OK guys.. had to register just to correct all the foolishness going on

wrong, you have an intel motherboard for the last 5 years intel motherboards have supported scaling in ram, yes you can run 4 sticks of 1 gig DDR3 and still have it in triple channel, or 5 sticks even, you will see a reduction in performance... (of .01%) in other words the loss in performance is so minuscule its not even measurable, if you want 4 gigs just buy another stick and plop it in, i see this posted ALLLLL the time its highly annoying it s like the greatest urban legend of RAM.. however if you have an AMD board then you must do it the way you said

powersupply is the most important to power your system and make sure your comp wont fry, however has next to 0 affect on the actual performance of your rig unless your doing extreme OC or your under the volt limit on the rail... for this reason i always recommend seasonic or corsair PSU, they use single rail for more volts and are overspeced on watts, if your using a single video card pick up a 600 or 650 corsair powesupply you cant go wrong, unless you want two video cards

no thanks

this is largely up to your resolution, a 5850 at ~1020 x 720 i guarantee you will run SOW max it will run anything max with a good CPU ect, pay attention to your screen res... ie multiply the two numbers if you have a 1600 x 1200 screen tats 1.92 million pixels, a 5850 would likely run sow very well at that resolution but likely wouldnt max it out.. however if you run a 2560 x 1600 screen now your pushing 4+ million pixels now you'll want more power, generally if your running 4 million pixels or over youll want a high end nvidia 480 / or a nw ati 6870 coming out less than two months.. if your under 2 million pixels the current ati cards should do fine or a nvidia 460 should also do beautifully, also the processor is very important in this case, i would recommend quad core definitely for SOW, if you want more CPU power dont buy a high end CPU you'll get more value for the money OC.. if you can't OC.. buy a pre-OC system.. easy even with the premium you'll pay to have a system built if its OC youll more than make that money back.. not sure if ibuypower does OCs, but lots of custom built companies will oc for you and even guarantee the OC and replace anything if it fry's check the warranty before purchase!!..(http://www.digitalstormonline.com/ they will OC a prebuilt for you and its absolutely guaranteed, if it blows they;; replace.. however its highly unlikely occurrence with current tech, and adequate cooling failed OCs are very rare.. how rare.. well with air cooling and a corsair PSU, and good motherboard less than 1% and that 1%)) however if you can I highly highly highly recommend building your own computer and OC, get a low end I7 920 or possibly something in the 800 line, with a decent motherboard its sooooo easy to OC, you'll get 3.4ghz easy just with stock cooler more than that custom air cooler also easy to use, the reason id recommend the I7 for first time OC is because its soooo fool proof, its basically impossible to blow anything up as long as your PSU and motherboard is decent, and its a really easy OC, a few clicks in BIOS and done, never touch it again, and yes you will get much higher frames with a OC I7 vs a stock.. probably in the neighborhood of 15-25 % higher FPS and also GHz does not = GHz.. when it comes to performance on different brand chips in other words and I7 at 3 ghz.. is about 1.5x faster than last gen intel or current gen amd.. so you can do math 6 core amd is about same speed as I7 4 core GHZ for GHZ so yes 6 core low end amd is very good choice even cheaper than I7 and aaaaalmost as fast if you OC, if your not OC skip it (6 core amd)

as for OC the GPU also must do lol, so easy to do also, just get into CCC in ati cards.. and click the button to release slide and add 100mhz to the GPU speed.. done) that will help alot so easy to do, and 5850 will OC like a beast recommended highly amd cards run nice and cool, if u decide to OC the GPU make sure it either A exhausts out the case.. or B you have at least 2 large or three small fans blowing inside the case

very nice build dont know monitor size but should do very well

lets see how to put this..?? WRRRRROOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !

why?
#1 your main bottleneck will be GPU if u wait for something should be the GPU
#2 sandybridge can't OC them their locked chips no OC for you looser, unless you pay extra 300 dollars.. heh yeah right,
#3 SOW will be out before sandybridge SOW CAN NOT WAIT

very nice!! haha listen to this guy here, if you want new monitor and want great viewing and no glare get IPS panelIPS panelIPS panelIPS panelIPS panelIPS panel!!! +100000 i have 7 of them.. sooo awseome!!!!!

