System booting and freezing problem

I've been having this persistent problem for about 3-4 months now. Here's my rig off the bat:

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 970 3.5GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Desktop Processor (1 yr old)
MOBO: ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD (1 yr old)
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (1 yr old)
PSU: OCZ ModXStream Pro 700W Modular High Performance Power Supply (2 months old)
GPU: EVGA 9800 GTX+ 512MB (2 years old)
Case: LIAN LI Lancool PC-K58W Black 0.8 mm SECC (2 months old)
OS: Windows 7 64-bit (6 months old)

The problem started about 4 months ago, some time after I installed Windows 7. The computer would freeze every once in a while when gaming. I didn't think much of it, *** happens. Then it got progressively worse. It got to the point that it would boot up and freeze after like 15-20 mins. Then soon, it would freeze as it was booting up. My first thought was maybe the 4 year old 550W PSU was dying/aging, so I bought a new one (& new case). I moved the computer into its new case with its new PSU and the problem persisted. At first it was able to boot and stay on for maybe 2-3 days, but it went through its progression and now its freezing as it boots up once again. I hadn't touched it for two weeks and when I booted it up today to the login screen and was typing in my password and it froze again. I rebooted it and it barely made it to the mobo screen. Tried to reboot and it wont start up. This is almost the exact same thing that happened before

When I press the power button, the fans runs and makes a sound like its accelerating for about a second and repeats this maybe a dozen times until the fan just runs at a normal speed. No power on the mouse/keyboard and definitely nothing on the monitor. At this point, I can't even boot to Bios.

My gut is telling me that the barely 1 year old mobo is dying, but I don't want to believe that -- the one before that died after only a year. Does anyone know what the problem could be?

do you have access to another pc you can test parts on, this could be a ram issue, a motherboard issue, even a GPU issue. i suspect ram.. try booting without a gpu in and run monitor of the MOBO

Okay, so I just tried switching the RAM around. These were my results:

1) Moved the two sticks from 1 and 2 slot to the 3 and 4 slot = No boot
2) Put one stick in the 1st slot = Booted up, loaded CoD, never froze after about 20 mins of use
3) Put the other stick in the 1st slot = Booted up, loaded CoD, never froze after about 15 mins of use
4) Put RAM into the 1 and 2 slot = No boot
5) Put RAM in the 1 and 3 slot = Booted up
6) Put RAM in the 2 and 3 slot = Booted up
7) Put RAM back in the 1 and 2 slot = Booted up

Results are pretty inconsistent. I'm not sure what to do here. It's booted up as of now, but I'm hesitant to believe it will stay this way...