Weigh the options: New Vidcard or Macbook?

Mephistopheles

So, I've come to a crux and I've had a bit of difficulty deciding. I've been saving up for a Macbook for a few months now, and am very close to purchasing one. About a week ago the videocard on my PC started turning off while under load (works fine for desktopping, shuts off after about 10 minutes in a game). I'm almost positive this is due to heat issues. In any case, it's an ATI X800XL, which is 4+ years old, and it's time for an upgrade anyway.

Should I buy a vidcard now and delay my Macbook purchase? Key to this question is WoW performance on a Macbook. Does anyone have any details on this? I've looked around and seen everything from "playable" to "terrible", all with a complete lack of numbers (FPS, level of detail, etc). Also, if I understand correctly (doubtful), the current Macbook line has the Intel 1300 integrated graphics, whereas they used to have the 950; meaning the current models perform slightly better than before.

I'm not looking to game exclusively on my Macbook, just wondering if it can tide me over to a new vidcard.

On the videocard front, I have deduced the following:

$200-$250: nVidia 8800GT 512MB
sub $200: ATI Radeon HD 3850

I think either of these would be a huge upgrade for me (heck I could probably upgrade for less than $50).

TechBoy

Actually, the X800 is just barely 3 years old. Assuming the rest of your computer is from around that time too, you wouldn't really be taking full advantage of those cards as the rest of your computer would be a bottleneck.

If your goal is to be able to play WoW, you could do that swimmingly with much cheaper cards.

If you goal is to play the latest and greatest, you would need to upgrade the rest of your system too since current games these days require more than just a really good graphics card. You'd need a dual-core processor and oodles of ram to run them smoothly.

Mephistopheles

I could have sworn I built my computer before then, but yes, I'm aware that my AMD 939 platform is a bottleneck. I don't want to spend the money to upgrade it, along with buying a new video card.

What card would you recommend getting for sub $100?

And yes, I'm probably only going to be playing WoW and Source engine games.

Akilae729

Hell, i could play wow and source games with an FX5200

any card you can find should do the job. Drop $50 and get a new card

then buy the MacBook

Raslin

I'd go for an X1650 if you can get one at a good price. I run a 1950, and run css at highest settings at 120fps, and wow everything highest(except aa, its middle of the road) at 40-70fps. This is at 1680x1050.

You should be fine with an x1650.