Question about my computer

[chrisiv]

Hi i am new to doing custom computers but i ordered this custom computer a few months ago from a company close to were i live that a few people i know recommended.

But my question is what should be the first thing i worry about upgrading like graphics card mother board or power supply i think i am pretty good on memory for a little while.



COOLER MASTER, Storm Scout Black Mid Tower Case w/ Window, ATX, No PSU, Steel/Plastic   

HEC, Orion HP 585D 585W Power Supply, 24-pin ATX, ATX12V, Dual 80mm Fans, OEM   
ASUS, M4A78LT-M, AM3, AMD® 760G, DDR3-1800 (O.C.) 16GB /4, PCIe x16 HCF, SATA 3 Gb/s RAID 10 /6, VGA+DVI, HDMI, HDA, GbLAN, mATX, Retail   

AMD, Phenom™ II X4 955 Quad-Core 3.2GHz, AM3, HT 4000MHz, 4x 512KB L2 + 6MB L3 cache, 125W, 45nm, Black Edition, Retail   

   
KINGSTON, 4GB (2 x 2GB) ValueRAM PC3-10600 DDR3 1333MHz CL9 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC   

SAPPHIRE, Radeon™ HD 5670 775MHz, 1GB DDR5 4000MHz, PCIe x16 CrossFire, DVI+HDMI+DP, Retail   

SEAGATE, 1TB Barracuda® 7200.12, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB cache   
RAID, No RAID, Independent HDD Drives

[DaveLembke]

Depending on how much of a upgrade you are doing and its application which I am guessing is gaming. An AM3+ socket motherboard will cover the next socket generation of AMD CPU's, but if you plan on using this system for 3 or 4 years before retiring a motherboard, you can wait and get the best of the best then or 2nd best and not have anything invested into a specific socket type which can become obsolete as soon as chip makers come out with the next best thing and dont want to stick with the standard socket.

If your a gamer, and one that always has to play the latest games and on maximum video settings you'll likely be retiring video cards about once a year to stay up with the most powerful there is. Also 4GB or Ram is going to be a bottleneck and ValueRam doesnt perform as well as the top end stuff especially if your looking to overclock.

If your OS is 32-bit your only getting 3GB out of that 4GB, so hopefully your OS is 64-Bit so you can slap say 16GB in there and be able to address it.

As for myself, my current bottleneck is Win 7 32-bit and 4GB Ram using only 3GB. So I guess I am going to upgrade to Win 7 64 bit or if Win 8 isnt a flop like Vista, go for Windows 8 64 bit after enough people have guinnea pigged it and save me from wasted money if its anything as horrid as Vista. Maybe Microsoft will break the track record of every other "Home Use" OS being junk, such as Win 98 was better than Win 95, and Win Me sucked Badly and XP kicked bottom, then Vista sucked badly and then Win 7 kicked bottom again. The Business OS ... NT OS Line I have no complaints over. NT3.5, NT4, and Windows 2000 Pro/Server ( aka NT5 ) I had no issues with.

Used "Bottom" because the 4 letter word that starts with B and ends with double T's surprisingly is censored.

[Geek-9pm]

I take exception to your kick bûtt remarks. Windows 2000 was a real improvement over Windows 98.               
Windows XP is, to date, the most widely deployed desktop OS.
Windows 7 is very good. The principal issue with windows 7 64 bit is getting the right drives. The is largly a problem with the makers of graphics cards. IMHO, if a manufacture can not make a good 64 bit driver for its hardware, maybe they should go into some other business.

[BC_Programmer]

I have never found any basis for comments that either ME or Vista are bad.

[soybean]

I have never found any basis for comments that either ME or Vista are bad.

Me either.  Been using Vista on my laptop since purchasing it in July 2007 and it's been fine. 

[chrisiv]

I use windows 7 64 bit as for gaming i don't game that much at leas not on my computer i play the total war games every now and then mainly Rome total war and Napoleon total war since i only have those 2. I was also wondering if the power supply i have now to good for awhile or if that is something that will need upgraded soon if anyone can tell me it is 585W.

[soybean]

I'd guess your power supply is OK.  But, I suggest you use http://extreme.outervision.com/tools.jsp or another online power supply calculator to get some quantitative measurement regarding your power supply needs.

[Geek-9pm]

The trend is to try and reduce power consumption. The CPU chips nare now being fabricated under 45nm. That means more density and more need to keep the poser down.
This is from PCmag about four years ago.
Intel "Penryn" 45nm CPU