In need of help: Graphic Cards.

[Nutcase]

Okay:

Processor Name: Intel Celeron 325
Size: 256 MBytes

As I thought. Processor is fine for WoW, but you are badly bottlenecked by both memory and graphics. In addition to a new graphics card, you want this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820159108
Takes you to 1.25GB or 1.12GB depending on whether you have a free slot or if you need to toss an old memory chip out of the way.

So what do you think are the cheapest options for reducing or negating the lag problem? Ideally I'd like to spend $40 or less.

If things are that tight, you could try getting by with just 512MB of extra memory (taking you to 768MB total). That's $16.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141164
Plus you need the graphics card. The one Agayek found is great for this purpose. That makes $53 total.
IMO, either you spend that much, or save your money altogether and forget WoW. Ignoring either one of the bottlenecks will leave you with a choppy game.

 

[Signa]

It sounds to me like you have way more money than common sense. Don't buy the "bleeding edge" stuff, because your performance/price ration is very low at that extreme, and as we all know in 6 months it's all going to be much cheaper than it is right now. You're basically being suckered in by hype and fancy sounding words. Take a few minutes to do some research on each piece of hardware before you go blowing all your money. For example, you're buying an i7 quad core CPU for what is obviously a gaming computer, when games these days support 2 cores at most (and some of them not even that!)

This. This! THIS!!!

The i7 965 is a waste of money. Go for the 920, or at LEAST the 940. Those are still affordable for their power. Last time I checked, the 965 was 4x the cost of the 920. I could build a whole computer with a 920 at the cost of the 965 alone. When it's all said and done, the 965 would be a better computer, but it wont be running x4 circles around my 920.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Which of the two is better? They're my only choices, I'm ordering a computer and these two are on the top of the list, which I'm guessing means they're the best they have? Don't give me any long words as I haven't got a clue what any of it means.

Chillblast Radeon HD 4870 X2 2GB
or
Nvidia Geforce GTX 295 1792MB Graphics Card

Thanks!

I'm pretty sure that Nvidia cards are more stable on more games. So the 295 I think is better. It's not so much the amount of ram a gpu has but it's speed.

 

[IrrelevantTangent]

Okay:

Processor Name: Intel Celeron 325
Size: 256 MBytes

As I thought. Processor is fine for WoW, but you are badly bottlenecked by both memory and graphics. In addition to a new graphics card, you want this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820159108
Takes you to 1.25GB or 1.12GB depending on whether you have a free slot or if you need to toss an old memory chip out of the way.

So what do you think are the cheapest options for reducing or negating the lag problem? Ideally I'd like to spend $40 or less.

If things are that tight, you could try getting by with just 512MB of extra memory (taking you to 768MB total). That's $16.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820141164
Plus you need the graphics card. The one Agayek found is great for this purpose. That makes $53 total.
IMO, either you spend that much, or save your money altogether and forget WoW. Ignoring either one of the bottlenecks will leave you with a choppy game.

I'll see what I can do, and I'll let you guys know if there are any more recent developments about it. Thanks for all the help regarding this matter, even though I basically hijacked this thread.

 

[sgtshock]

1792MB of graphics card memory? Jesus, I haven't been keeping up with graphics cards lately (mostly because the last truly demanding PC game came out in 2007), but I can't believe we're that far already. I didn't think my 8800 would be obsolete this fast.

Edit: woo, 300th post. THIS IS SPARTAAA!!! (Sorry, couldn't resist).

 

[jamesworkshop]

1792MB of graphics card memory? Jesus, I haven't been keeping up with graphics cards lately .

remember the memory is mirrored (duplicated) the actual framebuffer is only half that size

 

[Samuel Cook]

It sounds to me like you have way more money than common sense. Don't buy the "bleeding edge" stuff, because your performance/price ration is very low at that extreme, and as we all know in 6 months it's all going to be much cheaper than it is right now. You're basically being suckered in by hype and fancy sounding words. Take a few minutes to do some research on each piece of hardware before you go blowing all your money. For example, you're buying an i7 quad core CPU for what is obviously a gaming computer, when games these days support 2 cores at most (and some of them not even that!)

