Upgrading my PC

[gumi]

I'm looking at upgrading my Gateway GT5426E (lol i know), I already added 2 more gigs of Ram for 4 total and I also added a BFG Nvidia 260 OC last year.
I'm looking at getting an AMD Phenom II X4 955 black edition CPU with 6 gigs of ddr3 1600 Mushking ram. (I'm only getting 6 since I'm running Vista 32 bit and have read vista 32 only supports 4 gigs and 6 gigs was the best deal I could find on newegg.com in ddr3)
The motherboard I think I want is a MSI 790FX-GD70 AM3 AMD 790FX ATX AMD Motherboard, I'm going to lose the ability to go SLI with my nvidia card but I couldnt find any DDR3/AMD/SLI motherboards out there so I suppose I'll eventually go with 2 Radeon 4870s at some point but thats down the road.
Any advice would be a great help

 

[xthekidx]

I'm only getting 6 since I'm running Vista 32 bit and have read vista 32 only supports 4 gigs and 6 gigs was the best deal I could find on newegg.com in ddr3

That reasoning makes absolutely no sense to me. You can find 4gb DDR3 kits for less than 6gb DDR3 kits. 6gb kits are meant for the i7, not Phenom II. The Phenom II can only run dual channel, not triple.

You can run an AM3 chip in an AM2+ MB, you know, it doesn't require DDR3 memory. You won't lose any performance going that route either. The Phenom II 955 isn't worth the money over the 940, it can't overclock any higher and .2ghz is not worth $60 IMO.

For the amount of money you are looking to spend an i7 is in your price range, and is a much better option. It will also allow you to use SLI.

 

[gumi]

Hehe thats why I posted here, I dont always understand the tech jargon on the individual parts I'm looking at, and the whole dual channel/ 3 channel thing I missed thanks for saving me a few bucks . So which i7 would you recomend, Most I saw where 50-100 bucks more and the mobo's I saw where more expensive as well. I'm trying to keep it in the under 500$ range if at all possible

 

[xthekidx]

$500 for MB/CPU/Ram? Probably not going to happen, but then again you were looking at $180 for MB, $250 for CPU, $60 for ram. Going the i7 route raises each of those by like $25 which is very worth it IMO.

Asus P6T SE
i7 920 and 6gb DDR3 1600 OCZ Platinum

Or you could just get 3gb of ram right now since you are using XP, which is cheaper:
Asus P6T SE
i7 920
OCZ Gold 3gb
If you did that its $520 with the rebates.

 

[gumi]

Well I took your advice and canceled my phenom II order and changed it to an i7 920 with a SLI ready mobo so I can keep my nvidia 260oc.
Now my question is will I need a power supply larger than 550watts? I have a 750 watt in my 6 year old gaming rig I can get out if I need too.
From what I've been reading Intel parts are power hogs when compared to AMD and I dont want to fry anything due to my ignorance XD

This is what I'm looking at now

920 i7

EVGA E758-TR 3-Way SLI

and this ram comes with it in a combo

OCZ gold 6gb trichannel

I upped my price range to the just above $600 mark, but I guess whats a tax return for if not to use, hopefully this will last me a bit longer then the phenom...hmmm and I have an i7 mobo so maybe those smexy i7 965s will have dropped a bunch in a year or 2...lol a guy can dream can't he?

 

[Helloworld_98]

i7 965's won't be available in a year since they're C0's, and the D0 i7 920's oc just as far if not further anyway.

for a PSU you'll only need a 600w as long as you don't SLI later and if you don't plan on keeping the PSU for long then a 500w will do.

and finally, wouldn't it make more sense to wait for core i5? it would save you money on the motherboard and memory and you'd get an extra 133mhz on the cpu clock out of it if you went with the mid-end one.

 

[gumi]

I think I'd like to stick with the i7 and eventually I'd like to get dual 260s but thats a bit down the road (hence why I went with a SLI mobo
When I do go SLI what kind of PSU should I be looking for?

 

[Helloworld_98]

you'd want a corsair or silverstone 750w for 260's in SLI.

 

[xthekidx]

That motherboard that I showed you will do sli, you don't need to spend $60 extra on that EVGA board. If you want to spend a little more, then get this one.

Corsair 750TX <== Great deal right now.