First, let's get this out of the way: my computer is located on the borderline between mid-range and high-end (was top of the line when it was built). It can play all modern games (except COD Black Ops, but that's the game's fault) without breaking a sweat, so I have no intention of performing hardware upgrades at this time. This is purely a hypothetical question. If I were to upgrade my computer today to bring it back in line with today's high-end specs, what would my best bets be (keeping in mind the main idea is to be able to run Bethesda games heavily modded)?

Specs in sig.

Your Vid Card and Operating System to 64bit to take advantage of additional Gigs, otherwise I'd love to have it

That's a tough one -- as you have a fairly well balanced setup but as you start upgrading one part or another then you run into problems of the other parts holding the performance increase up (ie. upgrade the GPU and the CPU + RAM will hold it back -- upgrade the CPU or RAM and the GPU becomes a bottleneck -- etc.

Best option would probably be to try to find someone to buy the system you have and then get a new setup.

How Much ya selling (Im deperate for a new comp, this crap ATI1200 integrated Laptop card has some kind of issue with Fallout NV and 3 in that the ground Laggs me to hell, in addition to not being able to play games that need sharder model 3 despite the fact that I can play Crysis, but I guess that term is a buzz word.

In light of Intel's SandybBridge processors being released, you'd have to upgrade your entire platform to be up to speed with that latest (CPU, MOBO, and RAM). That partially goes for an AMD AM3 setup too (CPU and MOBO...DDR2 RAM can be used with certain boards, but not preferable). In addition a new video card.

Cheapest path would be to get a more powerful video card and if you're willing, overclock your processor. The Q6600 can overclock quite bit.

What monitor do you use - I suppose, more to the point, what resolution do you play at? If it's fairly low, I wouldn't bother upgrading much, if at all, until you change that.

Assuming a decent res, I agree that OCing your CPU (possibly with the help of an aftermarket CPU cooler) and upgrading the GPU would be the most logical things, other than a near-complete overhaul.

Be careful with either of those (particularly the combination) however - the power supply will definitely be more stressed, and if it's underpowered and/or cheap 'n nasty, you're in trouble. Sooner or later; pretty much inevitably.

Personally, I'd be tempted to try a bit of overclocking, see how that goes, maybe think about a (second hand?) graphics card upgrade. If you don't want to spend anything/much, that is. Also, the monitor is pretty key, IMO. So, if the one you're using is pretty bad/old/whatever, then that would be the very first thing *I* would see to.

Right now, I'm playing at 1360 X 768 on a 32in LCD Flatscreen. It used to be lower, but shifting to HDMI (from VGA) allowed me to bump it up. I'm about in the middle as far as resolution is concerned.

And the power supply is capable of running a microwave (that's 1000 to 1200 Watts), so no problems there.

Nice midrange card (GTX 460 1GB or HD 6870) plus OC the CPU to about 3.0 Ghz or so would help a lot for a fairly small investment.