Hi!
 
I'm about to upgrade my system and is looking for some ideas how to "think" about it.
 
Background: last week our village - in southern Sweden - was subject to a thunderstorm and the main part of my computer equpment was dead afterwards (modem, router, printer, screen and two PC:s - desktops). Now, one of the PC:s, which I recieved in late November 2007 and which is built to be used by Photo/Video-enthusiasts, currently is at the company (local) who built it - I call them company A - and today I was told that the PSU, mobo and the graphic card was gone (thank God the HDDs were OK!).
 
Well, the insurance company will pay for the repair of the damages (minus some deduction). However, I plan to take advantage ot the oppurtunity to upgrade the computer (I will of course pay for the upgrade myself). The guys at company A certainly have their ideas about what to upgrade and looking at the newest catalogue from the company where I purchased the PC (a photodealer which work with this company A to specify the Photo/Video PC:s), I note that there are a lot of updates (mobo, CPU, memory, graphic card etc). Beeing a newbie in this field I would appreciate some advice from people which are not involved in the process.
 
I'm thinking of upgrading incrementally. To start off - I'm happy with the current PC but upgrading some at this moment would probably cost less than waiting for, say, another year. First of all, thinking of the motherboard and the CPU - is there any benefit to upgrade the mobo and the CPU (in this case perhaps from Core 2 Duo to Core 2 Quad - or perhaps another Core 2 Duo), would I notice any difference (currently I'm mostly dealing with photoediting - tiff.format - and soundediting but looking towards video-editing as well)? Re memory: I don't think that's a problem as they are rather cheap these days (talking bout DDR2). I'm tempted to put in a Blu-Ray burner, primarily not for viewing films etc but for burning backups.
 
Of course I have to make the final decisions myself how to deal with this upgrade but any suggestions re how I "should think" are very much appreciated.
 
Sorry for the lengthy post.
 
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My current spec:
• ATX CoolerMaster Mystiqe Black
• Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 1333MHz socket775
• CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 2.66GHz 4MB Cache 1333MHz FSB socket775
• Memory 2GB DDR2 PC6400 DIMM
• HDD 320GB Hitachi SATAII 16MB Cache 7200rpm
• HDD 500GB Hitachi SATAII 16MB Cache 7200rpm
• DVDRW - Samsung 18x SATA black
• CardReader USB 2.0 Intern / All In One
• Firewire IEEE1394 PCI 3port
• GraphicCard Leadtek GF8500GT 256MB PCIe DDR2 DVI/HDTV
• PowerSupply Nexus NX 8050 500W Modular
• Windows XP Pro OEM SP3 Swedish
 
 
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Spec for one of the newer PC:s:
• Cooler Master Mystique 631 silver (silenced with a "dampingcarpet" )
• Gigabyte GA-X48-DQ6 S775
• Intel Core 2 Quad 6600 2,4GHz, 2x4MB, 1066MHz, S775
• Memory (2) DDR2 1GB PC6400 Original DIMM 240-pin, 800Mhz
• Memory (2) DDR2 512GB PC6400 Original DIMM 240-pin, 800Mhz
• HDD 250GB Hitachi S-ATA II, 7200rpm, T7K500, 8MB Cache
• HDD (2) 750GB Hitachi S-ATA II, 7200rpm, 7K1000, 32MB Cache
• Diskdrive 3.5'' AT, Silver, 1.44MB
• Blu-Ray LG GGW-H20L black, SATA
• Cardreader Silver USB 2.0 intern 3.5´´, All in 1
• Firewire 800 B+A PCIe, 3port, 2 IEEE1394b & 1 IEEE1394a with cable
• Graphic Card LeadTek Geforce 9800GTX 512MB GDDR3, 2xDVI, HDTV
• PowerSupply Ipower Extreme 600Watt
• Fan (2) ADDA 120mm 16dbA
• Microsoft Windows XP Pro SP2B Swedish
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In a another model (cheaper) they have used almost the same components except for the mobo, HDDs (500 GB instead of 750 GB) and an ordinary DVD-burner instead of Blu-Ray. The mobo used in this case:
• Gigabyte GA-EP35-DS4 P35/DDR2/LK/GBLAN
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On the new spec since they are using a X48 motherboard it would be a good idea to use an ATI Graphic card (ATI HD 4850 or 4870)and not a Nvidia card (Leadtek GeForce 9800GTX) so you can crossfire another card in the future. The X48 motherboard can only use 2 cards if they are ATI cards. This would only apply if you wanted to crossfire in the future. If and only if you were going to crossfire in the future with the HD4870 you would also need the power supply unit to be at least 650watts.

Well, if you do not game on it then you do not have to worry too much about crossfire.  Is it solely for video/photo editing?  If yes, the most important thing is the fastest quad core and the most amount of memory.  Since you are presumably using a 32 bit OS, that means 4 gb ram.  
 
Another question, is company "a" putting this together or are you?  Are they using the same harddrives or just copying your files over?  
 
ps. in my opinion the newer intel 45 nm quads and 8 gb of ram with Vista 64 is the most powerful photo/video machines out.  a q6600 is a good choice too but the newer chips may be worth the upgrade

A BluRay drive is going to add ~$100USD to the cost of the PC and if it's something you don't need then tell them you don't want it.  Other than that I agree with bc, I think you would be best off with a X38 or X48 motherboard and a new 45nm quad like the Q9450 and 4GB of RAM.  For photo/video editing any newer video card would work fine, I might suggest a ATI 4850 or 4870 but there are some great prices on the mid range Nvidia cards right now and you can get a great card for ~$100USD or basically free after telling them you don't want the BluRay.