Will phenom ii 965 make a big improvement in gaming?

You wont be bottlenecking too much because the 6850 isnt that strong of a video card. A X4 965 will be a decent upgrade simply because of the L3 cache which will help in game. I went from an Athlon II X3 to a Phenom II X2 that was unlocked to a 3 core and picked up a decent bump in gaming performance. Wasnt night or day or anything but every little bit helps.

So bottom line is yes, a X4 965 will be a nice upgrade especially if you overclock it.

You say you have DDR2, so the Phenom II you're thinking about might not be compatible with your mother board.

What's the exact model you have? Some Phenom IIs are not AM2 compatible, so be aware of that.

Cheers!

Good point but since he's rolling a Athlon II X3 currently, thats a AM3 proc so he's on a AM2+ board right now judging by that and the DDR2 memory.

I'm rocking a am2+ board and i know for sure i can run this phenom ii. I always 100% sure something is capatable before buying. lol My machine is still a work in progress.
btw phenom ii support ddr2 and ddr3. I'm not quite sure but the old phenom's that use the am2+ socket didn't support ddr3.

I screwed up by not going to intel when i first build my pc knowledge wasn't that well when i decided to build a gaming pc and i made the mistake of not reading reviews and getting the best parts when i had the money, anyways I'm eventually buying a am3+ mobo and praying that piledriver is at lease halfway decent. Also the other reason i'm buying another mobo is so i can crossfire 2 hd 6850's. If AMD doesn't work out and piledrive I might eventually make the switch to intel but i rather see AMD kick up the compitition a bit and make pc gaming cheaper!!!! lol