Any Upgrades Suggested?

[PsiNorm]

I built my current computer back in 2008, and in anticipation of Guild Wars 2, I'm wondering if some upgrades could be done. I'm not a hardcore PC gamer, but it is my gaming system of choice. My computer now handles what games I currently play (Guild Wars 1, Mass Effect 2), so I don't know that it's time to build one from scratch.

Here is my current setup:

SAPPHIRE 100265L Radeon HD 4830 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card

NZXT HUSH Black SECC Steel/ Aluminum/ Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler

PNY XLR8 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model MD2048KD2-800-X4

LITE-ON 20X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model iHAS120-04 - OEM

Intel Pentium E5200 Wolfdale 2.5GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor BX80571E5200

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Antec Neo Power 500 500W ATX12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready Modular Active PFC Power Supply

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

I'm hoping for some feedback from those more up-to-date than I about what options there are for improvement. Developers for GW2 say that their game will run on older machines, but if my "older machine" could be tweaked to improve the game experience, I'd like to make the tweak.

Thank you.

PsiNorm

 

[striker410]

Gonna be honest, it all needs an upgrade But other than a total overhaul, I would suggest maybe 2 more GB of ram? You could grab another GPU, and recycle it in your next build. The 4830 is kinda slow nowadays.

 

[ikyung]

You can easily reuse the case, heatsink, HDD, optical drive.

It really depends on how much your budget is and how "well" you want GW2 to run at. Meaning, low, moderate, ultra settings.

No information on GW2 hardware settings, but MMOs seem to utilize CPU processing power as well as GPU power. Meaning, upgrading to a quad-core and a 6000series GPU would give you a huge boost in performance. If I were you, I would wait till at least the GW2 open beta. I heard news that GW2 closed beta were going to start this year, so waiting would be my ideal bet.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

I can agree, if you don't want to do a total upgrade, 2 gb of ram should be reasonably cheap and give a good increase.

 

[dndhatcher]

2GB of RAM will only help if you are running windows 7 64bit. If you are still running xp its not going to do much for you.

Overclocking the CPU or picking up a used core2quad (if you can find one cheap) might also help.

The 4830 is awful weak for modern games. What resolution is your monitor?

Unless you have a desperate need, I would just save your money and plan on spending $650-1000 on new midrange gaming machine maybe next year sometime. 3-5 years is the expected lifespan of a PC.