This isn't just for gaming, it's also for music recording and CAD, which needs a powerful computer to run effectively. Also, I'm not paying for this, the company that I work for is, and I was recommended this computer from a music technician. Obviously I have no idea what I've put into the thing, but surely the more powerful the stuff I put in is, the better running the computer will be?

Thanks for the help!

 

[Steelfists]

It sounds to me like you have way more money than common sense. Don't buy the "bleeding edge" stuff, because your performance/price ration is very low at that extreme, and as we all know in 6 months it's all going to be much cheaper than it is right now. You're basically being suckered in by hype and fancy sounding words. Take a few minutes to do some research on each piece of hardware before you go blowing all your money. For example, you're buying an i7 quad core CPU for what is obviously a gaming computer, when games these days support 2 cores at most (and some of them not even that!)

This isn't just for gaming, it's also for music recording and CAD, which needs a powerful computer to run effectively. Also, I'm not paying for this, the company that I work for is, and I was recommended this computer from a music technician. Obviously I have no idea what I've put into the thing, but surely the more powerful the stuff I put in is, the better running the computer will be?

Thanks for the help!

A music technician. Not a computer technician.

The computer technicians are recommending things right now. I think when it comes to computers, you should value their advice more highly.

 

[Samuel Cook]

It sounds to me like you have way more money than common sense. Don't buy the "bleeding edge" stuff, because your performance/price ration is very low at that extreme, and as we all know in 6 months it's all going to be much cheaper than it is right now. You're basically being suckered in by hype and fancy sounding words. Take a few minutes to do some research on each piece of hardware before you go blowing all your money. For example, you're buying an i7 quad core CPU for what is obviously a gaming computer, when games these days support 2 cores at most (and some of them not even that!)

This isn't just for gaming, it's also for music recording and CAD, which needs a powerful computer to run effectively. Also, I'm not paying for this, the company that I work for is, and I was recommended this computer from a music technician. Obviously I have no idea what I've put into the thing, but surely the more powerful the stuff I put in is, the better running the computer will be?

Thanks for the help!

A music technician. Not a computer technician.

The computer technicians are recommending things right now. I think when it comes to computers, you should value their advice more highly.

Seeming as my music technician friend uses his computer for the exact same thing as this one will be used for, I'm taking his advice very seriously, and as for taking the repliers' advise, I have, I've changed a lot of things on the list, which I've been told to by these guys.

 

[Steelfists]

It sounds to me like you have way more money than common sense. Don't buy the "bleeding edge" stuff, because your performance/price ration is very low at that extreme, and as we all know in 6 months it's all going to be much cheaper than it is right now. You're basically being suckered in by hype and fancy sounding words. Take a few minutes to do some research on each piece of hardware before you go blowing all your money. For example, you're buying an i7 quad core CPU for what is obviously a gaming computer, when games these days support 2 cores at most (and some of them not even that!)

This isn't just for gaming, it's also for music recording and CAD, which needs a powerful computer to run effectively. Also, I'm not paying for this, the company that I work for is, and I was recommended this computer from a music technician. Obviously I have no idea what I've put into the thing, but surely the more powerful the stuff I put in is, the better running the computer will be?

Thanks for the help!

A music technician. Not a computer technician.

The computer technicians are recommending things right now. I think when it comes to computers, you should value their advice more highly.

Seeming as my music technician friend uses his computer for the exact same thing as this one will be used for, I'm taking his advice very seriously, and as for taking the repliers' advise, I have, I've changed a lot of things on the list, which I've been told to by these guys.

Know Best.

Erm, I mean, you could save large amounts of money (100s) if you get the 920 i7. Since you have a pretty expensive cooling system, you could easily overclock it to get the same performance. Why buy it if you aren't going to use it?

And just becuase your friend has that processor doesn't mean he has any idea whether there is any meaningful increase in the performance of his PC over an i7 920.

