You may want to consider the fact that you have a p45 mobo which will run using 8x + 8x. I can't really say what the best choice is but I think a single 4870 should hold you over for the next year or so even at 1680 x 1050. If you're dying to spend the money go ahead. Or if someone is giving you the money to spend you should consider investing the money you're getting on something more profitable. I'd recomend fcel.

i know right now the dual core would be fine, but if i get the quad core the only thing i would have to upgrade in this pc would be the gpu, in the future that is, i was going to get the artic cooloer 7 for the cpu, and i dont think i need a cooler for the gpu as if anything goes wrong im sure i can just get a replacement for it thanks for your help will prob get the wd drive, and what would u recommend the baby booler, zerotherm, or artic cooler 7 oh and how can i tell how many amps my psu has on the 12v rails? where does it say on newegg?slyr114

Yes, it's on newegg. It's listed under the output specification. The 550w I suggested says

"+3.3V@30A,+5V@20A,+12V@41A,-12V@0.8A,+5VSB@3A"

see the +12v@41A means a 12v rail with 41 amps.

This is going to be a pretty good machine.

The quad core's a bit excessive. It wont improve your gaming much.

the guru of 3d does processors

Also I think you might need a power supply with 30+ amps on the 12v rail... Yes I just looked on guru3d. They recomend at bare minimum 450w and 30 amp on a 12v rail. Since you've got that quad core you'll probably need a nother 50w so go with a 500w psu.

I'm going to recomend a western digital hard drive, not because they are faster but. I have both a western digital and a segate hard drive. The western digital makes almost no noise and the segate makes more then the fans when loading. It could just be a factory defect in the segate or something.

I'm also going to recomend a full copper cooler for both the graphics card and the proccessor. If your planning on using this machine for more than three years you'll need to protect your graphics card. The factory cooler will likely burn out in a year or so from dust or hair.

zalman cooler

zerotherm cooler

baby cooler

zerotherm vga cooler

zalman vga cooler

psu for cfx

psu for single card