Since the release of Wrath of the Lich King I've noticed that performance in Northrend on my pc is quite slow and, for the first time in quite a while, I was forced to knock the detail down. The beautiful shadows were the first to go, giving back some performance, but even then the significantly pushed out draw distance in Northrend was making my video card (Geforce 8800GT) choke.

I'm not a person who likes to play at anything but maximum detail, thus the whining and begging on my part began.

I already planned to get a new video card at the end of the year, so I figured why not just use the credit card and get it now? Good plan, huh? Oui didn't agree. It took some work, but he reluctantly came around to my way of thinking (I gave him the silent treatment). Off to Jedi Shop we went.

I've been a nVidia user for a long time so that was what I asked for, but the answer was not exactly what I'd hoped. They didn't have any because they were expecting a new model to be released in about a month. The staff kept asking me why didn't I want to wait and get the new one, but I explained that I'm not a person who likes to wait.

I was desperate and not walking out of the store without something after going to the effort of convincing Oui, so asked about ATI's offerings and while they didn't have the top model (I had to 'wait' until Monday for that one) they did have the next best thing so I got that.

I ended up with the ATI 4870 HD and after installing it and testing it out in my pc I quickly discovered something important: my power supply wasn't cutting the cheese. It was pretty clear this was occuring as whenever I ran anything taxing the entire pc would shutdown. After checking the manual I saw it requires a 500W power supply and as mine was only 390W it was off to Jedi Shop again the next morning.

The new power supply (Gigabyte Odin Pro 550W) is very nice and now that there is enough power my pc isn't shutting itself down all the time. The video card is also working as intended and when taxed the fan in the dual slot design powers up with quite a lot of noise.

At least it runs good.