Hardware...

[Uberfuhrer]

So I'm planning on a new video card and a new motherboard.

My current motherboard is an ASUS M2A-MVP.

It's a cheap Crossfire motherboard, and if my planned video card will run on it, then I can probably hold off on buying a new mobo for a short while.

I'm looking into getting an ATI Radeon HD 4850, which is a PCI Express 2.0 x16. If I'm not mistaken, PCI Express 2.0 video cards will still run in a standard PCI Express x16 slot, correct?

[sassafrassquatch]

PCIe 2.0 is backward and forward compatible. A 2.0 card will work in a 1.0 slot and a 1.0 card will work in a 2.0 slot.

[Uberfuhrer]

Just wanted to make sure. I purchased the new motherboard along with my new video card because my current motherboard is a cheapo Crossfire.

I'll probably look into getting an AMD Phenom CPU as well and a few more gigs of RAM.

[millerm277]

I'll probably look into getting an AMD Phenom CPU as well and a few more gigs of RAM.

Sounds like a good plan. On sale, I've seen 4gbs of high quality DDR2-800 for $50-60.

[Uberfuhrer]

Sounds like a good plan. On sale, I've seen 4gbs of high quality DDR2-800 for $50-60.

Yeah, I currently got 2 gigs of Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800 RAM. I wanted to get two more gigs, but right now, they are sold out at NewEgg.

Somewhere down the line, I need to get a new keyboard which matches the color of the rest of my computer.