Need advice for parts upgrade(gaming/work).

[MystifyingMonkey]

I'm looking to upgrade my motherboard, cpu, memory and graphics card. I'm mostly just programming, doing schoolwork and gaming on this. Don' really have a budget for this, but I don't want to go overboard with this build. I play a lot of FPS games and SC2. I would like this desktop to last me for 4-5 years. I'll be running this on a 1900x1200 monitor

The build that I was considering was:
AMD Phenom II X4 965BE 3.4GHz :
Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX

ASUS Sabertooth 990FX AM3+ Motherboard:
Newegg.com - ASUS Sabertooth 990FX AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600:
Newegg.com - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9

HIS IceQ X Turbo Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16:
Newegg.com - HIS IceQ X Turbo H695QNT2G2M Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

Total for everything comes to about $617.96


Would it be smarter for me to cut back on the cpu and video card and save it for an upgrade in a year or two? I'd only save maybe 30-40 dollars on the cpu, and 100-150 dollars on the video card. I am planning to swap out the case, slap in a water cooling system, and oc my cpu during the summer time next year.

[flanzig1]

That video card requires at least a 500w PSU. Would go with a Corsair in the 650 w range and sinc e you mentioned OCing, may want to bump that up to 750W.

[glc]

750 won't be necessary as long as your PSU is a quality unit.

[MystifyingMonkey]

I have a 550w Corsair. Should I avoid oc'ing until I get a better psu?

[glc]

It should be able to handle it, but if you got a 95w processor you would have more room to play with.

Newegg.com - AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor HDX945WFGMBOX

Another option would be an Intel Sandy Bridge i5-2500K with an Asus P8Z68-V LE.

[MystifyingMonkey]

I've been putting more thought into this build. I upgraded my PSU to a Seasonic 650w. I was thinking about lowering to these parts to save some money, and upgrade my CPU next spring/summer. Would this hinder my performance in games a lot? I tend to run my settings close to max or max (without AA).


AMD Athlon II X3 455 Rana 3.3GHz:
Newegg.com - AMD Athlon II X3 455 Rana 3.3GHz 3 x 512KB L2 Cache Socket AM3 95W Triple-Core Desktop Processor ADX455WFGMBOX

GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard:
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GA-970A-UD3 AM3+ AMD 970 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

I have a water cooling system from my old rig so I'm looking to overclock the cpu a few months down the line, but only to stable levels that I can use for everyday. Will this motherboard bottleneck me from future upgrades or affect OC stability? I have the money to shell for the better motherboard, but I know I won't be running SLI or XFire since I usually wait to just buy a single powerful GPU.

[glc]

Newegg.com - ASUS M5A99X EVO AM3+ AMD 990X SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS