Upgrading, finally + Questions

[Seedler]

Finally upgraded from my ancient athlon socket 939 system. It has served me well for its time, but the single-core 3200+ was really starting to show its age.

Anyway, I kept the PSU, harddrive and DVD RW drive, and now my current setup is:

MOBO: Biostar T5 XE

CPU: Intel i5 750

RAM: CORSAIR XM3 DDR3 16000 2x2GB

Hard Drives: 250 GB Maxtor Diamondmax IDE
750 GB Seagate Barracuda SATA II

Video Card: 7900GS

Case: Thermaltake Sopranos

PSU: Thermaltake Noisetaker 485W (32A dual 12V rails)

Now, a few questions:

1. Video card is bottlenecking the crap out of my system currently. Should I jump the gun right now and get a 5850 or should I wait for Nvidia's GT300 fermi (Due some time in March?)

2. I'm planning to overclock the CPU after I get an aftermarket cooler (4.2GHZ easy according to OC sites), currently it's sitting at 3.4Ghz up from 2.66ghz on the stock cooler. Along with a new 5850 video card, will my PSU be enough? Most wattage calculator websites gives me results saying that it would be enough, but I have my doubts.

3. The DDR3 1600 RAM is only running at DDR3 1333 speeds... the mobo clearly supports 1600 ram, so why is it doing that?

4. The old parts are still working with a hitch sitting in a box, could someone recommend me a forum or trading site where I can sell my athlon 64 3200+, 512mb X 2 DDR Ram, and Asus a85nx mobo for pretty cheap? (maybe even the 7900GS)

Thanks in advance.

[Detale]

I'll be back later to answer the other questions but for now I'll give you #3

You need to set the speed in your Bios to use your RAM at that speed, you may even need to set your voltage as well bud. Back in a bit

[bluegene]

As for your graphics card, it's hard to tell.

You can wait for the Fermi, to see if it's much better then the 5850. But it will probably cost a lot more too, as we've seen in the past with Nvidia. Most times ATI has better bang for your buck. And the 5850 is a very good card.
Personally I would go for the 5850.

[tarrkovsky]

change your graphics card dude.
man good options out now, i'd opt for something along the lines of the ATI 5800 series.

[Artemis]

The graphics card question comes down to one of what are you going to use the PC for ? If it is simply for gaming then the simple answer is ATi DOES give better bang for your buck (at least in the lower to mid-range). There is however a but, and it is a but based on usage. The but is, if you are going to use the PC for encoding or multimedia apps then there is more and more acceptance of and coding for NVidia's CUDA technology. This means that the CUDA 'cores' on NVidia cards (groups of shaders) are used as extra processing cores. What this means simply is that an NVidia card with apps coded for it can greatly increase the computing power of a system since the graphics card adds computational cores to the task.
In ATi's defence, they have a similar technology to CUDA called Steam, but industry support for it is lacking and very few apps are being developed to take advantage of Steam. This is also partially due to the fact that Steam is still being developed by ATi and is nowhere near as capable as CUDA is currently.
One of the main reasons the new GT300 'Fermi' architecture by NVidia is being touted as so important is the increase in power of the CUDA core design in the 300 series and they are being called cGPU's (computational graphics processor unit) because of the new CUDA architecture.
If you are a gamer and don't use the PC much for photo manipulation or audio video editing/encoding then this is nothing to even vaguely concern yourself with, but personally I am waiting for the new GT300 cards to hit the market.

[peat moss]

As for answer #4 , I find Craigslist great for selling computer parts in " MY " area but a computer swap meet may be a suggestion as well . Be careful when selling online , don't meet at the train station , cash only , bring a friend etc.

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/sys/

[S!X]

http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com

They have a buy/sell section there, you'll have to sign up in order to see it.

[Detale]

I was just looking in there today

[db_la_23]

and also if i where u i would have gone for WD 1 Tb hdd.