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Graphics Upgrade

Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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I have a decent computer which, however, was never intended for gaming. Since I now am gaming with it -- specifically, since I'm playing Warcraft -- I need to upgrade the graphics card.

Here are the specs: Dell Precision 490 with a dual-core 3.0 GHz Xeon processor, a 750 watt power supply and 6 GB RAM (which I can't currently address, since I'm running 32-bit Vista, but that might change.) It has a PCI-E 1.0 slot for the graphics card. (I understand that PCI-E 2 cards will work with this, but the transfer rate is half.) The display resolution is 1600x1200 pixels.

My graphics card, however, is a Nvidia Quadro FX 550 -- i.e. a card that was considered entry level for non-gaming applications when it was made in 2006. The wonder is not that this card makes WoW run slowly, but rather that it runs at all. Actually, it was playable pre-cataclysm, but cataclysm killed it.

Yes, I know that a new computer would be faster than my 3-1/2 year old machine, but I'm not prepared to spend the money for that, and I think that improving the graphics bottleneck should help a whole lot. I'm thinking of getting an Nvidia GeForce GTS 450 because it's only about $130 and it supports DirectX 11.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

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Thanks. I just ordered the GTS450 from Newegg, per your link. That's a great price.

The GTX460 is better, of course, but the extra power consumption over the life of the card would probably cost more than the difference in initial price and there's no need for a card that's better than the rest of my aging computer, or better than WoW needs. I can always add a second GTX460 and almost double the performance if I need to because of some other game, but I don't think that will happen.

I appreciate the help.
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