New
#31
Cpuid tells us his ram isn't running at some really high latency, like 9, which would have an effect on overall system performance, making it "seem" slow... but I agree other benchmarks are necessary to get a better picture. One step at a time though, right? :)
AV's and gaming... I keep mine open, but I have it configured for gaming. Some AV's are better at this than others. It's good to hear MSE is one of them, so is ESET's Nod32, when configured properly. Bit Defender however, really sucked when it came to games. Even in game mode (which they're still having issues with) there was a marked decrease in performance whenever it decided to not work... and even when it did work, which was usually about 1/4 of the time, it still bogged down my games. Thus, the uninstall and move to Nod.
Xfire, Steam, all fine. Skype won't have an effect unless you're talking to someone. Not in terms of cpu cycles, but in terms of bandwidth.
If you get a new card, you will need a new PSU. The one you have has 19 amps on the +12 volt rail. Look for one with 34 or more.
As for 1T. That's a bios setting. Basically it's just a setting to get your RAM to run faster... or I should say tighter. 2T is fine though. First get the card, worry about 1T later... or not at all if you're happy with the new parts.