ok im going to be getting a pretty good chunk of money back from taxes and want to up graded my computer but i have not had time to keep up with everything new. dont get me wrong my setup now runs everything out there with no problems. But i want a faster one that can playanythign at maxed out. my current stup is a 650i msi mb with pci-e 1 on it, sound blaster 4 card( i forget the name now) 2 36 raptor drives 1 250 gig western digital drive, and a maxtor 500gig back up drive. An evga superclocked 8800 gt pci-e 2.0, some 2 gigs of 800 mhr ram i forget the name of it now but its good gameing ram an e6500 i think it is but its bsel modded to 3ghz with 1333 fsb, and i have a microsoft sidewinder and an logitec g11 keyboard and a cambrige soundworks 5.1 surround sound speaker setup. i also have a antec 900 case, and some 700-750 watt psu.

I want something a but newer but staying with evga for the video card and motherbaord, i was thinking something along the line of the 790i motherbaord and a 280 video card, that was the last new stuff i read for computer stuff, so im not sure what new stuff has come out after that.i will replace the mother for sure and the ram im going to keep the cpu for now i think and get a new video card and keep the rest of it, unless someone can find some good stuff at good prices and explain why i should get it and the gain over what i have now. i know my mother board is bottlenecking my video card and such. sorry if im rabbling i have not been to sleep in over 36hours. Im not dead just cought up in real life and work and school and wow, yes i play wow get over it.

Buy a computer that's going to last you for longer then 3 months and start spending money on something more realistic. Like a PS3. Or caviar.

Man....Your motherboard isn't bottlenecking your video card because of PCIe 1.0.  I have read everywhere that PCIe 2.0 doesnt really help you much unless you are running SLI or crossfire, which it sounds like you will not be. I understand your vidboard is a 2.0 factor, but i wouldnt expect night and day improvements by investing in a PCie 2.0 mobo.   I havent spent too much time looking at your old mobo, and you didnt really outline how much money you have to spend....but what I would do is invest in atleast 2 more gigs of ram.   Your board probably only supporst 800mhz reliably...but find something with low CAS timings (say 4-4-4) or better and you will see much more machine improvement.

What i would recommend is:

new video card (make sure you have the power to run somethign like a nvidia 280 or ati 4850x2 or 4870x2)
4 gigs of decent ram
Windows vista 64 bit version (you could pirate this i suppose, but I dont support that so i bought my copy...in any event, 64 bit OS is necessary to register the 4 gigs or more of RAM)
Power supply if you need it to run the video cards (800-1000 watt recc)


You will get more performance for your dollar doing this than upgrading a mobo without doing the chip at the same time.  If you upgrade your mobo now without doing your chip you are stuck choosing a LG775 slot board...you are just gonna be fucked when in a year or whatever you want to get a faster, better chip...but because the slot has changed you have to buy ANOTHER mobo to upgrade the chip.  Ex.  the new intel cores are using LG1366, completely incompatable with your the board you are using,,,and the one you are interested in upgrading to. 

to my knowledge, 8800's are a thing of the past. I would either get the 280 or 295... yet im partial to radeon.  The 295 only has 898mb ram thats mirrored, along with it being ddr3. (compared to the 4870x2 which has 2gb ddr5 ram). A 295 is two 260's glued together? and a 280 is an overclocked 260 i think.