ATI 4650 good deal?

[Broomba37]

October of 2009, I bough the ATI 4650 card and was noticing that the sli and crossfire is not recommended for wow and multiboxing, is that correct?

Also, I am running an intel e8400 on a gigabyte motherboard with 8GB Ram and Win 7 Pro 64 bit. I was wondering if I get a new or specific video card, OC my CPU, get a new CPU or motherboard (combo), would that allow my multiboxing to run smoothly (fps) and not have so many spontaneous moments where 1 toon or several tend to lag or really take a hit in the movement and flow of the game. Computer is running around 2.83 (tops at 3.0) when bought.

Any advice would help, because the system will run fine for a while and then bam -- major lag or downtime in the flow, and I am not in a big city.

[xartin]

Replacing the e8400 with Q9650 or Q9550 would be more than enough muscle for an upgrade. About the ati? I've never bought an ati product because every single ati I've ever had to support have been a complete and utter pain in the ass. Poor drivers and even worse product design. I passed my A+, Network+ and Server + courses in colllege with very high grades... every ati I've had to mess with has been a complete nuicance.

ati doesn't support crossfire in windowed mode which is just stupid. Advice on replacing the video card? buy a 275 or 285 GTX nvidia and never look back.

[Psylence]

What are you looking to spend?

[Broomba37]

Bare min -- under 400 or 300. Wondering if OC CPU and new power supply and graphics would do it -- looking into 650 W power and PNY - NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT 1GB DDR2 PCI Express Graphics Card or is there another graphic card like this that is better?

Quick: what makes the Q9550 a better CPU than the E8400 -- because its a Quad and the e8400 is core 2 duo -- meaning more cpu power in a quad? I would ponder the idea of OC my e8400 but i am overtly cautious and dont sure how much i can oc my e8400 on my gigabyte ep43ud3l. Any suggestions or ideas greatly welcomed.

[xartin]

I used to have an e8400 in my current system and it wasn't nearly strong enough to run 5x wow accounts. Most of the accounts would lag because the cpu just didn't have enough power to run that many. it was fine with two accounts but there's no way it could handle the demand of 5 accounts. upgrading my own system to a Q9650 and 8 gigs of ram instantly solved the latency issues. Most higher end core 2 quads have 12MB of cache which is huge and the Q9650 is 12GHZ total with all four cores

I'm not a big fan of overclocking because in my experience OC can cause system instability unless you really know wtf your doing when setting up your overclock config. I didn't have much luck finding your motherboard specs on gigabyte's website so I'm uncertain what to recommend with regards to the motherboard. If your not currently running DDR3 memory it would be a shame to have to replace all the memory to upgrade to a DDR3 capable motherboard however the performance increase would be very noticeable.

Upgrading video cards can be a difficult issue if your considering buying a lower end card available in any generation like the 9400 because a 8800GTX would likely still outperform the lower end card from a newer generation. When I had an 7600GT BFG some years ago as my main card I was planning an upgrade and looked at getting a lower end 8000 because the 8800 was $500.00 but the 8400 really offered a minimal performance upgrade. i ended up buying the 8800

Even a 260 nvidia would be a huge improvement over your current ati card.

[Broomba37]

I found the Q9550 at Fry's and my gigabyte motherboard can support it. So it would be good running the Q9550 w/out OC at 2.83 speed and run all 5 wows? Also, getting an nvidia or other video card and a high power supply would def improve? I am using a 450 or 480 watt power supply.
I have 8GB ram too DDR2 -- that is my mother board spec.
thanks

[xartin]

hmmm you could be running a bit light in the power supply department with a 450 watt. perhaps consdier buying a higher wattage enermax. I have a revolution 85+ 850 watt in my system which may be overkill but i'll never undervolt my system

Enermax does have some Modu series psu's which are still very solid power supplies available at a very reasonable cost.

I highly recommend ncix!

http://www.ncixus.com/products/29271/EMD625AWT/ENERMAX/

http://www.ncixus.com/products/37379...2DECO/ENERMAX/

cpu at ncix

http://www.ncixus.com/products/30576...69Q9550/Intel/

[Broomba37]

thanks, does it matter on video cards ram ddr2,3, 5, etc on the motherboard too?

[xartin]

GDDR5 would be faster naturally but only the newest nvidia cards support GDDR5. if you want GDDR5 on a video card your cheapest option would likely be a 5670 series ati

http://www.ncixus.com/products/51349/HD567XZNF3/XFX/

[Broomba37]

PNY - NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 1GB GDDR3 PCI Express Graphics Card
I was thinking of this one: PNY - NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 1GB GDDR3 PCI Express Graphics Card - VCG98GTEE1XPB

This cpu and mother board combo: http://www.frys.com/product/6286490?...H:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Power Supply: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Corsair+...&skuId=9358287

2 * 4GB RAM: http://www.frys.com/product/6149319?...H:MAIN_RSLT_PG

Interested in what you and others think