Hi, this is an exiting time for me.
I am finally replacing my old trusted 6 years old computer. Currently I am running a XP2500+ @ 3200+ on an Asus A7N8X-X motherboard. GEForce 6600, 2G of RAM, 256G HD with Vista Home premium. Useless to say the system is quite sluggish.

I don’t do gaming and I will be using the system for browsing, photo editing and organising with Photoshop Element 6. I have over 40 Geg of family pictures on my hard drive. My goal it to get a lightning fast PC that I will be able to upgrade and keep running at a reasonable level for at least 5 years. I will be using my existing 19 in LCD for now and I also plan on hooking up the PC to my 42 in HD Plasma TV via a HDMI cable. I am going for an Intel processor this time because of the performance advantage. So here are the components I plan on getting:

Core 2 Quad Q6600
http://www.robotnik.com/produc...c [...] t=0&page=1
$299.00
This is a best selling CPU and should perform quite well for what I want to do.

Asus Maximus Formula Special Edition Socket 775 Motherboard
http://www.robotnik.com/produc...t [...] =23&page=1
$281.00
Mostly for future proofing my system. X38 chipset, 1600 MHz Front Side Bus, 45nm support, good overclocker, Crossfire.

OCZ EL Platinum XTC 2GB PC2-8000 1000MHz DDR2 Dual Channel Memory (2 x 1GB)
http://www.robotnik.com/produc...i [...] 101&page=1
$122.00
Good quality RAM.

Sapphire Radeon HD 3650 512MB DDR2 PCI-E 2XDVI-I TV-OUT DIRECTX10.1 Lite Retail Video Card
http://www.ncix.com/products/i...L [...] e=SAPPHIRE
$94.00
Inexpensive, should be good for playing HD DVD movies once I get a Blue ray or HD
DVD drive. I might do very light gaming if any so this card should be OK.

Seagate Barracuda / 500GB / SATA/300 / 32MB / 7200RPM / OEM / Hard Drive
http://www.robotnik.com/produc...t [...] =14&page=1
$133.00
Large drive, should get good performance with 32MB buffer.

Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case
http://www.robotnik.com/produc...c [...] t=4&page=1
$119.00
Cool case, I like the 8 inches fan on top. Already purchased this unit. It is surprisingly quiet.

OCZ GameXStream 700-Watt Power Supply (SLI Ready)
http://www.robotnik.com/produc...t [...] =40&page=1
$145.00
Good reviews on the web. Already purchased, should be more then enough for what I plan to do.

LG GH20-LS10 20x Dual Layer Black SATA DVD Burner With LightScribe
http://www.robotnik.com/produc...t [...] =10&page=1
$37.00
Generic SATA drive available at my local computer store.

Window Vista Home Premium 32 bit
http://www.robotnik.com/produc...t [...] =32&page=1
$137.00
Should run VERY fast on this hardware.

Total:$1367 canadian, plus taxes (13%)
Any suggestions, thought? I will be purchasing the rest of the components in a couple of weeks.

Everything looks fine to me, there are couple things I would change, but it is just brand preference (IE: crucial memory and corsair PSU.) You may need to upgrade your graphics card in about 2 years though if that one becomes too slow, but upgrading that is not a big deal.

Good luck.

Looks good. I would go with Crucial Balistix RAM, but I'm just a crucial fan. Just get the plain P5E (Maximum Formula without the fancy name). Like $60 cheaper, and just as good.

I'm not sure about OCZ ram, check the QVL on this board. You may to download the manual. I know for the P5K-E they list no OCZ and the OCZ site has NO recomended ram for the board.
Very nice rig!

it looks good but do as what these people say

Thanks for the advises. I am now considering this instead:

Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 DDR2 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-1066 CL5-5-5-15 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit $134.99

I might also substitute the Asus Maximus Formula for the Asus P5E motherboard. It is $45.00 cheaper. I got to do some more reading on it.

Thanks for all the inputs so far. I ordered and received my RAM:

Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 DDR2 2GB 2X1GB DDR2-1066 CL5-5-5-15 240PIN DIMM Dual Channel Memory Kit.

I have been reading about the new Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Dual Core Processor LGA775 3.0GHZ Wolfdale 1333FSB 6MB and it looks like a very fast processor.
Reviewer have been able to overclock this thing to 4.4 GHz on air and it is cheaper then the Q6600 quad core.

Any opinions on the E8400?

I think it is the one to get now.