Frenzi

Hello!

I am a somewhat casual computer user. I have some knowledge of how a computer works and the general components, but often I believe I fall into the "little knowledge being worse than no knowledge" category. Therefore I'm a little stumped with a problem I'm encountering with my framerate while playing World of Warcraft. In general questing areas, I can get framerates as high as 150FPS with absolute minimum graphic specs. In Dalaran I manage anywhere between 8-22FPS, and when raiding I am at a meager 5-12FPS in 25 man, considerably higher in 10 mans.

Here are my computer specifications:

Power Supply: Raidmax HYBRID 2 RX-630SS, 630W, 2 Amps on 12V Rails

Motherboard: This one I'm sadly not sure. It's a stock Dell mobo that came with the original computer that was bought in 2006 and since has been heavily upgraded component wise.

CPU: Intel Pentium D, Dual Core, 3.2GHz

RAM: 3x Corsair 1GB DDR 400

Video Card: nVidia Geforce 9800GTX+, PCI Express, 512MB, SLI

Hard Drive: Western Digital SATA 640GB

OS: Windows XP SP3


I'd like to provide a little background for anyone interested in helping me troubleshoot what the problem is. Here are the things I've done so far:

I've overclocked the GPU to run at a 815MHz Core Clock, 1320MHz Memory Clock, and 1836MHz Shader Clock. These are speeds that were tested with Crysis and Crysis: Warhead as a benchmark and I've determined they are safe, with the GPU running at a rather mild 55C. I have also installed the latest drivers for the GeForce 9 series.

Secondly, I believe (but please inform me if I'm wrong) that the CPU is not the culprit. Running Firefox, iTunes, and WoW at the same time as a semi-stress test, the CPU is only clocking in at around 12%, with spikes going upwards of 25%. Granted, I don't have a lot of knowledge involving CPUs, but what I've managed to glean from online articles is that the CPU is performing at a good capacity in this instance.

Finally, all setting in WoW are put at the absolute minimum. With all addons disabled, I managed to gain about 2 FPS while raiding, although that is simply not enough to justify not having the useful addons. I think some of the problem is that my resolution is set at 1320x768(wide) to match the monitor I play on. I also play full screen, as I read that windowed mode does drop FPS.

Which finally brings me to something I've noticed. I recently switched from a rather old 19" Dell Flatscreen to playing on my 42" Samsung LCD HDTV. I know that the Samsung is not "designed" for gaming, but it does feature a VGA port. I'm currently running a VGA cable from the screen to the GPU and have both WoW and desktop resolutions set at 1320x768.

If anyone could shed some light on the issue, I'd be very grateful. I know that the GPU is fully capable of producing much better quality FPS as it can run Crysis fairly well with settings nearly maximized. I (and pardon my lack of knowledge here) did read somewhere that WoW does not support SLI and the 9800GTX+ may fall into that category, but again, I don't know a lot about how SLI works or whether that has anything to do with the issue.

Thanks for your assistance!
-Frenzi