Upgrading for gta iv

Would not think so.
If you are doing a mobo swapout check out an Intel rig with a Q9xxx at the heart and go from there. Ive read a few topics on GTA4 and it seems people really benefit from having a Quad. I cant with a clear concience recommend the current Phenoms - i have one but it was a bargain and thats the only reason i bought it.

There are rigs with Nvidia 280's that have issues with this game so you are potentially going to be limited by your GPU as well.

Why 3gb RAM and not 4GB? RUnning x86 OS? Make sure you do not shortchange yourself on a crappy PSU especially if you want to go SLI. If its a good brad name 600w PSU then its unlikely you will have any issues as long as you arent running 20 HDD's

Yeah I understand about the CPU the thing is im on a budget and also Ive never used Intel in over 13 years of a PC owner, so what suggestions for an AMD?

The specs I posted really isnt a budget system but I am on a budget is what I meant, its more of a midrange system. Because later ill also have SLI. The thing is I seen people post benchmarks from GTA IV and it only utilizes 50-60% of their 4gb of ram, so 3GB should be enough.

I would be happy with 35 AVG fps on medium settings, right now im only at 17, the bottleneck is most likely my ram, and CPU. Im under the suggested system specs for the game for both of those.

Yeah and ill just work from an xbox 360 too, anyway i was looking at the AMD Phenom X3 8650, I think ill get that CPU instead since its only $30 more here locally, by the way In SE Asia we dont have all the top gear available in western countries, and when they do have it the markup is insane.

I never thought I would see the day people would have to upgrade their PCs to play a GTA game.

If your just looking to boost up those frames why not just get an SLI board for your current rig and ad an additional 9600 Gt right away instead of holding off and buying a CPU first? You'll get a much better FPS pay out with the additional GPU then you will with upgrading your current CPU, you can always upgrade the CPU at a later time if you get the right motherboard. Or else you could just skip the 9600 GT SLI al together along with all the parts upgrade you want to do (memory aside) and just slam a GTX260 in your rig for less the cost of all the parts you want to swap out and it will destroy a 9600 GT SLI configuration. That 9600 GT is old news and isn't that great of a card, It's pretty low end. 2 low end cards is still just a 2X low end card.

Hopefully they release an update for GTA4 that'll fix the laginess. I'm running with an Intel C2D E8400, 4gigs of RAM and an 8800gt and when i'm driving fast or running from cops, it gets slightly laggy. Other than that it runs fine.

So, I think that you should really reconsider getting those 2 9600gts. That card is pretty weak. Just wait an extra month and buy one card with the combined money.