Need Advice on Upgrade

[Chapeaux]

Hey Guys,

When I bought my computer during the spring of last year I asked for the advice of the users of Tom's Hardware, I was not disappointed with the result. Anyways, my birthday is coming up and I've decided to buy myself a $300 upgrade for gaming purposes. I was wondering if you could give me some opinions as to what I ought to upgrade (I've listed the guts of my machine below) and perhaps some suggestions as to what I ought to replace the aforementioned part with. I'm extremely grateful for all your expert opinions and if you want to know any specifics about my machine let me know.

[Edit] I suppose I'd like to find out what you guys feel the weakest part of my system is (in terms of gaming). I don't have a sense of wear the components stand in relation to price and worth of the upgrade.

MS Windows XP Home SP2
INTEL Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz FSB1333MHz 6MB LGA775 Dual-Core
ASUS P43 P5QL-PRO 3PCI/ 1PCIE X16,4D.DDR2-1066MHZ 1333 /1066FSB,SATA GbL
OCZ XTC FATAL1TY OCZ2F8004GK 4GB DDR2 2X2GB DDR2-6400 800MHz
EVGA 9800GT 512MB DDR3 SUPERCLOCKED 2DVI PCI-E Dual DVI TV-out
WD Caviar SE-16 / SATA-II 5000AAKS 500GB 7200RPM, 16MB, SATA-II
LG GH22NS30 SATA BLACK DVD±RW (22X+/-) DUAL LAYER w/ SW
Coolermaster eXTREME POWER+ 500W (RP-500-PCAR) 24/20PIN

 

[mi1ez]

$300 puts you squarely in HD5800 series territory.

Hmmm... What resolution is your monitor and what games do you play? Do you have any in particular that your PC struggles with?

 

[Chapeaux]

Hey there,

1024 x 768 is pretty much what I keep it at, the monitor is a BenQ FP737. It's about 17/18inches. Well, I was really disappointed when I bought Assassin's Creed for the PC (It was $5 on Steam a couple of days ago, I thought what the hell). On full settings it'd wank out and I'd get like 20-30 FPS. I played WoW for awhile on this machine and I couldn't max that out either. I'm going to be playing Borderlands but generally I am just looking to make my PC a little more powerful to keep up with the games.

 

[bliq]

$300 puts you squarely in HD5800 series territory.

Hmmm... What resolution is your monitor and what games do you play? Do you have any in particular that your PC struggles with?

But with only 500W, it might also mean a PSU upgrade. Just check the requirements before you buy.

 

[bliq]

Hey there,

1024 x 768 is pretty much what I keep it at, the monitor is a BenQ FP737. It's about 17/18inches. Well, I was really disappointed when I bought Assassin's Creed for the PC (It was $5 on Steam a couple of days ago, I thought what the hell). On full settings it'd wank out and I'd get like 20-30 FPS. I played WoW for awhile on this machine and I couldn't max that out either. I'm going to be playing Borderlands but generally I am just looking to make my PC a little more powerful to keep up with the games.

9800GT and you couldn't get it to play well at 1024x768? wow, I though 9800GT was pretty decent. I didn't think WoW was that GPU intensive.

 

[Chapeaux]

A local store, http://www.mysterybyte.com/ , is where I do my shopping. Well, I could max WoW out but it'd slow down to about 20/30FPS. I should probably get some kind of benchmarking software and see if it's the equipment itself or something software related but I've mucked around with settings quite a bit to no avail.

[BTW] I'm talking about WoW at full resolution with all the settings maxed.

 

[mi1ez]

The 5800 is probably overkill at that resolution. To tell you the truth I'd be tempted to go for a new monitor! Also, your PSU (as bliq pointed out -good shout!) is probably going to come up short on a graphics card much more powerful (only 1 PCIe and 16A on each 12V rail as far as I can find out).

Other people on here are probably going to know better so I'll wait on them for power recommendations.