Upgrade Help/Questions

[spartacvs]

Greetings,

M2n SLI
AMD Athlon 64x2 4000+
2x1gb DDR2-800
2x2gb DDR2-800
nVidia GeForce 8400 GS
450w PSU
Win XP Pro

I need help!
I've had this rig for a long time and it's in need of an update.
Money is always an option so I was thinking to upgrade small things that I can use in a newer machine some where down the road.
I went ahead and bought 4gb (2x2) of ram only to find out that 32bit OS can only use 3 gigs worth *shrug*.
So now I figured lets take a look at video cards.
It's making my head spin. The main point I have found is that I will need to upgrade my PSU. What PSU should I get? I don't even know what to look at.
There are some pretty good sub $150 cards. I was looking at the Radeon HD6790 or the GeForce 550Ti.
After all this my MotherBoard/CPU is holding me back so I was looking at the ASUS M5A99x EVO with the FX-8120 bulldozer with 8gb DDR#-1866

I haven't even thought about storage at this point or a burner and I will have to buy Windows 7.

Where does it end?

Thanks for your help.

-Matt-

 

[Emerald]

forget the upgrade and save the money for a new computer.

if you get the 6790, you should get a 650W PSU; however, you will not see much improvement due to your CPU

 

[opckieran]

A good 500 Watt PSU will handle a 6870, so a 6790 will be just fine with just 500 Watts, even if you get the insanely power-hungry Bulldozer CPU.

 

[spartacvs]

Best answer selected by spartacvs.