Steps on upgrading my build?

I assume you know how to install cpu/motherboard and integrate them within your chassis, so I will skip that step.

Do you know what version of windows you have installed? If it is an OEM version, you will have to buy a new copy of windows, if you plan to run windows that is. After you figure that out, back up your important files/pictures/steam games, install the new components, and install windows and its updates. It's really quite simple.

Any questions?

ok i have windows 7 home premium do i still need to buy another copy?

so then i basically get a external hard drive back up everything i need and then after replacing the parts physically i boot off the windows disk, reformat the old hdd, install windows, treat as a new pc

Before you do anything, back up what you value.

Plan A:

Install your new cpu and motherboard.
Boot from your hard drive, and most of the time, windows will boot even witha cpu and motherboard change.
Install the chipset and other drivers from the cd included with your motherboard.
You will likely need to reactivate the windows license.
There should be no problem if your windows is either retail or upgrade.
If it is oem, then in theory, you can't reuse the license.
But, MS is surprisingly lenient about this and may very well allow you to reactivate. It is worth a try.
They need to know that this copy is only being used on one PC.
If need be, buy an upgrade copy of windows and use that key to activate.
Upgrade is considered as retail, and you will have rid yourself of the OEM single motherboard restriction forever.

Plan B:

This would be a great time to upgrade your os drive to a SSD.
Leave your old hard drive disconnected so windows will not put a recovery partition on it.
Use windows easy transfer to export your files and settings.
After install of windows, you can import them back. Apps will need to be reinstalled.

OK thank you very much for the long thought out reply i really do appreciate it, I dont have enough money for the ssd so my quesion is when i do plan A do i need to uninstall every driver i have, video, chipset, lan, usb, etc etc?

No. They take up a negligible amount of space and will not be used if not needed.

so then no problems will be caused by not uninstalling?

Is there someone living with you that can help you with this? I'm just confused that these questions are coming from an account with a silver home brew badge.

No problem.

I got this badge beucase i help troubleshoot problems like not posting or constent restarts etc etc, everyone in my house is mentally impared when it comes to computers and yeah i really have never upgraded my motherboard and would like to be absolutely sure i know what im doing so i dont have to make a thread named "No post after Motherboard and CPU upgrade"

alright well thanks for the help i am getting the motherboard/cpu by friday and will update you on any problems that may occur and thanks for the help i really appreciate it

good luck!

hahah nice you have the exact same setup besides the extreme4 hey by the way how do you like it?

If you have not brought the components yet, maybe wait until haswell is released? If haswell is not to your taste, the components that you want to get will go down in price and since you have a really decent setup already, it might be worth the wait.

It's tasty, though I'm having a weird crossfire issue right now. I have 2 asus dc2-v2's crossfired, but I picked up a dc2-t (factory overclocked asus 7850) really cheap. I planned on donating the lower clocking v2 to gf's machine, and hopefully get the dc2-t and the better v2 both to 1200 mhz core.

However, the machine won't even make it past post with the dc2-t and v2 installed. been putting off the support call (I'm expecting Asus to blame Asrock and vice-versa >.<).

well i already bought it but the truth is that i cant really wait(well i can) because the fx-8120 bottlenecks my gpu by about 30-40 or more % in games like bf3, crysis2, etc etc

hmmm does your motherboard have the little molex plug adapter?

also it could be a defective part thats why it was so cheap

not quite sure what you mean by a molex plug adapter on the mobo itself. afaik it does not.

Bot the v2 and the t work perfectly on their own, in either slot. I thought the crossfire connector might be damaged on the t card, but machine still won't post even with the xfire bridge off if the t card is installed with the v2.