I've been hanging onto my current system for roughly two years now and while it has served me well, it has never quite been the gaming monster I've always wanted (and probably never will be), but I can at least upgrade it now a little to put it a few steps closer towards that dream machine and also prepare it for the upcoming Cataclysm. Yes I know WoW is an old game and it's technically not very power hungry, but my specs are a bit weak, my parts probably dying, my OS in need of a reinstall and my monitor huge, so the net result is mediocre for most things and pretty weak for 25-man raiding and other places where activity is very high. I find myself running the game in windowed mode at 1600 x 900, usually medium settings (except for raiding, where everything is turned down low as can go except resolution). Anyways, here's my current setup...
OS____Windows XP Home SP3
CPU___AMD Athlon X2 3800+ / Stock
HSF___Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro
Mobo__GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3
GPU___EVGA GeForce 7600GT, 256MB GDDR3
RAM___A-DATA Extreme, 2GB, DDR2 800 / Stock
PSU___Corsair 650W TX
HDD___Western Digital Caviar 250GB
Case___Antec Nine Hundred
Screen__24" DELL Ultrasharp, 1920 x 1200 max res
Optical__Unsure, but I have one and it works well
And here's what I have in mind...
- $500 budget (give or take $50)
- Keep the case, HDD, and monitor
- Replace everything else
- More focus on GPU power
- Stable, reliable parts/brand
- All parts will run at stock speeds and have stock cooling
- Dual-core and 2.4 GHz or better CPU
- DX11 and 1 GB or better GPU that will outperform a 7600GT
- Would prefer an Nvidia brand GPU
- I don't mind using a micro ATX board if it's better quality and/or cheaper
So, given all that, would anyone be able to come up with a list of parts consisting of a CPU, GPU, Mobo, RAM and PSU that could fit my budget and meet my needs?
OS____Windows XP Home SP3
CPU___AMD Athlon X2 3800+ / Stock
HSF___Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro
Mobo__GIGABYTE GA-M61P-S3
GPU___EVGA GeForce 7600GT, 256MB GDDR3
RAM___A-DATA Extreme, 2GB, DDR2 800 / Stock
PSU___Corsair 650W TX
HDD___Western Digital Caviar 250GB
Case___Antec Nine Hundred
Screen__24" DELL Ultrasharp, 1920 x 1200 max res
Optical__Unsure, but I have one and it works well
And here's what I have in mind...
- $500 budget (give or take $50)
- Keep the case, HDD, and monitor
- Replace everything else
- More focus on GPU power
- Stable, reliable parts/brand
- All parts will run at stock speeds and have stock cooling
- Dual-core and 2.4 GHz or better CPU
- DX11 and 1 GB or better GPU that will outperform a 7600GT
- Would prefer an Nvidia brand GPU
- I don't mind using a micro ATX board if it's better quality and/or cheaper
So, given all that, would anyone be able to come up with a list of parts consisting of a CPU, GPU, Mobo, RAM and PSU that could fit my budget and meet my needs?