Need advice for a friend looking to upgrade. (specifically graphical)

[TheVrolok]

Here's the deal. This guy was a console gamer until WoW. He bought a computer say .. 2-3 years ago just to play WoW. He plays a little WC3 and some TF2 here and there, but first and foremost, it's a WoW machine. Now, with Warhammer on the horizon, he wants to play it, but realizes he's sitting just at the minimum specs and he's been experiencing awful graphical playability in the closed beta. He wants to upgrade, and I'm not entirely sure what I want to tell him.

Right now he's got an Asus K8N, AMD64 3000+, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600XT.

He wants to spend as little as possible. I've noticed by watching Slickdeals and even the AT Hot Deals forum that I'd say he could do 4GB RAM, a PSU upgrade (most likely necessary if going with everything else), a motherboard, a C2D or C2Q, and a graphics card for like 450 that would be pretty reasonable in terms of power.

Howerver, he's wondering if he can get away with marginal upgrades. RAM is a no-brainer, it's cheap, 2 GBs for like 30 bucks on Newegg AB. Done deal. The question comes down to video performance. A 7600GT (AGP, the board does not support PCI-E) for 110 bucks, sounds great? However, reviews say this card runs HOT and an aftermarket cooler is recommended. Ok, fine, so throw a Zalman on it for another 35 bucks and call it a day. 30 for RAM, 110 for a card, and 35 for cooler - 175, say 200 with shipping.

My question is; if he goes with the marginal upgrades (just RAM and video card) is his CPU going to bottleneck the graphics card's performance? Is that AMD64 3000+ just too slow to feed the 7600GT appropriately?

 

[Sylvanas]

Yeah an A64 3000+ really is not sufficient for the games coming out now let alone the future- even with a 7600GT a single core 3000+ is not going to let it run at it's potential. How much does he want to spend all up? You can build a really decent budget rig these days.

 

[TheVrolok]

Yeah, that's pretty much what I figured, I just needed some backup. We're talking now and I think I've got him talked into spending a bit more for a more substantial upgrade. Honestly, just browsing Slickdeals and some other deals sites I'm seeing a Q6600 with a decent board, 2GB RAM (he's only got a 32 bit OS atm), an 8800GS, 500watt Antec earthwatts for like 450. No biggie.

 

[gregoryvg]

If money is a concern for him, adding an extra gig of RAM and an AGP 3650 will probably take him far for around $100. I don't think WAR uses two CPU cores.

 

[imported_Kiwi]

Originally posted by: TheVrolok

Right now he's got an Asus K8N, AMD64 3000+, 1GB RAM, Radeon 9600XT.

He wants to spend as little as possible. ... if he can get away with marginal upgrades. RAM is a no-brainer, it's cheap, 2 GBs for like 30 bucks on Newegg AB.

Actually, the older DDR1 RAM his system will be using is more expensive by far than DDR2

The question comes down to video performance. A 7600GT (AGP, the board does not support PCI-E) for 110 bucks, sounds great? However, reviews say this card runs HOT and an aftermarket cooler is recommended. Ok, fine, so throw a Zalman on it for another 35 bucks and call it a day. 30 for RAM, 110 for a card, and 35 for cooler - 175, say 200 with shipping.

Whether the 7600 GT is actually running so hot or not depends on the model, and maker, but $110 seems awfully high in USD through online sellers when ATI's equivalent cards are selling for a lot less than that (AMD offers far more variety for AGP than nVIDIA). What you have apparently overlooked is the requirement for a non-stock, 350 watts or higher, power supply.

My question is; if he goes with the marginal upgrades (just RAM and video card) is his CPU going to bottleneck the graphics card's performance? Is that AMD64 3000+ just too slow to feed the 7600GT appropriately?

I'll disagree with another answer and say that it "depends". Most games these days put so much more emphasis on the graphics that older CPUs are getting a break, and not being stressed as comparatively heavily as with previous games, for a given level of game intensity. With some games, using a medium video card from a current video generation with a somewhat dated CPU won't be a big problem at all, and only the "Gone Gold" game version here will tell the tale.

In general, however, for playing FPS and RTS games from the past couple of years, the AMD A64 3000 is pretty long in the tooth. all right.

MMOs, unlike other games, tend to soft-pedal the hardware requirements, and try to offer good scaling way on down for poor quality systems. You can play WoW with almost anything produced with the claim word "PC" in its name, from over the past 5 years. No official requirements are included anywhere on the Warhammer web site, so it's not a good idea to assume that the Beta is truly representative.