I am in the market for a new PC and currently I am looking at a i7-930 with 6 gigs of ram and a 2 gig video card. While this is open to changing, my question is would this allow me to run STO to its maximum potential (graphics and what not at maximum) on a Windows 7 machine? I currently have a duo core 2.53 system with 4 gigs of ram and a 1 gig video and I would say I am pushing close to 75% of potential with STO but with some systems and places getting horrible graphical lag.

You should be able to play max easily, assuming that is a 2GB version of the HD 5870 (which is overkill, unless you are playing multiple/high res monitors with large AA values the RAM won't get used). The RAM inself has little meaning btw, you are better using the actual cards name. For instance a 5770 and 5870 both have 1 GB RAM but a 5870 is twice as powerful.

You may want to look into a i7 950 as well, as it is now a similar price but has better clock speeds if you arn't OCing and a higher multipler if you are. An i5 760 (with MB/RAM changes) will give similar performance for games as well while being cheaper.

There are a few problem areas that may give you FPS trouble that you can't really solve (hi2u end of klink FA) but generally a 5870 will easily be able to run it as high as you want.

I was looking into the 5970 actually in regards to a video card. I am going to look into the 950 instead of the 930, thank you.

Oh right, forgot about that one. 5970 is an enthusiast level card so it will easily run STO at full. Note that you'll have to use fullscreen (not boardless window) for crossfire to work otherwise you'll just be using an underclocked 5870.

I always go full screen when in game so that will not be an issue.

I would suggest the 930 and then just overclock it, I have never OC'd before but with some reading I was over to OC it to 4ghz on air alone and it never runs hotter then 57C running on full in STO with a 5850 and 3 gigs of ram on XP

I can assure you that 4GB Ram and 1GB video ram is more then enough for STO.
i run at max settings and i constantly see 2GB Ram and less then 500MB video ram used.

My 3.1GHz QuadCore seems to be the bottleneck.

That is odd since, with my system, I cannot put the graphics at maximum without the game going into an extremely laggy and choppy state before combat.

The 950 had a massive price cut and so is only £20~30 more than a 930 now. It has a higher multiplier which means that it will be 'easier' to OC and potentially reach a higher speed than a 930. And I doubt £30 for some extra performance is much when someone is putting together a rig with a 5970.