Which to upgrade first?

[Emelth]

Hello everyone!

This is my first built computer and wanted to get a couple opinions on what to upgrade first. The only game I paly on PC is WoW and I multi-task all the time wether watching movies/downloading/surfing the net yada yada yada... I thank you to the original people that helpped me almost a year ago build this beast and it has proven to be a very well working gaming desktop. I was thinking the CPU but dont really know, all advice is welcome and thanks again.

Windows 7 (64 Bit)

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ955FBGMBOX
ASUS M4A87TD/USB3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 AMD Motherboard

Palit NE5X460SF1102 GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) Sonic 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

LITE-ON DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD502HJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

 

[Motopsychojdn]

For now just the graphics card, although for Wow a 460 is enough
Theres no real point in blowing money on a chip, the performance wont change anything drastically for your use
If a new chip was the desire though, you want one of the up and coming BD chips, check if your mobo will support them, may require bios update though
Moto

 

[Emelth]

BD chips? sorry I'm not at all advance in computer talk but I'm trying to learn enough so that I can build my own comptures. So your gonna have to help me out with some of the abbrevations lol

 

[Motopsychojdn]

buldozer, the new architechture from AMD, google bulldozer, FX8150 or even check out the bulldozer thread here on Toms,
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/303953-10-bulldozer-rumors
they're initially going on AM3+ sockets but some AM3 Mobo's will take them with a bios upgrade
Moto

 

[Emelth]

Ah okay, I will check it out hopefully there is something explaining what it can do for WoW

 

[Emelth]

Also should I overclock it? I dont know much about it and have been thinking about it but never really took the time to see if it will make a big difference

 

[Motopsychojdn]

You can read up on Black edition Overclocking over in the Overclocking section, it requires a bit of planning, thought and most of all patience and time,
a lot of Motherboards now have easy one-click overclock stuff built in, its conservative but allows you to feel like your tweaking your Rig, and once you start getting into it you'll pretty soon pick up the idea
you wont need to O/c the 8150 straight off or did you mean your 955? cause that chip is built for clocking man, and if you were up for it I'd suggest clocking as your first move before graphics even
Moto

 

[Emelth]

I was talking about the 955 so I guess I will look it up and figure out how to make it go even faster 😛. Wow I thought that after a year I would need to upgrade something lol.

 

[Motopsychojdn]

nah, like I originally said the gfx, but even thats not 'obsolete' just yet
have fun and welcome to the darkside hehe
Moto

 

[Emelth]

So I looked around on newegg for a new Nvida (tried finding the GTX480 which Tom found to be the best when tested but to no luck didnt find it). Looked at the 470 that came with a 465 as well but dont think I would need two video cards for WoW. So should I go into the 500 series or still stick to a higher 400 series?

 

[Motopsychojdn]

A 560 would be a nice boost if you can go to that, I'm on mobile now so cant post links sorry
Moto

 

[Emelth]

Alright so I found:

EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1461-KR GeForce GTX 560 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Also deffinetly gonna add another 4-8GB RAM any other suggestions? Still got some extra cash to blow

(I've noticed not a lot of people arent giving their input anymore on the forums. I remember my first experience having 5 guys roger up with their opinions in less than an hour.)

 

[Motopsychojdn]

Attention/response times vary I notice myself hehe, sometimes I'm the only one answering a thread, other times theres ten of us all posting at once lol,
The 560 is a strong enough card and should hold wow for a year or two, more ram is unneccessary tbh, but if you have the money spare grab another 4Gb anyhow but maybe a cooler to clock the 955 under?
Moto

 

[Emelth]

Cooler sounds good let me look it up never really thought of one being needed but from what I just read I guess that when you over clock it gets real hot hopefully I can find a good one. So skip the RAM its good enough already the 560 I think I will get. Thank you for all your advice so far deffinetly a big help.

 

[koogco]

The reason you don't really need an upgrade is that it's still the same game. Cataclysm did up the requirements a little bit, but nothing beyond your current system.
If you want to spend some money on your computer hobby-style I suggest buying a nice cooler for the CPU and trying your hand at some overclocking. But I agree with Moto, the GPU would be the main thing to look at if you want better game performance.

You could also look into an SSD, housing wow on a 30gb SSD would probably make load times alot faster (especially if you have alot of addons for the game)

Another thing, if you just have that "spend money on the PC" itch is a prettier/better case for it. Unless you buy something that you will think looks stupid in a few years (im there..) its money well spent, since a case takes a very long time before its out of date (and even then you can probably buy some adapting-gear)

 

[Emelth]

I do have a lot of toons with a lot of different addons but I think I will stay away from the SSD cause my load time is already good as is. I think I found a good Cooler it was rated the best on newegg and the lights match my case, ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler. Or were you guys talking about a different type of cooler?

 

[Motopsychojdn]

@koogco, housing WoW on a 30Gb Ssd? erm, no, not unless you want the other 5Gb of it on another drive 😛
@op, yes, thats the kind of aftermarket cooler we meant, hyper 212, noctua dh12 or 14, search out some reviews on them and decide whats 'best' dont always believe stuff from newegg etc
Moto