I think im going to grab a quad core the Q9550 is $219.99 at both tiger and newegg seems like a good deal. I think im going to wait before I pick a GPU and see what kind of deals I can find. If anyone has anymore input im still all ears nothings final.

I usualy play games at 1280X 1024 my monitors native

I built this rig 2-3 years ago I don't really remember but I'm in need of an overhaul pretty badly. I'm on a slim budget because I'm getting ready to start college in January. MY current rig is

Core2duo e6400 OCed to 2.6ghz

Ati 3850 Oced to759mhz gpu and 1064mhz memory

EVGA 650i ultra

6gigs of DDR2

I would like to keep the cost under $500 but Ive been away from the tech market for so long these new generations of GPU's are somewhat overwhelming whats the best bang for the buck? is it worth it to jump to DDR3 now or wait for price drop? should i grab a core2quad while there cheap or go ahead and board the i5/i7 boat?

One last note is I do allot of photo editing so I would like to keep it as processor intensive as possible if I have to skimp a little on the GPU for better ram/CPU that's fine as long as I can still play games in my free time.

crap posted this in the wrong place sorry

Thanks for all the replys I owe you guys

I think im going to get the Q6600 and then OC it once I get a new CPU fan.

thanks again to all of you

Well then I guess its settled Q6600 it is.:)

-thanks to everyone who responded I owe you guys

ya(to overclocking)

ya

I currently have an e6400, it runs a litle hot too idle about 58C under load 62C(stock cooler and arctic silver)I've noticed its starting to chug when ive got multiple aplications running, or if im playing MTW2 and ive got tons of units on screen at once. Im thinking about switching to the Q6600 or Q9300. I play alot of games and do alot of Digital art (photoshop ,3DSmax, Zbrush) How big of a performance increase would I expect if i switched to one of the quad cores?

my current specs are

Core2 e6400(stock)

6gigs of DDR2 800mhz

nvidia 650i(non sli)

ATI 3850(stock)