I have a phenom X4 9950, 1066mhz ddr2 ram, 9800gtx+ card, ECS MOBO gf8200a chipset, soundblaster card and soundblaster 7.1 speakers connected to a 32" LCD TV. I use it to watch HD movies and to play. I put this setup together like a year ago. It runs starcraft II at top quality easily although I'm not that much into real time strategy I think it's done nicely.
I've pre ordered final fantasy xiv and it's scoring like mid numbers in the ffxiv benchmark, I might upgrade to a gtx280 if it doesn't perform well when I install it.
I do spend some time and money into the PC and don't play that much anymore lol, but it's one of those things that you just keep doing. Also it consumes a lot of energy, the whole setup eats between 300 - 500 watts depending on the usage.
You probably can keep the RAM and HDD, but it will be a bottle neck in your system. I still run a SATAI HDD and makes the whole system slow I also only have 2 GB of RAM and would be better to have atleast 4GB, but all my cash right now is going into GTP mods haha.
