phenom 9500 quad

3 gigs of ram (5-5-5-18-2T)

M2N SLI DELUX

GEFORCE 8800 GT

650 WATT PSU

standard dvd writer x 2

standard 80 gig hdd..

looking to upgrade the latter two.. with a anything over 200 gigs as a HDD, hopefully a 10k rpm one and a blue ray drive.

running the demo with everything maxed out... 35~40FPS on Phenom with 3 gigs, Geforce 8800 GT.

shutsdown?I believe the issue might be your psu.. does it do this when it's running other applications? What is the wattage on your psu? Games can be quite demanding on a computer. 300W isn't going to help much if your running machine with a 6800 and above grphx card. these cards require atleast a 400W and above. If your running with 450W PSU, you might want to open up the case, check your connectors on your psu, ensure all the pins are properly seated in the mobo. If you really want to go all out and you have spare parts laying around, replace the psu with another one and try reproducing the error (shutdown) to eliminate the probable cause.

I would re-evaluate the proc. your using.. what was it, a x2 4600+? If you know the type of socket your using, probably a 939, you might want to look into getting a amd x2 6000+.. Either this one or the 6400+.. While it's not exactly a core2duo, these are the fastes x2 64 chips available. They'd make you GRPHX card scream if your looking for more performance. For the newer games, a 4600+ is just keeping your head above water. Before you spend the cash, double check you memory, ensuree that they're of the same make and same speed to eliminate chances that it could be the reason why your getting a bottleneck.

I completelely agree with a previous post, a 300W psu isn't going to do much.. an insufficient PSu will cause other components on your motherboard to flake out. I would highly recommend 450W and above.

for gaming, the most important part on your computer is going to be your video card. You can get great deals on 8K series nvidia card now so shop around.

4x256mb dimms.. You really should consider getting more memory 2x1GB dimms would hold you for a while but you need to pay attention to your performance needs. Your machine will be running both the OS and whatever application your going to use. 1 GB is just starving your machine. Also, when it comes to memory, think about the speeds that your mobo is going to support and go from there. Mixing and matching different types of memory will sacrifice some performance because you will not be able to take advantage of using dual channel.

CPU..Any one of the intel core2duo chips would suffice since they're beating AMD quite badly in most benchmark test and they're extremely roboust, meaning that you can overclock them to gain more performance. I the proc i have doesn't like overclocking but it's a result of my failure to research what I needed..

As with any part, please, please, please (as if i can't emphasize it enough) do you research before you purchase anything. Not all mobos, mem. dimms, proc., psu's are made the same.. A second opinion never hurts.