Erik005

I would not reccomend the 6950, the new 7000 series are faster and draw a lot less power. Look for a 7870 There are better options for the processor to, the core i3's or the old phenom II's are faster.

Do you have the latest drivers for the 570? This might be the problem the latest divers for my gtx 580 gave me troubles in skyrim and new vegas

Get a case with dust filters. The fractal design define R4 looks good

This is the best choice for a motherboard. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157296 Also I've had a HAF 922 and it is loud and doesn't have that much working space inside and worst of all it gets really dusty inside of this case.

The new drivers didn't work for me either, same symptoms. I fixed it by reverting to an older driver.

The biostar motherboard you picked out also won't work with the core i7 you want. You need a socket 2011 motherboard for the i7-3820 These gpu's are a bit better than the reference models. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121638 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125423 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162109

You can also get a different brand of card, the asus DCU is very good or the gainward 680 phantom An oc'd reference model is not the best thing you can get.

I've seen several reviews of the new r4 and it's just stunning. The case to buy right now.

What kind are the specifications of your laptop? Do you have the 555m gt video card? because that should run skyrim better than 15fps. It looks like you are using your iGPU.

Have you seen this one yet http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834214870

Why did you buy a b75 motherboard with a k-processor? You can't overclock with this motherboard and the chipset doesn't have a lot of features. You can't get a second video card in the future, You should cancel the motherboard and get az77 board.

For the video card I would recommend a version with the asus DC2 cooler, they come on top in every review. This is one of the best 7970's http://www.club-3d.com/index.php/products/reader.en/product/radeon-hd-7970-royalking.html I don't know if it is available in the USA though. EVGA doesn't have a lot of interesting cards although they offer good warranty but I personally don't keep graphics card for 10 or even 5 years.

Make sure you update the vertex then ;)

If you get a Crucial m4 update the firmware immediately. I have both the Crucial and Samsung and favour the Samsung for the software you get with it.

I would not get a vertex 3, go for a vertex 4 or Samsung 830.

You will have to spend 400 dollar to get this pc new Vegas worthy, new mobo, CPU, PSU, RAM and maybe a new GPU. As Ihoe said a 360 or PS3 might be cheaper.

You will never get more than a decent internet PC out of it, It will have problems even playing 1080p video. You need to change the motherboard if you want to do any gaming with this rig.

You could look for a second hand Athlon™ 64X2 Dual Core which would improve performance, but you already added the 8600gt so a more powerful processor might be to much for the power supply. You should not invest to much in this machine though. I checked with a psu calculator and while not 100% accurate it shows 307 watt park load with a mid range 64x2 so there is not much room for improvement. I would recommend keeping it this way and using it as an internet PC

You are using a lot of ram windows shouldn't take 3.5gb maybe you should look in to that to

The cpu you have is meant for overclocking,but don't try overclocking with the standard heatsink. You can't use a program in windows to overclock,you need to go in to the BIOS and change thecpu-ratio. You should read a phenom II overclocking guide I'm sure there are plenty of those on the internet.

If its a 7200rpm disk yes, WD caviar blue or black are also fast drives

The clockspeed of the 650 is higher but that says nothing about preformance. I saw the pc has a green hdd, this could also cause lag these harddrives are not meant to be the primairy drive.

Are the free slots near the other ones? If not they are under the keyboard and you will loose warranty when you remove it.

I would not suggest to filling all your memory-banks, this can cause wierd problems. And 8gb is fine for almost anything, I only have 16gb because socket 2011 needs quad-channel

Socket 1155 CPU's only have 20 lanes available for graphics card, so your cards will run 8x/8x but even at PCI Express 2.0 the difference between 8x and 16x is negligible. Only the high-end socket 2011 CPU's have 40 lanes for 16x/16x or 8x/8x/8x/8x