Upgrading my comp, any suggestions?

[evervoid]

Hello -

I'm pretty new to these forums, this being my first post. After lurking around the web for the past few days and looking into different reviews and my budget I've started toying with the idea of upgrading my computer. I'm just getting into video editing and recently received my Canon 60d as a graduation present. I'm planning on using Adobe Premiere CS5 and AE CS5 for editing.

My current computer specs are:
CPU: Q6600 (775 Socket)
Mobo: Asus P5Q3
RAM: 12gb
Video Card: GTX 760 SE (Fermi)

My main goal is to upgrade my cpu and mobo to last me for the next several years. I am also going to swap my two 2GB RAM sticks for 4gb sticks.

My budget for both my cpu and mobo is $300-500. I'm looking to buy the best in the price range. Does anyone have any recommendations? I've been looking at the i7-2600k and I think it's good but I'm not sure what's best to be honest. I also have no idea what mobo to choose.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much!

~ Evervoid

[Baldrick]

Welcome. But please do not cross post in several forums. I deleted your other thread.

[evervoid]

Thank you, and sorry about that.

[redwudz]

The i7 2600K lists for about $315US at NewEgg at present. Motherboards run from about $120 up. I usually stick with Gigabyte MBs as I've had problems with Asus in the past.

I would assume you are using a 64 bit OS as a 32 bit OS can't address more than 4GB RAM. If you are planning to use W7 64 bit, you would have to add that cost in, about $140 up.

12GB of DDR3 1600 RAM will run about $150 - $250

For editing, most of that won't make much difference. For encoding it should speed the process up quite a bit.

You could also upgrade your video card as some newer cards can assist with hardware encoding, depending on the formats you plan to use.

If you also have only one hard drive, adding a couple of more will improve throughput and editing performance.

[evervoid]

What do you think would be more important for a performance boost, upgrading the processor + mobo, or making a raid of hard drives 7200rpm hard drives?