Upgrading My CPU, Motherboard & RAM

Hi, all this is my first post on this forum. Well anyway i'm looking to upgrade my CPU, Motherboard & RAM, done alot of research on the Intel Core 2 DUO E6600, like the sound of that, but finding it hard to find a good motherboard, same with the RAM, could someone please point me in the right Direction for a good motherboard and RAM, cheers...

I need them mainly for Photo & Video editing can someone please recommend a good motherboard & RAM. price doesn't really matter. thanks..

Oh come on 8O, I'm am AMD fan but 1 area that Intel have traditionally had the upper hand over AMD is in photo/video work.

The problem is that with all the new tech. from both AMD & Intel at the moment there are a lot of teething problems & it's hard to recommend something that will just work out of the box

That's not true AMD has the upper hand in video editing, encoding, decoding, etc.. AMD makes excellent chips.

COOLER MASTER CM Stacker is a great case, I bought one that had a pre-existing water cooler, pump, HUGE heatsink, and a CPU block in it for $400. I got it from frozen cpu, but dont go looking for it there... They got a few in and decided that they couldnt make or justify the cost after there normal markup so they where going to ebay them. They sold it to me for more then $200 less then what I could of bought all the parts myself. It also has a Pump that is submerged in water (ultra silent).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817153039
Thermaltake W0106RU Complies with ATX 12V 2.2 & EPS 12V version 700W Power Supply 100 - 240V CE, CB, TUV, FCC, UL, CUL, and BSMI certified - Retail

I have never used this, but I dont like how many of the wires are not shrinked or contained. Free floating wires are a pain. Try out a completely modular power supply, I have experiance with
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/ [...] =g11c26s83
[01] Ultra X-Connect X2 SLI 550W Modular Power Supply - Titanium (ULT31851) - Though it is the loudest and only thing in my machine to produce a noise.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136034
Raptors are nice... fast... But save some money and get a good RAID 5 controller and a three 250 SATA drives. I recommend Seagate cause of their 5 year warrenty), and I saw one on sale at Compusa last week for $50. Also the 750gig Western Digital is faster then the Raptor.

though

If you really want to load things fast, buy a Good SCSI Raid adapter and 5 Seagate Cheetah's (lol) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822111151

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814143062
Geforce 7900GTX
REALY Nice Card, beats out the performance of what I recommend, but the price is insain. And the performance difference is small. Go with the X1900XTX. It can retail for under $300 on Newegg after a rebate. Maximum PC said to buy the lower costing top video card, because the performance was just two small too make one better then the other. If you dont plan to play games buy the cheapest pci-express card that is direct x9.0c compatable (got to be ready for vista)

CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM Unbuffered DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Dual Channel Kit System Memory - Retail
Expensive... Small change in speed, but the best... its what I run.

NO AMD, INTEL CORE 2 DUO
MOBO I dont know I am looking for a different one myself... just DONT buy Asus.

Ohh and dont forget a SoundBlaster X-Fi... best Sound card on the market... HUGE performance gains in all areas of sound processing. The Music version is hands down the single most improvement in cost/speed! I got mine for $90 and saw a jump of 10% in FEAR FPS on my old machine... plus 1.09 noise to DB is breath taking.

Thanks
Mike

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/har [...] 99093.html

Asus P5B does NOT come with firewire... I know, cause there is a damn front connection on my case that isnt hooked up to anything

Some added Knowledge, if you dont want to play games buy the cheapest Direct X9.0c compatable video card you can find (got to remember that Vista is around the corner...)

Also the Cooler Master Case has some wonderfull front grill panels, just make sure to put them back in right side up... or the clips wont hold and they will push into the case.

As far as the 8500 Corsair memory, if you want to do what I would have done, if I know what I know now... buy the http://www.corsair.com/corsair/dominator.html Series... It should be instores REAL soon... Me wish me could upgrade... me want a pair!