Where's the bottleneck-what to keep/upgrade

[craneop1985]

I'm currently in the planning stage of a new/upgrade build-Planning on a Phenom II x2 550,4 GB of G. Skill 1600 DDR3 memory, and probably a 1 TB samsung spinpoint HD w/ Win7 home pro. Assembly of all item will be on this board-http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157176. Best price for features that I can find.Still plan on using the Asus 9600 GSO video card-http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121251. I got a little more $ in my budget-$100-140 for changes and upgrades.

 

[Jamin43]

Are you planning on gaming - or a general use.

The 9400 GT is the biggest bottleneck if you plan to game. If you're buying the O/S at retail price or OEM - or are you getting it free somehow. You could save some money from O/S downgrade for the video card update and get the Home Premium version - unless you had some specific reason like Networking needs or 128 GB or RAM

 

[StrangleHold]

Drop the board and get this one. Alot better quality. 15 bucks more, but free shipping with a 10 buck rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128392

 

[craneop1985]

It's for general use right now-but never know when I might find "the game" for me-play a little "city of heroes" right now-Ran Win 7 RC before MB died-going with 64 bit for more memory access-9600 GSO only has 384 MB of memory--might need more for future needs.

 

[Drenlin]

You said you're going 64 bit? I assume that means you're getting OEM, since retail has 32 and 64?

If you're going OEM, choose your motherboard wisely. You can't change it once you've installed Windows without hacking it, which in this case is illegal I think.