yes will save money good advice, also people GPU are so easy to upgrade, its just plug wipe old drivers and install new drivers just must check power usage and required cables from PSU, and ventilation in case

if u cant afford good GPU its the preferred part of your system to ' save for later' if your newb.. just because so easy to upgrade dont have to worry about new sockets and disassembling stuff ect.. get the cheaper, when you can afford it sell old one on ebay and buy the new GPU

and yes directx 11 is good, not necessary.. but if your upgrading youd be pretty foolish to even consider a GPU without it, lots of great great low end choices even in DX11 liek amd 6500 or 6600 or 6700, even though thier new performance for price in most cases even matches last gen,

S!

I have been upgrading for just the shits and giggles, not really following any game or something. If I can and want to try out something then I do it. But for SoW I have a decent system I guess, as all other games I play (RoF, IL-2, Dawn of War II, EVE Online etc.) run smoothly at 1920x1200 with most/all maxed out.

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition (at stock speeds)
GPU: MSI n480GTX 1.5Gb (optionally AMD 5870HD 1Gb)
RAM: 2 x 4Gb 1333MHz DDR3
Mobo: AsRock 890FX Deluxe3
PSU: Corsair 650W
Screen: BenQ W2400D 24" 16:10 screen
Case: Antec NineHundred
OS: Windows7 Home Premium 64-bit

Possibly next upgrade will be SSD drive(s) when/if their prices drop a bit, hideously expensive at the moment, at least here :(

My Current liquid Cooled Rig:

Mobo: Asus Striker Extreme Rampage 11
Ram: Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 6GB DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600)
CPU: Intel Core i7 930 (Overclocked to 4.2Ghz)
GPU's: 2 X Geforce GTX285 in SLI
PSU: Coolermaster Real Power 850 W Power Supply (Modular)
Case: Coolermaster RC-1100 V2 Black Tower Computer Case
Radiator: XSPC RX360 Black High Performance Radiator
CPU Block: APOGEEXT - Swiftech Apogee XT CPU Block
Pump: Laing DDC Pro Pump with XSPC V3 Acrylic Top
Res: EK-Multioption RES X2 - 150 Advanced Capacity 160 ml
Hard Disk: 2 X 1.5TB Western Digital SATA 3Gb/s, 7200+rpm, 64MB Cache
DVDR: 2 X Sony DRU-870s
Monitor: 27" Dell Ultrasharp Widescreen LCD, IPS panel

Well, thanks for the correction :-P

So, how does it work? If i use 4x1Gb sticks, the 3 of them work in tripple channel and the last one works "on its own"? Or does it somehow "divide" the performance gains from the tripple channel sticks and have all four of them running at an in-between speed?

Also, i have another question. I have an i7 920 with the stock cooler, but i got it somewhat early (April 2009). I don't know if it's one of the D0 stepping chips that overclock better, or one of the older chips where you need to be a bit more careful.

Can i see that from the BIOS or a diagnostic tool, or do i need to open the case, disassemble the cooler and look at the actual CPU to see if anything is written on it?

I have never overclocked any of my PCs, but since i7 920 is considered so reliable i might give it a go. I have the stock cooler, an Asus P6T Deluxe V2 motherboard and a Heroichi Cougar 700W PSU. You think i could go to 3.4Ghz without any real problems?

Aren't you a well mannered and polite individual. But anyway:

A bunch of sim games I've seen (a bit older in architechture though) have been pretty CPU intensive. DCS, FSX, IL2 etc as far as I know have their FPS set more by the CPU than GPU at the end of the day.

So can someone confirm it might be different for SOW based on the news we've received so far or do I just have to wait and see. I wouldn't rush out to buy any GPU's until there is some more light on this.

I saw sandy bridge OC'd to 4,9GHz on air. If that costs 300$ extra I don't really care and I'd be interested to see some sources behind that claim. If it's CPU that creates the bottlenecks then CPU is on my shopping cart and I don't have the time or energy to do any liquid coolings to reach 4,5GHz+ and I want to get the smoothest experience possible with SOW.