Alright, here's my Ex-assisted build: http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=17630447
I want to upgrade RAM and graphics abilities but I have no idea how to proceed. I heard you can't get 4 sticks of DDR3 1600 with an AMD processor? Basically I am very confused.

Why do you need more RAM?
In what games is your 5770 falling short?

Ya I'm confused that is a pretty solid build.

You don't need an upgrade.
If you need to fling away money get a HD 5850 and send me your 5770.

My RAM is constantly at 65%. While this isn't really a problem, I don't like it at all.

Well I'll help you, but I think you are crazy.
Nude Raider said it right, go with a 5850 if you are upgrading your gpu.
for ram, it looks like you are running 32 bit, so anything more then 4gb won't be used anyways.

I'm looking at a 5830 for upgrading my GPU. And why in god's name do you think I'm using 32bit?

Sorry, I misread that os link.

The 5830 is hardly an upgrade, I don't think it's worth it.

For ram I would suggest THIS or THIS

For RAM it may be best to fill the remaining slots with the same thing, if possible - especially if you are doing any overclocking.

I like how you think you need an upgrade when your operating system is finally utilizing your computer. While you're at it, grab a six core, turn off any power saving technology, and run programs in single thread mode so that you always have five idle cores just in case you want to run anything else. 7 will utilize unused RAM based on your total RAM for performance reasons. If you only have 1 GB, it will use significantly less. If you have 4 GB, it will use up a lot.

Get another 5770: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150462. Cheaper than a 5830 and idk how a 5830/5770 crossfire would handle. Best to be safe and do the double thing, right?
If you encounter stability problems, get a 600W power supply:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371015

A common misconception. Windows Vista and Windows 7 uses your RAM to load programs faster. The more you have the more they use. So when you upgrade still the majority of your RAM will be "taken". Would you upgrade again? And again?
The reason I put "taken" in quotes is because it's not taken. Whenever another program needs RAM Windows will instantly free it up if necessary. This is a feature, not a problem which has to be solved by upgrading.
I'm really surprised nobody [EDIT: nobody except rockz, who beat me to it ] pointed that out but rather helped him getting more RAM.
As I said you don't need an upgrade.

Also this.
I don't know if you took my initial statement for a joke or something, but you really don't need an upgrade. You would be wasting money for minimal, if any improvement.

Echoing rockz and Nude's point is probably a bit pointless by now, but perhaps repetition will help dispel any doubts.

Vista and Windows 7 will pro-actively allocate RAM to themselves to help speed up the entire system. Whenever another application needs the RAM, it will be given to them.

If, however, you are seeing 65% usage on XP, then that is a little worrying. However the solution is not to upgrade your RAM, but to find out what is using so much memory and fix it.

Really it's all just accounting, anyway. The operating system (assuming it's not virtualised) has full control over all of the hardware components, including the RAM. The % that it chooses to tell you is "free" is simply what the OS itself has currently designated that RAM to be. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Windows 7 was saying you had 35% "free" in a Windows XP sort of definition, but really it was lying and actually 0% of it was "free" in an Windows XP definition, because really Windows 7 simply does things differently (and more effectively) than XP.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 3 2010, 5:23 am by Lanthanide.

As far as I know, the power requirements of one 5870 or two 5770s are roughly the same at idle and at full load. I seem to recall reading that a 5870 uses about twice as much power as a 5770 (it does have exactly twice as many shader units as a 5770 and the exact same GPU clock speed). Of course, a 5870 is probably faster than dividing that processing power between two cards.

Well thank you on enlightening me on that Win7 bit about RAM. And I don't think my mobo supports two graphics cards - I think there's only one PCIe-16x slot. I'm guessing you can't use a gpu on a PCIe-x16 with 4x operation?

http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/478578-faq-everything-you-need-know-about.html

Yeah, it is only really an option if you have a board with two of those slots, running at least at 8x speed.