Gamer Upgrade Help & Recommendation requested

[Steel Mage]

I currently have the following set up and want to upgrade the RAM and Video Card to make this system last another couple of years. I have also OC'ed the CPU from the base 2.8 to 3.4, I need some recommendations for a new Vid card will these questions and maybe some recommendations. I want it easily run the Witcher 3 and Fallout 4 when I'm done with the RAM and Vid card upgrade.

1. Can I use a PCI 3 card in the PCI 2 slot and still expect it to be stable.
Need Vid card Recommendations. What is a good recommendation for my system?
2.I want to replace the RAM and go from my current 6G triple channel to 12G or more. Most of the
RAM shown on the ASUS QVL is obsolete and there is no mention of using 8G sticks.
Need some help and recommendations on triple channel RAM. This ASUS Mobo has proven finicky about RAM.
3. I've overclocked by adjusting the BCLK to 155, PCIE to 100, CPU Ratio to 22 and disabled the Intel Speed Step. This
brought the i7 930 from 2.8 base to 3.4. It seems stable and Prime 95 tested it for one hour with max Temp stabilizing
at 69c.
4. What difference does disabling the Intel Speed Step do? and should I have disabled
it? Is 69c Ok or should I back off the speed a bit.

Current System configuration:

Mobo P6X58D PREMIUM
CPU i7 930 (overclocked from base 2.8g to 3.4g)
RAM 6 Gig Kingston
Prolimatech Megahalems Rev.B CPU Cooler with 2 120mm fans setup as push pull thru cooler tower.
CORSAIR CMPSU-850HX
WD Caviar Black Hard Drive - 1TB ( 2 of them)
XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Case
CD DRIVES ( 2 of them)

Any Help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[cmerrell]

1. Yes PCI_E 3.0 cards will work in a 2.0 slot, quite well actually. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/ar...rformance-518/
2. Here is what I would do for RAM, get a 12gig triple channel kit. That's 3x4gb sticks, and 12gig will be fine in my opinion. Get a 1600mhz kit, because you are overclocking your RAM when you do a BCLK overclock. Look for CAS latency of 9, and that setup can be had in a variety of colors from different manufacturers on Newegg for ~$70 or so.
3. I remember overclocking my core i7 920 (base 2.6ghz) to 4.0ghz with Hypertransport turned off, and 3.8ghz with it turned on. The system was actually stable at 4.0 with HT on, but it got too hot (90c) in Prime 95. I would think you could push your overclock a little higher, and if you are worried about heat, turn of Hypertransport, aka, Hyperthreading. Unless you really need 8 threads for something else, you don't need them for gaming. 69c is safe, I was worried about 90c during Prime 95, but nothing real world gaming will stress the CPU like Prime 95
4. Speed step is a power saving feature for mobile computers, yes it should be off unless you are using batteries.

[Steel Mage]

1. Yes PCI_E 3.0 cards will work in a 2.0 slot, quite well actually. https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/ar...rformance-518/
2. Here is what I would do for RAM, get a 12gig triple channel kit. That's 3x4gb sticks, and 12gig will be fine in my opinion. Get a 1600mhz kit, because you are overclocking your RAM when you do a BCLK overclock. Look for CAS latency of 9, and that setup can be had in a variety of colors from different manufacturers on Newegg for ~$70 or so.
3. I remember overclocking my core i7 920 (base 2.6ghz) to 4.0ghz with Hypertransport turned off, and 3.8ghz with it turned on. The system was actually stable at 4.0 with HT on, but it got too hot (90c) in Prime 95. I would think you could push your overclock a little higher, and if you are worried about heat, turn of Hypertransport, aka, Hyperthreading. Unless you really need 8 threads for something else, you don't need them for gaming. 69c is safe, I was worried about 90c during Prime 95, but nothing real world gaming will stress the CPU like Prime 95
4. Speed step is a power saving feature for mobile computers, yes it should be off unless you are using batteries.

Thanks for the feedback and Tips:
My Upgrade went REALLY well. I change out my existing 6g of RAM for G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 12GB (3 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9T-12GBRL and I upgraded my old XFX Radeon HD 5870 1GB video card to a new EVGA GeForce GTX 950 02G-P4-2957-KR 2GB SSC video card. Both installed great. Getting this old P6X58D PREMIUM MOBO to recognize new RAM was worrying me but it recognized it right off without even touching the BIOS Settings. G SKILL recommends that the BIOS have XMP enable, so I may be going in and doing that later but for now I'm just enjoying the moment that the upgrade went so easy. Thanks for the Tips and help. I may go in and push the clock up to 3.8ghz. Over all I'm really please with the performance boost and for less than $240.00 I'm back to having a pretty good gaming system that will run the latest games.

[i7Baby]

CPU - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...rchy,4312.html

Your i7 930 will bottleneck a high end GPU. I'd stick to a gtx960 or r9 270x at max.

More RAM won't do much for gaming.

Try using overclcoking guides to help eg http://www.overclock.net/t/538439/gu...-930-to-4-0ghz