 

[Samuel Cook]

But surely I'll be using the computers' full power when running a bunch of music programs while recording a load of instruments? I don't know how much power that would take, but on my old colleges' recording computer, it could only run 2 programs and record 1 instrument without it freezing.. That's why I was recommended this.

As for over-clocking, can someone please explain what it is?!

 

[Agayek]

But surely I'll be using the computers' full power when running a bunch of music programs while recording a load of instruments? I don't know how much power that would take, but on my old colleges' recording computer, it could only run 2 programs and record 1 instrument without it freezing.. That's why I was recommended this.

As for over-clocking, can someone please explain what it is?!

Over-clocking is using software to increase the performance of your hardware. Things like a 3.0 GHz processor being cranked up to 3.4 GHz.

 

[Nutcase]

Erm, I mean, you could save large amounts of money (100s) if you get the 920 i7. Since you have a pretty expensive cooling system, you could easily overclock it to get the same performance. Why buy it if you aren't going to use it?

And just becuase your friend has that processor doesn't mean he has any idea whether there is any meaningful increase in the performance of his PC over an i7 920.

Actually OP doesn't need to overclock anything. Look at the processor options on the machine he's planning to get. He has a choice of 920, 940 and 965. They all come overclocked by the manufacturer, even with stock cooling. The 920 comes clocked to 3.4GHz, and the 965 comes clocked to 3.6GHz. The underlying technology is virtually the same, so there is almost no speed difference unless you want to tinker, crank the 965 even higher, and kill the warranty in the process. (Obviously, were OP interested in doing so, he'd be asking different questions on a different forum.)

The choice between the 965 and 920 comes down to paying £535 extra for imperceptible speed benefit, or not.

 

[Steelfists]

Well thats even better then.

 

[not a zaar]

It sounds to me like you have way more money than common sense. Don't buy the "bleeding edge" stuff, because your performance/price ration is very low at that extreme, and as we all know in 6 months it's all going to be much cheaper than it is right now. You're basically being suckered in by hype and fancy sounding words. Take a few minutes to do some research on each piece of hardware before you go blowing all your money. For example, you're buying an i7 quad core CPU for what is obviously a gaming computer, when games these days support 2 cores at most (and some of them not even that!)

This isn't just for gaming, it's also for music recording and CAD, which needs a powerful computer to run effectively. Also, I'm not paying for this, the company that I work for is, and I was recommended this computer from a music technician. Obviously I have no idea what I've put into the thing, but surely the more powerful the stuff I put in is, the better running the computer will be?

Thanks for the help!

Wow that's nice of your company to pay for your custom build home computer. If you're going to be doing CAD, then nVidia makes a special line of cards for CAD. I'm sure your company would prefer you doing work instead of play on their computer

Here you can read about nVidia's professional graphic cards: http://www.nvidia.com/page/workstation.html

 

[Samuel Cook]

It sounds to me like you have way more money than common sense. Don't buy the "bleeding edge" stuff, because your performance/price ration is very low at that extreme, and as we all know in 6 months it's all going to be much cheaper than it is right now. You're basically being suckered in by hype and fancy sounding words. Take a few minutes to do some research on each piece of hardware before you go blowing all your money. For example, you're buying an i7 quad core CPU for what is obviously a gaming computer, when games these days support 2 cores at most (and some of them not even that!)

This isn't just for gaming, it's also for music recording and CAD, which needs a powerful computer to run effectively. Also, I'm not paying for this, the company that I work for is, and I was recommended this computer from a music technician. Obviously I have no idea what I've put into the thing, but surely the more powerful the stuff I put in is, the better running the computer will be?

Thanks for the help!

Wow that's nice of your company to pay for your custom build home computer. If you're going to be doing CAD, then nVidia makes a special line of cards for CAD. I'm sure your company would prefer you doing work instead of play on their computer

Here you can read about nVidia's professional graphic cards: http://www.nvidia.com/page/workstation.html

Awesome, Cheers!
And as for the gaming Vs working, I've told them that I'll be paying half of the final cost so I could also use it for my music and games, just so they wont get pissy that I'm using it for personal use.