowed' mode. Why are you doing that if you have 2 monitors to begin with???? and run the game at the monitors NATIVE resolution. The ONLY upgrade i would recommend is maybe another 2 gigs of ram. Even with 32bit XP it'll be a little smoother with 4gigs total.
You don't need a second video card at all, get rid of it

 

[Hockeyguyinoc]

It was giving me problems I couldn't scroll to the next window without being in windowed mode...if that is the problem is their a solution to the other problem?