I've got a 8800GT on a Abit IP35 Pro that I use for playing World of Warcraft.  With this last expansion, this card is really suffering with overheating.  I can control this by manually controlling the 8800GT's fan speed, but I really need an upgrade.  I've got about $100 to spend... any suggestions?
 
 

If you want to go AMD I'd recommend a HD 7770  it beats almost everything in its price range, Also if you want used the HD 6950s dropped to almost nothing and run WOW Amazingly. I know this is the EVGA Forum but AMD Makes sense at the $100 mark, on the Nvidia EVGA makes a solid GTX 650 for around $100 and can trade blows with a 7770 if you do go AMD though, I'd recommend XFX as their warrenty/service is almost as good as evga and have lifetime warrenty on their gpu's

I'd advise caution about going with lower end graphics cards at this point. WoW is CPU bound and because of the constant updates to the graphics with each xpack release it's best to compensate with a powerful enough card. I am not saying don't go with a lower end graphics card however I am saying that if you want enough eye candy that the game doesn't look bad then look into the newer mid range and higher products out there. This is even more true if you run monitors with widescreen based resolutions. Just out of curiosity what are your full system specs?

You are probably going to run into a bottleneck problem with that cpu. I am not 100 percent sure hopefully some one can chime in on that. 
 
 

The way all computer systems works is that the Central Processing Unit (CPU) runs everything, and tells all other parts what to do, including telling the graphics card what to draw.  Therefore you can't just upgrade one components, like your graphics card, thinking the CPU will take whatever you throw in; there is a limit (that is the concept behind CPU bottlenecking).  
 
The first limit will be for stock CPU (at most the equivalent of two 8800GT's in SLI), the second limit will go by the highest practical overclock (maybe supporting 3-way SLI 8800GTX = GTX560), but since those combinations of graphics cards are out of your budget, then you may not worry about bottlenecking a cheaper newer card).  But should you budget $200 or higher for a new graphics card, then you would need to get your CPU above 4GHz to avoid upgrading it, which was difficult for a first-gen Core 2 Duo.  
 

slary61
I'm pretty loyal to EVGA and NVIDIA technology.  The 650 looks good and is only a little above my price range.  Anyone have experience with it and WOW?   Also, the reviews often mention the fan as being loud and "whiny."

I advise you to let go of loyalty, the last thing you should be doing is artificially limiting your choices with a $100 budget, since newer+ affordable isn't automatically/always faster than what you had.  
 
Most graphics card reviews don't cover World of Warcraft, mainly because it is CPU-intensive with all the characters running around, when only GPU-intensive games (first-person view) shows the most difference.  However, Elder Scrolls: Skyrim is the closet equivalency that is being tested, so use the following reviews to gauge and idea of realistic expectation (and yes, even look to slightly older mid-range which may be cheap enough to get, yet faster than what you had).
 
The reason I'm choosing these two reviews is due to the common graphics card used, HD5770, you should be able to scale your card in one review to approximate performance of another card, even though the exact game isn't tested (but they are both CPU-intensive, just like WoW).  Plus it should help you make realistic price decisions; don't just pick a budget and look at specs and assume/hope it would be good-- I don't ever recommend doing that, you must always look up reviews.
 
Anandtech GTX650 Ti review which includes the GTX650, at 1920x1200 with the detail turned up (note: They used a more recent CPU; with CPU-intensive it makes a very big difference, don't assume you'll get these rates with your possibly-older CPU, unless it is overclocked to an equivalency).
 

 
Anandtech GTS450 review, they used the game HAWX as combat-flight-sim tends to be CPU-intensive, 8800GT is at the bottom for reference.  On average a GTS450 is twice as fast as 8800GT and uses about the same electrical power, but since the heatsink is bigger, more energy is dissipated and thus temps will be lower.
 

 
Based on this, a GTS450 is twice an 8800GT, while GTX650 throws punches GTS450.  I suggest you consider faster but older, try a 400 or 500 series.  Just so you know, 500 is just a refresh of the 400's, like the 9-series was to the 8-series; therefore GTS450 = GTX550 Ti for the most part, and GT440 = 8800GT, approximately.

Killmur

I'd advise caution about going with lower end graphics cards at this point. WoW is CPU bound and because of the constant updates to the graphics with each xpack release it's best to compensate with a powerful enough card. I am not saying don't go with a lower end graphics card however I am saying that if you want enough eye candy that the game doesn't look bad then look into the newer mid range and higher products out there. This is even more true if you run monitors with widescreen based resolutions. Just out of curiosity what are your full system specs?

 
I ran it on a 6770 on high with a quad core phenom at 3.2 ghz  So I dont think its so GPU Bound honestly recommending something midrange/high end on a dual core.
 

slary61 

Thanks, this is great information.  Finding a GTS 450 will be problematic, but at least I've got something to aim at.  NewEgg had one for sale, but they are out of stock.  I'm looking to buy a GPU that can follow me into my next rebuild, so although I'm interested about CPU bottlenecking, unless one card was more susceptible to it than another, it isn't a  big factor for me. 

My loyalty to EVGA and NVIDIA are  based upon past experiences with other makers.  AMD has had a lot of driver issues, and I'm just not convinced they are going to be around forever.  EVGA has a great guarantee and pretty good customer service.   I'd look at other packagers of NVIDIA technology, but would prefer EVGA. 

 
AMD's Driver issues are a past thing, I had no issues in the 2 years I was on AMD's platform and never had any driver issues, AMD isn't going anywhere despite what you might think, They still turn a decent profit. Again though If I were you I'd pick up the 650.

 
Moving to the Graphics cards section.

why not look on ebay theres alot of gtx 280 285 ect and 450's ect on there.  i meen if your not upgrading i would go with one of those.
 Fine on the cpu thing and wow , well I play wow and a better vid card will make it look alot smoother.
I have an 8800 in my pile of cards but i think it doesn work, if it did i would give it to ya...