I know there's a lot of threads about the Q6600 vs. the E8400, but I haven't found any that really relate to what I'm going to be doing with my computer.

My main use for my computer is for recording music (using Tracktion 3, guitar rig 3 and reason 4 with a Focusrite Saffire audio interface) and Photoshop work, so I'm wanting to upgrade my current setup (P4 3.06GHz, 3 gigs DDR400 RAM, crappy video card) because it's really struggling with those task. Also, I might start doing some gaming in between semesters of school. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I should go with the dual core (E8400) or the quad core (Q6600) for what I do. Also, I need a recommendation for a motherboard. This is what I've been looking at getting:

E8400 or Q6600
motherboard (no clue what to get)
2 GIG DDR2 1066 RAM
EVGA 8800GTS ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130082 )
PSU

So any advice/recommendations would be very helpful. Oh , my budget is roughly $500-600 give or take.

idk think most DAW audio editor are multi threaded, so i would go with the 8400, so you can really get the most out of the system, also the e8400 isnt a hot CPU, so packaged with a thrid party HS/f it should be very quite.

however you cantgo wrong with either of these processor

if your not overclocking then the a motherboard form Asus or gigabit with a p35 chipset should be ideal.

i would rather see 4Gb of DDR2 - 800 than 2 @ 1066. Digital Audio Enviroments, reallly like allot of RAM, becasue every track is stored as a separate wav file, so when playing it back every Wav file need to be in the RAM.

What about 4Gb of DDR2 1066? Also, I was thinking about maybe overclocking a little since the E8400 and Q6600 are supposed to be so easy to OC.

hmmm... multi treaded so go with a dual core? why not a quad??

You mentioned video editing and little gaming
go with the Q6600, its a great processor.

Asus P5E X38, seems to be very easy to overclock with and is stable with up to 520 FSB with a NB voltage increase, not tried much higher...

E8400 gets to 3.6 without much hastle at all. Saying that the Q6600 gets to 3.0 easy and 3.6+ if you know what your doing/ have a good enough cooler.

Both CPU's are great for there own area's, obviously the multi-threading for the Q6600 and the pure speed of the E8400 for gaming. Whats better for you?

P.S Maybe save yourself a few bob and get some 800Mhz C4 RAM. Geil for example clocks to almost 1000Mhz...Again your money/choice.

- To be honest, I'm not set on any one hardware configuration. I know a decent amount about hardware, but not the small details for when you're building a system. I've always just gotten friends to pick things out for me and I paid for it. I wanted to go ahead and learn how to do it myself so that I didn't have to rely on anyone else anymore. So I'm trying to get an opinion on what would be the best setup (within my price range) for what I'm doing.

photo and encoding?

you want a quad - thats exactly what qauda are good for

something like this:

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231122

GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3L LGA 775 Intel P35 ATX All Solid Capacitor Intel Motherboard - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] A-P35-DS3L

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz 2 x 4MB L2 Cache LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115017

CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX ATX12V V2.2 550W Power Supply 90 - 264 V UL, CUL, CE, CB, FCC Class B, TUV, CCC, C-tick - Retail

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139004

ASUS EN9600GT/HTDI/512M GeForce 9600GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814121229

About $40 overbudget, but definitely worth it. If you must then you could cut some corners on the PSU with a Corsair VX 450 instead, on some slightly cheaper ram, or even on a 8800GS instead of a 9600GT.

sn - you won't need faster than DDR2-800 unless you boost the FSB above 1600MHz.

- considering I don't really play PC games, would this be fine for my video card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150229

The only game I might be interested in playing is GTA4 down the road, but I'm looking to get about an 80gig HDD as my windows drive and cutting my video card cost down a lot would allow that without going too much over budget.