Time for a new system! Looking at a 790i motherboard, with a Core 2 Quad 9450. Should I stick with DDR2, or make the jump to DDR3? I use a 19" LCD, is a 9600 GT 512 sufficient? Vista 32 or 64?

DDR2, DDR3 is pretty expensive and not worth the price jump. Stick to DDR2 if you can.

I would say a 9600GT will work fine, also consider 8800GT and 8800GTS 512 if you want to compare. At 19", you really can't do better than one of those 3 for a monitor that size for the cost.

Vista 64 is nice, but I personally can't vouch for that. I have read that if you go Vista, 64 bit is a better deal, although I have seen a lot of people happy with Vista 32 bit, SP1 as well.

**SP1 covers all Vista products, not just 32 bit versions, FYI...**

P35 or x38/x48 wil be better than 790i, they'll OC better and SLI is a waste anyway. DDR2 will be fine. With the $100 saved by not getting a 790i get an 8800gt or gts 512mb.

A price range would be helpful.

Don't know what you presently have, so can't say if its time to replace it or not. The Q9450 is getting scarce, so that chip may be a problem to get. I think the Q9550 is better anyway if you're planning to overclock it. For now, DDR2 is the best to get. You can find a 2x2 gig set for under $100, while the same in DDR3 is over $500 the last I looked. DDR3 provides very little performance advantage as well. Both high cost and the lack of meaningful performance increase increase was why I went with DDR2 on my new build. Definitely go with Vista 64. Vista 32 limits the ram that you can use and will be slower in most present apps, and slower yet as new games and apps are produced. The only good reason I see to get Vista 32 is if someone has a machine that won't support a 64 bit OS and he wants to have DX10. With a 19" monitor, I think a 9600GT would suffice.

They actually have some 2x2gb ddr3 1333 for $210 on newegg, probally still not worth the extra price though.

It's definitely time to replace, my present comp is five years old. If there is no substantial performance increase, DDR2 is fine. Would the 8800GT or GTS show that much improvement over the 9600GT with the 19"? Is having the option for SLI a good idea if I ever want to go to a larger LCD? The price isn't a real big problem, been saving for a while.

I would look at an 8800 GTS 512 because it has a better fan, thus better cooling and less noise and from the last I read, better performance. You might doublecheck the performance from Anandtech or somewhere in case some new drivers woke up the 9600GT adn I'm not aware of it at this time. Whether you ever went to SLI or Crossfire depends on how big a monitor is considered. I have a 22'' widescreen LCD and my single 3870 does fine for all but a few games. I figure on moving to a 4870 when that card is released, if the benches show that its a good improvement. Generally speaking, unless a monitor is 24" or larger, dual cards will not show enough improvement to be worthwhile in my opinion.

OK, I hadn't seen that. Its good that the DDR3 price has come down a bit, but I doubt that its worth the extra money at this time. I don't expect that DDR3 ram will be competitive in price/performance for another year or so. I could be wrong, but only the future will tell for sure.

Thanks for the input. Should make my decision easier.