Where do I begin upgrading?

[Rivers]

If I were you I would get:

AMD Athlon 64 processor with the 939 pin package.
ASUS or MSI mobo with PCI- express (note that PCI-E doesn

[svenpurple7]

If I were you I would get:

AMD Athlon 64 processor with the 939 pin package.

Consider it done!

[quote]
ASUS or MSI mobo with PCI- express (note that PCI-E doesn

[Rivers]

The ATI X8XX series doesn

[Rivers]

Most PSU state only the peak wattage, I recently bought a 700W PSU but its true wattage is 300W, a true Wattage is the one it can give at any time and this is very important for hi end systems, when you buy it see if the store has one opened for you to see inside if its capacitors are huge then you know that it

[Rivers]

As you can see my current PSU is sold as 700W, and the max wattage is 320 for 5v and 460W for 12v this is what you should look for when buying your PSU. The last one I had was 420W(the real wattage was about 230) and it didn

[svenpurple7]

Thanks for the PSU info Rivers.  I had no idea.  I will look out for that, unfortunately I will be buying all my parts on-line and I won't have the opportunity to look at the PSU's capacitors.  I guess I will have to make a run to the store before ordering.

As far as the video card goes, I may have to do some more research.  No disrespect towards what you were saying about the 6800U, but everything I read shows better numbers for the x850 xt.  But what do I know?  That's why I come to this forum and ask all these silly questions.

Ben.

[Rivers]

The X850 XT will be faster for sure, but does it really matter what are 10 or even 20 FPS when you have 150 FPS you

[the_autopilot]

Wow, you guys pretty much explained everything.

However, I must bring this to light.

Nvidia's implenmentation of the PS3 is actually not too good.
So don't let PS3 support be the deciding factor.

[Rivers]

Where did you see that?
As far as I know NVIDIA GeForce FX 5XXX cards have problems with shader model 2.0, but the new cards from the 6 series doesn

[svenpurple7]

WOW is right.  :o
I have made up my mind on CPU and mobo.
I have also made up my mind on PCI-e video card.  However, I am more unclear about which card to get now than I was at the begining.  That is only becuase everyone has given me great feedback.  You guys rock!  ;D
I wish I could say I was leaning more towards one card than the other (6800U vs. x850 xt), but I can't.  :P  I can say that it's going to be one of those two.  I think that you can't go wrong either way.

Ben.

[the_autopilot]

I would go with the x850 xt. Hands down.

The only reason I have a 6800 ultra is because I can have two of them (SLI). On my other gaming machine which is one card solution, I have a x850 xt and have no performence problems with it EVER. Infact, I've never seen it go below 30 FPS even in the most intense conditions.