usually im giving advice on this topic but now its time for me to upgrade. id appreciate any help wherever necessary, mainly concerning power supply, as im not convinced if mine will suffice.

CPU : Intel Core i5 750 2.66ghz here
Motherboard : Biostar TPOWER i55 here
Graphics : Nvidia GTX 260 (core216) here
RAM : G.skill ripjaw 2 x 2GB DDR3 1600 here
HD : WD 500GB caviar green SATA 32mb cache here
Optical : Samsung DVD-RW DL here
Case : Cooler master storm scout here
PSU : Cooler master extreme power 500W here
OS : Vista Ultimate 32-bit

all in all its costing me RMB6400 which is about $940, used mainly for games....... borderlands, NFS:shift, Far Cry 2, ect.
the PSU isnt the best i know, but in China its kinda hard to get hold of a good one and if you do it costs a fortune.
the Biostar board might seem odd but here in China they have great reviews and they offer alot for a VERY decent price.
let me know what you think, thanks in advance, mike

hey, yeah win7 does come with DX11 and ive thought of that, however nvidia GTX260 cards and other nvidia cards dont support Dx11, however DX11 support some aspects of Dx10. id like to try win7 but ive got lots of apps that might not work, and im used to Vista.

yep none of the current range of nvidia cards support Dx11, the only graphics card that supports (makes use of the DX11 technology for a better explanation) is the ATI 5xxx series. but hey we not missing out on it because no game currently makes use of Dx11. also, Vista has the luxury of being Dx11 compatible, what this means is that if you have Dx11 installed its ok, because your GTX260 will still run the DX10 and make use of some of the Dx11 components and as said before Dx11 is compatible with Dx10 cards, you just wont see the New features like tessellation and other improvements because its the hardware not the software (driver) that enables the card to make use of Dx11.

.......Windows 7 updates today took care of the Nvidia problems...Dual monitors work well with my geforce 5500 and 6200 cards.

...Notice the problems with the Creative Labs card.I went to Kx site Drivers for Sound Blaster

hey prosthetic head, i appreciate the input :)
in all honesty that was my hardest decision (LGA1366 or 1156) but after reading countless reviews, test results and benchmarks there really isnt much difference between the Ii5 750 and the i7 920 when it comes to games, if anything most of the results show that the i5 gets better frame rates (slightly) using 1 GPU. HOWEVER the i7 trumps the i5 when it comes to SLI, but that infact is not the CPU's fault its down to the stupid P55 chipset only allowing 8x PCI-e instead of the X58 16x PCI-e. ive used SLI with 2 x 9800gtx on a core 2 duo setup and its ok at times but i want to move to single GPU hassle free gaming. besides all of this my budget wouldn't allow an i7 and x58 setup, ha ha
Yeah i have just come back from the computer market and ive changed the PSU to a more powerful one with 80+ eff and 2 x PCI-e connectors (old one only had one) oh and i dont pay for electricity i live on a school campus, all for FREE :)

I would get graphics with an HDMI output with sound.

Good luck with the build mickeyblue and be sure to let us know how it performs.