Opaion on new system

What's your price range/ gaming resolution, purpose, etc.? It'll be easier if you follow the formate here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] t-problems

On the other hand, I believe you should be able to get a decent i5 system with your budget judging from your choice of motherboard & cpu.

Core 2 (s775) is a dead socket. Yes you can still get parts for it, but there is no more goodies coming for the s775 camp.

We need to know:
* What resolution are you gaming under?
* What is your budget?
* What is the purpose of the build and what applications will you run on it?
* What parts are you adding to this system to complete the package?? I see you didn't mention: DVD drive, Case, HD, OS??
I personally think the GTX 295 is way too much $ for what you get. I'd rather have the 4890 GPU and take the savings and put into other parts or just save the $ for upgrades later (AMD 5xxx GPU's anyone??). The Corsair 750tx is a good PSU to get, but is overkill for what you have spec'd out. A quality 500w or so PSU is all you need for that kind of build.

The price between DDR2 and DDR3 nowadays are actually not that much different, no more than $20 for a 2x2GB pack:

DDR2 1066
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231166

DDR3 1333
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231180

Lets see how this compares:
Your build:
$220 q9550
$215 - $30 MIRc Asus Rampage Mobo
$98 - $15 MIRc = $83 Dominator DDR2 1066 mHz RAM
$500 Evga Co Op Ed GTX 295

Your build total ~$1,033 - $45 MIRc = ~$988

i5 build:
$207 i5 750
$135 ASUS P7P55D LE LGA 1156 Intel P55 <--- Decent middle of the road i5 mobo
$80 G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
~$210 XFX HD-489A-ZDFC Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5

Total i5 build ~$632

Difference between the 2 build = ~$356?? Now I'm not sure where your thinking the DDR3 is soo much more that you can't afford it?

Well if your going to Xfire/SLI on that mobo, your going to be limited to a 8x/8x output from the 2 slots. The 3rd slot is limited to 4x output.

I'd consider one of these i5 boards:
Newegg comparison of several i5 s1156 mobo's

Now your mobo selection isn't bad, but I just wanted to point out the limitation on the Xfire/SLI slots.

Well probably not much difference, since your gaming at 1680 x 1050 resolution. That is why I suggested the 4890. You could even go with 1 GTX 275 if you like.

I think that is mindless on a 1680 x 1050 resolution, IMHO.