I currently have a XP 1700 with 2 X 512 crucial pc2100 on a Epox 8RDA Nforce II board, an ATI 9700 pro, 40 gig 7200 RPM HD, TB Santa Cruz sound card, in a cheap enermax case with only 300 watt PS.
I had this system on a heavy OC to around XP 2100 speed, but my current game World of Warcraft dosen't like the overclock, which seems to be a common issue with this game. I took it back to default, but now the game is somewhat choppy in areas with below a 15 FPS in some spots.
I know my CPU is a bottleneck as the game was much smoother when it did work with the overclock, so I figured it is time for a cheap upgrade. What I want to do is keep my 9700 pro and my hard drive since very few games seem to access the hard drive anyways with a gig of ram. I want to get a new motherboard that will support an athlon 64, a gig of cheap pc3200 DDR and dump my old Turtle Beach and run off the motherboard sound, thus I am strongly leaning towards a decent Nforce MB. Also might get a better case if I can find something in the sub $50 range on newegg.
My main question is, how far should I go on the CPU with a 9700 pro? I can't seem to find any tests or charts showing anything from a 9800 pro and lower running on AMD 64s to see where the possible bottleneck is. I can get a AMD 64 2800 dirt cheap, but would be willing to pay an extra $100 for a 3500+ if there would be any noticable benefit. I do not plan on over clocking this time around at all since WoW dosent seem to be OC friendly at all.
I'd also get a new vid card if I needed to, but WoW seems to pretty much run just fine with a 9700 pro on max settings and that is the only game I plan to play seriously for quite a long time. Without worrying about a new vid card, I can keep my upgrade under $250 and should be high enough in FPSs to effectively be capped to the human eye in WoW, which is all I really care about for the next year+.
Anyways, any advice, links or information anyone may have would be helpful.
I had this system on a heavy OC to around XP 2100 speed, but my current game World of Warcraft dosen't like the overclock, which seems to be a common issue with this game. I took it back to default, but now the game is somewhat choppy in areas with below a 15 FPS in some spots.
I know my CPU is a bottleneck as the game was much smoother when it did work with the overclock, so I figured it is time for a cheap upgrade. What I want to do is keep my 9700 pro and my hard drive since very few games seem to access the hard drive anyways with a gig of ram. I want to get a new motherboard that will support an athlon 64, a gig of cheap pc3200 DDR and dump my old Turtle Beach and run off the motherboard sound, thus I am strongly leaning towards a decent Nforce MB. Also might get a better case if I can find something in the sub $50 range on newegg.
My main question is, how far should I go on the CPU with a 9700 pro? I can't seem to find any tests or charts showing anything from a 9800 pro and lower running on AMD 64s to see where the possible bottleneck is. I can get a AMD 64 2800 dirt cheap, but would be willing to pay an extra $100 for a 3500+ if there would be any noticable benefit. I do not plan on over clocking this time around at all since WoW dosent seem to be OC friendly at all.
I'd also get a new vid card if I needed to, but WoW seems to pretty much run just fine with a 9700 pro on max settings and that is the only game I plan to play seriously for quite a long time. Without worrying about a new vid card, I can keep my upgrade under $250 and should be high enough in FPSs to effectively be capped to the human eye in WoW, which is all I really care about for the next year+.
Anyways, any advice, links or information anyone may have would be helpful.