What is a better upgrade?

[Arsyn18]

Hello, Ok so i have and ATI 4850 with 512 on board GDDR3, and i have a Pentium(R) Dual-Core E5200 @2.50 ghz what would be a better upgrade, just want to play WoW with high or ultra setting on, right now i run with 4x multi sampling, ultra particles, High texture resolution, 4x texture filtering, high enviroment detail, good view distance, i play at 1920x1080 Wide, and im running about 85 fps in IF and around 40 to 50 in 25 VoA, i just want to know if im better off Upgrading to a quad core cpu or a 5770 Ati i have 4gigs of ram aswell if id be better off upgrading that and the cpu or that and the video card let me know any help would be awesome thx.

 

[o1die]

Your video card is fine, but the 5770 may run a little higher fps. I would say to try overclocking the cpu at 3.0 if your board and ram permits it, and get the 5770 if your power supply is 450-550 watts with 22 amps minimum on the 12v rail. A quad can't hurt if you have the $$. 4 gigs of ram is plenty. The 9550 quad will run you about $199 used.

 

[o1die]

IF you go with a high end video card, be sure your power supply can handle it with the proper 12v rail readings and leads. Some cards will give you the minimum 12v rail required.

 

[Arsyn18]

ok kewl, so would it be better using Gigabyte Easytunev6 to overclock it and just upgrade the cooler i have on it because right now im just runnin the stock cooler, also which is better the GTX 460 or the ATI 6850 or is it just prefrence? and also im looking for the future of wow, will cataclysm be the same way or ?

 

[o1die]

The stock cooler will be fine at 3.0 Try dropping the ram speed to 333 from 400 for pc6400 ddr2 (some boards list the ram speed as half the actual speed) and increase the cpu fsb by 20%. If the cpu default is 333, try 400. Use the motherboard bios instead of easytune. If it doesn't post, remove the board battery for one minute with the power supply unplugged. This resets the bios, and you can try again with different settings. The overclock is most stable with the ram speed at the same level. By decreasing the ram speed when you set the cpu speed higher, the ram speed ends up at the same level as the normal setting. I overclocked an e3300 from 2.5 to 3.0, and it was very stable on a biostar g41 board, which has limited overclocking options. The cpu temps increased by only 4 degrees celcius with the stock Intel cooler using coretemp, a free download.