After having to resort to medium graphics to get playable framerates and in the case of some games which I can't mention I can't even run 25+ fps with medium settings.
Here are my specs.
EVGA 680i LGA 775 SLI motherboard
BFG 7900 GS ( I am definitely upgrading this )
2gb corsair dominator ( I tried putting 2 more gigabytes of the same speed + timing but different brand and they don't play nice [both work/boot but not together] so I would have to go 2 x 2gb in this situation )
160gb SATA HD ( I cannot use IDE )
Typhoon CPU cooler
Intel core 2 duo E6400 running at 2.6 ghz each core very stable ( only 50 c under maximum load, 43c idle and I literally don't have a single case fan in my computer on. The typhoon and the power supply cool my case nicely. I have 2 case fans I can enable easily which would bring it down further to
My PSU is a hiper 580 watt type R with 630 watt maximum. It is rated as SLI. I don't have any other hard drives or power sucking devices plugged in.
I'm thinking of :
4gb 2x 2gb = 70 dollars newegg.com
9600 GT = 130 dollars newegg.com
overclocking my processor to 2.8 and turning on another fan in my case.
Possibly:
Getting a seagate barracuda 500 gb only 100 dollars but I might want to wait for black Friday.
I will be running vista so I can network with my 360 so I will probably need 4gb for ultimate.
Later I will be running 2 9600 GTs together in SLI but the sale only applies to 1.

An option, consider using 2 hard drives instead of just one large one. Then use the second drive as a backup. You can still install things on it and use it to play your games and what not from, but it's great if you have a system crash or have to reformat b/c you can just nuke the C: drive and leave your secondary drive and it's data in peace. I loved doing that back when I was using all my ide drives. Made reformats so much more painless.

Anyone else? I think this is the right forum.

Btw, are you going to run 64 bit or 32 bit for your OS? Like Vista 64 bit or 32 bit. Because if your going 32 bit, 4 gb of memory might be pointless.

I can go either, but I heard 64bit had more problems with software/games and I know it will only show 3.25 gigs but it will still use 4gb. I just want something more than 2gb for the long run. Should I wait till black friday to buy 4gb and just run vista 32bit on 2gb of ram and my new graphics? Or would 2gb bottleneck it.

Myself, I'm running 2gb and it's fine for the time being. 64 bit Vista might get better once SP1 comes out. You could always have it read and use the 3.25, you'd just probably never get the full utilization from it until you went 64 bit.

I heard that it does use the other 750 mb for the OS it just doesn't show it, some bug on microsoft's end which will probably be fixed. I bought a 9600 and 500gb seagate hard drive which should get here on monday. Thanks for the help.

I think it's actually having to do with the way 32 bit is set up, because it does not know how to handle all of the addressing for that much memory. But no problem.