24" Samsung Monitor Help/System Upgrade

[Stugotz]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

I game a LOT: COD 4 & WW; World Of Warcraft; love first person shooters!

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

Of course we all have limits, but I would spend from $500-$1k since my last build was in 2006.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.

USA

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc, etc, etc, you get the picture.

Currently I have a Venice AMD ... but I am open minded on brands as long as heard of it before.

5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.

I am currently at work and it has been a while so some of the specs I need to refresh memory on when I get home but here is what I can remember off hand:

AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego 1Ghz Socket 939 Processor
Asus A8N SLI Deluxe
2GB Corsair Ram
64GB Western Digital Raptor (Windows XP)
250GB Seagate HD 7,200rpm
Nvidia 7800 GTX OC PCIe
Sound Blaster® X-Fi? XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series
PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 510 SLI
Thermaltake VA3000BWA ATX case
DVD-ROM and a DVD-RW

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.

yes, a LOt of them including: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2194271&enterthread=y

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Above my know-how!

8. WHEN do you plan to build it?

Immediately

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So here is my question:

I was just given the 24" Samsung 2443bwx, and now my system lags a LOT and is very slow processing the graphics for World of Warcraft and other first person shooters like COD 4 and COD:WW. I need to upgrade my system obviously, but am not sure if a video card upgrade will suffice or is a mobo/processor/video card upgrade necessary in order to use PCIe 2.0.

There is no need for extreme top-of-the-line gear since I do not even over clock. I game for fun, but HATE lag and slow system performance after a LONG day at work.

Please let me know a few different options, possibly using some of my old gear if possibly so i can focus that money on decent upgrade parts.

The linked above mentions how SLI is almost a last resort for running dual cards (and it seems ATI Crossfire is recommended), yet it might be necessary since I have that mobo w/ a 24" monitor

Dual core processors, according to this website, are a better option for gaming ... yet it is my understanding quad cores have come a long way.

Paying extra now to avoid problems in the near future seems like a worth while option.

I refuse to buy a premade PC from any of the big companies after several bad experiences!

Hence, I tought myself how to build a desktop and am now in need of suggestions to cross the hurdle I have encountered with this new monitor.

Thank you in advance,

JT

 

[mpilchfamily]

Your system lags now because the monitor has a much higher resolution then you old one did. This means the video card has to work allot harder in rendering the display. GO ahead and start looking into a new system. You have the money for it. But if you would rather just upgrade then i would suggest a new video card. Thats all your system really needs. But if i had the money i would build a new system.

 

[Stugotz]

Is there a video card, or a set of video cards you would recommend in particular? I notice that PCIe 2.0 is what most of the new ones seems to be, or is that not correct?

 

[mpilchfamily]

AGP is dead. Everything is PCI-e now. If you want a card that can carry over to your next system then get a nice ATI 4850 or 4870. The 4870 may be bottlenecked by your CPU a bit. If you want to stick with Nvidia then i would go for an 8800GT as a nice mid range card. A 9800 or GTX260 would be nice but my have bottleneck issues like the 4870.

 

[Stugotz]

1. What are people's experience with 4GB RAM using XP vs. Vista? (Am I forced to upgrade to Vista if want at least 4GB RAM?)

2. What are your experiences with Crossfire vs. 2 GPUs on one card? (2x 4870s vs. 1x 9800GX2/4870X2)


3. Will the power supply fittings from the PC Power & Cooling Turbo Cool 510 SLI be ok with either option as described in your answer in question #2?

 

[0roo0roo]

sli is for 2560x1600.
thats double the pixels of your monitor.
a reasonably decent modern video card does wow stuff quite easily at 24" default resolution.
4gb of ram is about cheap or even cheaper than 2gb. because they really don't bother having sales on 1gb modules. you might as well get 4gb. vista uses more ram to cache to improve system performance. at these prices there is no reason to buy less ram.

if you can afford it sure, get sli. then you can crank the filter settings to the max as well.

 

[Stugotz]

Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
sli is for 2560x1600.
thats double the pixels of your monitor.
a reasonably decent modern video card does wow stuff quite easily at 24" default resolution.
4gb of ram is about cheap or even cheaper than 2gb. because they really don't bother having sales on 1gb modules. you might as well get 4gb. vista uses more ram to cache to improve system performance. at these prices there is no reason to buy less ram.

if you can afford it sure, get sli. then you can crank the filter settings to the max as well.

I have picked a new Dual Core and Mobo, now the question is ATI 4870 single or run dual 4850s for a 24" Wide LCD monitor at 1920 x 1200?

What is with the stability problems of ATI I read in their forums? Is nVidia slower but more stable?

Example http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814102770