Question on upgrading my PC

I'm planning on doing some upgrades to my PC gradually, over a two month (or so) period. Since I'm spreading it out, I figure I can spend between $1000 to $1500. This is my gameplan:

1) Double the memory
2) Replace the hard drive with SDD
3) Install Windows 7
4) Upgrade the graphics card

This is what I currently have:

System: Gateway DX4200-09
OS Name: Windows Vista™ Home Premium 64-bit
Motherboard: Gateway RS780
CPU: AMD Phenom(tm) 9100e Quad-Core Processor
Memory: 4 GB DDR2 800
Network Adapter: Marvell Yukon 88E8071 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Hard Drive: Western Digital WDC WD6400AAKS-22A7B2 640.1 GB
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT 1024 MBytes
Power Supply: 300 Watt

The only upgrade I've done to date is adding the NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT a while back.

So onto the questions ...

Debating between installing one 256 GB SDD drive, or two 128 GB. If I go the later route, I would install the OS on the main drive, and all secondary programs on the other. (I keep all personal files on external drives.) Would either option be better than the other, or would the result be the same?

I plan to do a fresh install of Windows 7 64-bit, rather than installing on top of Vista. Since I have a licensed copy of Vista, can I buy the Win7 Upgrade or will that only work if I install it on top of Vista?

What's would be the best graphics card to get in the $300 to 500 range (preferably staying under 400, unless there will be a very noticable performance boost by spending more)?

Is there anything else I should expect to have to upgrade (power supply, etc)?

Thanks in advance for any help.

1. If you can double the memory, that might not hurt.
2. This might or might not give you a real speed boost. Loading maps and stuff would be fast, but actual in-game performance won't see a horrendous boost.
3. Windows 7 may negate some of the speed gains from other aspects of the system upgrade.
4. As to upgrading your graphics card, you'd need to upgrade your power supply first. Quite simply it won't really accept a higher performance (and power eating) card than you already have.

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

Going from 4-8GB isn't going to matter all that much unless you are running a whole lot of stuff while gaming. You are already running a 64-bit OS so the system is already seeing all 4GB. Win 7 may improve performance overall a bit, it's an optimized version of Vista.

SSD isn't going to help that much. Yes they are faster but you are paying a very big premium ($2-3 per GB) for 30% faster load times.

The 9800GT isn't a bad card, but is on the low end for Ultra Mode.

The power supply is very weak. You are pushing it with the 9800GT as it is. If you think about upgrading the video card, you will most definitely need to upgrade the PSU.

Your CPU is relatively weak. An energy efficient, 1st gen, 1.8GHz Phenom quad with only a 2MB L3 cache isn't really a strong CPU. It could limit the added performance of a faster video card. I'm unsure though.

Thanks for the replies so far. I guess I should point out that improved performance in CoH is of fairly minor concern to me; even with my current specs, and the in-game settings set fairly high, I have no complaints about performance.

The only upgrade I was making with an eye towards CoH is the graphics card, since my 9800GT is on the low end. Any recommendations on a card and power supply?

My desire to switch to SDD has little to do with increased performance and more to do with them being, to my understanding, more reliable than traditional hard drives -- I've had terrible experience recently with data loss due to hard drive failure.

I suppose I could just save up and buy a new system, but I find it easier to replace things piece by piece. So I'm wondering how far I can push this current system (even if it means eventually replacing the CPU.)

I know very little about AMDs but seeing as you are still using DDR2 ram I'd trash the motherboard and buy a new board and then get some good ddr3 ram. Its a waste of money just to buy old technology ram again.

The reasons I'm down on SSDs are:

1) Price. They are 20-30x more expensive per GB than a 7200 RPM hard drive.

2) Rapidly Evolving. There seems to be a new SSD controller every few months, each significantly better than the last. Add in a rapid release of new BIOSes for each of those SSD controllers.

3) Only Windows 7 currently optimized for SSDs. Not that much of a problem for newer systems.

I still think it's a great advancement in mass storage, just not as mature or at the point where economy of scale will drive the price down where I think improved application performance is worth the price.

Side note, I seem to recall a magazine not too long ago looking at SSDs in a RAID array, and finding they could no longer take advantage of TRIM. Not saying it's 100% - this is from memory, after all - so if I can find that article, I'll put in a link or issue or what have you. (Or I could be completely wrong.)

See my Guides and Tutorials