Upgrade advise welcome

Ok so this is a pretty big upgrade I have in mind, I'm trying to get the most for my money... I already purchased the 4890 (got it for 180 on eBay, thought that was a good deal), just waiting on the tax return to do the rest. If you have any comments, please share them

From:

Intel Wolfdale E6300 @ 2.8Ghz
Asus P5KPL-CM
585W PSU / MicroATX case (bought them together on newegg for 65$, so kind of a cheap PSU)
4 GB Kingston HyperX DDR2 1066
Galaxy GeForce 9600GT 512MB (96GFF6HUUEXV)

To:

Intel Q9550 OR E8400 ... still deciding, Microcenter has the Q9550 on sale for 180+tax, I may jump on that
Sapphire Radeon 4890 Toxic edition (100269TXSR)
OCZ Fatal1ty OCZ550FTY 550W
Antec 300
XIGMATEK HDT-S1283 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler
GA-EP45-UD3P LGA 775 P45

Don't go for LGA 775 CPU's.
They are almost dead.

Go for i5/i7 CPUs & Corresponding Gigabyte Motherboards.

I would go to i5-750 paired with GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2 LGA 1156

Buy Q9550 only if you don't want to upgrade the mobo.
Since you are also buying a mobo. I would suggest you to make some changes.

Either get a i5-750 from Microcenter with a compatible mobo or get a AMD Phenom II 955.
Cuz 775 is a dead socket.No more upgrades for it.

PSU and Case are good.

If you want your system to be upgraded in future, come out of LGA 775 socket.

If you can go with AMD means pretty good though. You can save some more money to get DDR3 ram.

You can also look at various options available for mobo in ASUS/Gigabyte.

I prefer Gigabyte, as I am owning a K7 Gigabyte Mobo+AMD athlon XP 2000+, still running smoothly after 7 years.

If you feel comfortable with AMD, go for it.

For what you use your system for??

Sure first go look into AMD in deep.

What's your budget for Mobo+CPU alone??

Depending upon that we can choose in AMD.

AMD Rocks ( I am not a fanboy) in VFM & Performance.

for the cpu and mobo, around 275 USD. I wasn't expecting to upgrade the RAM, either

You still want to stick with DDR2 Ram??
Is AMD ok for you?? Anyway you are going to upgrade Mobo also changing CPU from intel to AMD won't restrict you.

Yes or NO for both question can give a lot of choices.

But you live near a Microcenter!!

You can get a 750/920 for cheap!!

thank you all for the advice. i made some big changes, and decided it best to start a new thread with my questions:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] e#t2059427