Hello all. I am looking to upgrade my video card for gaming purposes. The game I am playing is World of Warcraft:The Burning Crusade. I was looking at the Geforce 7800gs 256mb agp or the ATI x1950pro 256mb agp card. Currently I am unsure as to whether my current setup will allow me to even run the ATI card but was looking for some more expert advice. My current specs are:

AMD Athlon 64 2800+ 1.8GHz 754 Socket
1 gig ram
450 Watt Power Supply
Windows XP Home

My current video card is an ATI Radeon 9800pro All-in-Wonder card. I am sick of seeing my FPS in the teens and lower 20s. As you can see, my motherboard only supports an AGP card. I wish I could just put together a new machine but being a college student, money is hard to come by. The 2 cards I mentioned above are both around $200 on newegg.com. Any Advice is appreciated.

I did a benchmark for those two cards here: http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.htm...3&chart=196
Even though the 7800 its useing is 512mb the 1950 pro is better in most of the benchmarks. I'm not sure though if this is an accurate outcome though because it says AGP for the 7800 and the 1950pro might be PCI express.

Here are the two links to the cards I am tryin to decide on:
7800GS

and

x1950pro

I have read on the ATI card that my power supply may not support this card but I was not sure. I also wasn't sure if my processor would bottleneck either of these cards or would it be fine? My power supply model is LC-B450E. I am almost leaning toward the 7800GS just because I am a bit scared if I go with the ATI that something could get fried.

Your current card is not that bad a model. You could avoid forking out that cash if you just lowered the graphics settings if they aren't already. That slow CPU of yours could also be bottlenecking your cards full potential, in which case it will definitely limit one of those high-end cards you're looking at.

I do have most of the settings on low atm. I have tried to find to find a processor that is a 754 socket 3700+ and the few I have been able to find cost around $240 or so.

If money is hard to come by, maybe look for a bit lower card like the 7600gs/gt. Check benchmarks and see how it handles the games you want to play. A slightly lower card should also reduce bottlenecking from other parts and this card. I just have a 6800 with a sempron 2800 and it can still play games like oblivion on almost high settings. (Never played WoW but I'm sure I could play it nicely.)

I have also not seen many 3700+ processers. They are pretty rare. The 3200/3400s are easier to find and much more resonably priced and not TOO much of a performance difference.

Just by looking at the specs, I'd say that the ATI card would be a touch faster, due to higher clock speeds. However, the 7800gs has 4 more pipelines that might make up for the slightly slower clock speeds.

According to the link that Sterling14 provided (gotta love TomsHardware!), the ATI card is slightly faster (both cards were AGP too), but only a touch under 8 FPS. Basically, it's now do you want Nvidia or ATI. I think that you'd be happy with either card.

While a smaller card might save you some cash, I think that the difference in FPS would make it worth while to purchase one of the cards that you listed.