said by Leathal :

Take what they said with a grain of salt as there are games on the horizon that will shadow World of Warcraft's graphics with the same playability if not better, if Blizzard sticks to the same rudimentary graphic design they will be holding the short end of the stick as flocks of players will leave WoW making it not feasible that Blizzard continues to operate and support World of Warcraft.

Leathal

said by Bes :

Tehuno:

Thanks. I was still feeling very iffy about getting the E2160, but I think you've convinced me that it will be worth the money.

Leathal and Chaud:

"The Expansion is not going to require users to upgrade to Vista. We have some things in the works on the end of graphics, but it's not anything that is going to require this specific upgrade."

- Posted by someone from the Blizzard Team on page 12, post number 235.

As for the "We have some things in works on the end of graphics" part, I don't think they'd pump the graphics too high that everyone would require anything much more than what they have in their System Requirements page. Blizzard has always made sure to make their games available to almost everyone, and that includes budget-PC-building people like me. :)

I'm also not seeing where Leathal learned the expansion would require more CPU, video performance, and RAM...

said by rawwhide :

I like the new AMD Phenom...

A few pieces for under $400

[att=1]

This isn't a bad price to get into a quad core system. You can upgrade other things later, like the motherboard. This particular one isn't good for OC'ing.

said by Bes :

Heh, yeah. Newegg. It would be nice if they delivered anywhere other than within the US and Puerto Rico, preferably Canada. Big disappointment.

said by Bes :

What store is that, anyway?

said by Bes :

Rawwhide:

That looks OK, but with taxes and shipping, that would go over $400, I'm sure.
Also, $19.99 for a 580W PSU seems a bit odd to me. I wonder, is it even any good?

said by Bes :

Tehuno:

You mean if I'm planning on overclocking the RAM, or overclocking anything in general? I'm planning to overclock the processor, that's for sure, and perhaps whatever video card I decide to get.

Also, are the prices on Newegg in USD? They might be a little pricey in CAD.

said by Murrain :

quote:

---

Think I'll try to squeeze some more life out of this socket 939 and upgrade the CPU.

---

I did this as well, I upgraded from an AMD Athlon 64 3800+ to an Opteron 175 Dual Core and went from a 7800gt to an EVGA 8800gt Superclocked.

For my tight budget this was best way to bump my old rig up a little...bought both at Newegg (can't say enough good things about this site...I always ship ground and I always get shipments next day).

Anyways...here is linky for Opteron 175:
»www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a···19103584

You can get a 170 for $99 and you can pick up a 180 OEM (not retail) for $129 at NewEgg as well (When I bought my 175 the 180 was not in stock).

I have an Asus A8N-SLI mobo with bios version ~13. I Was told that as long as this mobo has bios version 13 and higher there is no need to upgrade bios to recognize the dual-core CPU. I installed the Opteron and it was recognized without a problem.

Hope this helps ;)

said by Leathal :

This machine will be out of date when the expansion comes out as it's minimum requirements require more CPU, video performance, and RAM then you are looking to get for $400.

Leathal

said by Bes :

Sithra:

OK, good to know.

Vathral:

So you've had some really good experiences with Intel and Nvidia combos?
You're using a GeForce 8800GT right now? What's your processor?

said by Vathral :

Max settings, 1680x1050, 8800GT card and I get 45fps in the middle of the waves in Hyjal. I love BT though, get atleast 65fps during trash. RoS rapes my fps to ~20 for some odd reason. Not even all the spell effects from P2 of illidan does that.

said by Bes :

Oh, speaking of RAM, I was wondering, if I bought a GFX card that is DDR3, would I need to buy DDR3 RAM?

said by SixOfNine :

Those of you getting a kazillion fps at max settings: how about during the trash waves in Mount Hyjal? I've had to turn a couple of things down to squeeze out more fps during that encounter.

said by Greydoom :

Trying to get a more powerful 939 chip will cost you more than getting a new chip and board nowadays, i have a 2.4 Ghz in our kids comp and i thought it had failed the other day... I checked for CPU prices and i did find that locally it would be cheaper to buy an Athalon 64X2 chip (2.5 Ghz) and Mobo (under $200 for the combo) for the price of just a 939 chip (which i would have had to special order...)

said by Bes :

I was thinking of running it at 1280x1024 32bit. I think that's the highest the game allows, right?