Upgrading Video or no?

[scuba14]

Hello,
I have an older machine and can't afford to really get a new system atm. I play online games like wow and ffxiv mmo, and was wondering if buying a better video card would help my bad fps problem.
I know I have a piece of crap machine so here it goes..
I have AMD Athlon 64 6000+ Dual core 3.10ghz
with a Asus M3A78-CM motherboard and a Nvidia Geforce GT 240 video card. Running Windows 7 with 4 gigs of ram.
Atm until I can afford a newer machine, all I want is better fps and it doesn't need to be ultra graphics or anything, just running around without being so choppy in 25 man wow's and normal FFXIV gameplay would be good enough. Would a better video do this for me, and if so can you recommend a video card that will use its full potential in my motherboard without bottlenecking a great deal?
Thank You

 

[Jimzz]

What type of CPU usage are you seeing while playing? Have you tried to overclock the video card and/or the CPU?

Any of the 77XX GDDR5 video cards should be good. The 7750 with GDDR5 is probably the best bet for what you have now. The 7770/7790 would give you head room in the future but be held back by the current system.



$70 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814131461

 

[skipsneeky2]

7750 or gtx650 depending on your preference would be fine,asus claims your board supports chips like the x6 1090t and even the x4 965 being the best supported and such chips would be cheap drop ins assuming you update your bios to the latest version,then heck any card up to a 7950 would be a awesome drop in.

cpu support list for confirmation http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M3A78CM/#support_CPU

 

[tweakboy]

I think a 650 wil go nice with the system you have. gl ALso I know these OC well.

 

[DDRGamer]

I'm sure a higher speed CPU would also help out, a quick Craigslist or browse in the FS/FT forums may help keep things under budget.

 

[Face2Face]

Aren't most MMO's very cpu intensive? If WOW and FFXIV are then it may be better to find a used Phenom II quad-core on Craigslist or PC forums. Either way a new gpu would go a long way with a new CPU as well.. You really need both.

Looks like they have a benchmark for FFXIV if anyone wants to give it a go..

http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/benchmark/index.html

 

[Termie]

Before you buy anything, you should download MSI afterburner and run it in the background to graph GPU usage during a gaming session. I have a feeling this might be a CPU bottleneck, but the only way to know for sure is to see if your GPU is running between 90-99% usage in gaming. If not, what you really need is a new CPU.