System Upgrade Question

[ledfortr]

Hey folks!

I am trying to get a little more power out of my system and I wanted to see what your thoughts are (where I should spend the money)

First, let me discuss how I use the computer: I use it primarily for gaming, pretty low end stuff, World of Warcraft, Spore. I do some minor video editing and video encoding.

My goal would be to be able to play WoW with the all setting as high as they can go and still have fps around 100+ for smoothness, also to limit the time for encoding.

My rig:
Mobo: IP35 Pro
CPU: e6750 @ 3.4mHz
Mem: Corsair Dominator 4gb (2x2gb) pc2 8500 (1066)
Vid: 9800gx2
HD: 300GB Rapter 10k RPM
OS: Vista Ultimate
Sound: x-fi gamer xtreme

My budget would be about 350ish, where would I get the biggest bang for the buck with this rig?

I am thinking the CPU would be a good a bump up. Thanks all!!

 

[Slugbait]

Upgrading to a quad core proc won't do much at all for FPS, but it will definitely reduce encoding time.

Except for the hard drive, your system doesn't really have any bottlenecks, as far as I can tell...

 

[mpilchfamily]

HDD have always been and will continue to be the bottleneck of every system. But right now you have no other bottlenecks in the system. Only thing i could suggest is a better video card. Better yet a pair of better video cards.

I don't know anyone who gets upwards of 100FSP in WoW. Even with low settings. Not that its a limitation of the system but a limitation in the comunitaction between your system and the server.

 

[DSF]

I seriously doubt that you can tell the difference between, say, 70 and 110 FPS.

What resolution is your monitor?

 

[mpilchfamily]

You can't really tell the difference between 40 and 100. But WoW does tell you the FPS.

 

[zerocool84]

Originally posted by: Slugbait
Upgrading to a quad core proc won't do much at all for FPS, but it will definitely reduce encoding time.

Except for the hard drive, your system doesn't really have any bottlenecks, as far as I can tell...

Yep exactly. All he can do is get a quad and overclock that. He already has a pretty damn good system.

 

[ledfortr]

You actually can tell a difference while flying and turning from 40-100 fps (it looks choppy). In burning crusades I could always hit 120 fps in Shattrath. The HD wouldn't be a bottleneck for gaming as most everything is loaded into ram (unless switching zones). I am looking into grabbing an e8500 as it'll OC 4ghz+ even with stock cooling.

My monitor is a 24" samsung at 1920x1200 resolution.

The reason I am thinking about getting a new CPU is due to my benchmark testing shows a considerable increase with even slight bump in the overclock (3dmark,Sisoft, crysis, CoD4). I don't want to go with a quad b\c they just don't OC like the dual cores.