Need some advise on upgrading my CPU and Motherboard. I will be using:

Vista Business x64
Flash
Photoshop
Illustrator
Acrobat
Dreamweaver
MS Office 2007
Some gaming (latest titles)

I'm willing to spend $200-250 on the CPU and another $100-150 on the motherboard. I already have the other components. My goal is to decrease rendering and wait times so I can get my work done faster. I may overclock, but don't want to push too far past stock voltages. Stability and reliability are a priority.

Any suggestions?

Here are my other components for reference: Antec 550W/P180b Case/4GB DDR2-800/HD4850

Q6600 or Q9450 with any Intel chipset based motherboard and a decent cooler...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115018
The Q6600 quad is cheap, and scales well in Photoship CS3, even at the low stock 2.4ghz. Most people in this forum run it at 3.6ghz.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipse [...] i=2963&p=7

For motherboard, a cheap p45 should do well.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] rder=PRICE

^ I think more RAM and a 64 bit OS would do him well... what do you think?

Oh and remember to buy a fast scratch disk =)

Thanks for the tips. I was thinking along the same lines. Quad core seems to be the way to go for the apps I'm using.
Quick overclocking question. If I go for the Q6600, is it better run the RAM at 1:1 and lower the cpu multiplier? For example:
400x7.5 = 3.0 GHz vs. 333x9 = 3.0 GHz

I'm guessing most people use 400x9 to get 3.6 GHz. Is that common, or would I need to invest in some higher-end components to hit that clock?

I'm interested in the Q9300 and Q9450 as well, or maybe the Q9550 if the price cuts come as expected.

+1 for the e8400 and 6-8Gb of ram

Clockspeed, ram and disk I/O is more important than quad cores in Adobe (excepting Premiere, of course)

It's better to keep ratio at 1:1. Yes, 400x9 is most common, that also comes out to 400x2=800mhz ddr2 for ram. It's the typical setup.

You would need a good cpu cooler. Here's top 5 performing ones:
http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm
For reference, this is what I use for q6600:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835887011
At prime95 small ffts full load, 58C at 3.6ghz, and 69C at 4ghz. Temperature threshold for q6600 is 71C.

Which is why I recommend a 750GB 7200RPM disk for storage and a fast as possible one for cache... (scratch disk)

As long as you aren't using premiere pro, you should be golden with overclocking. I have heard overclocking cause major problems with video editing, stability is the most important thing.

Fast quad, lots of RAM, + fast hard drive

I have a Q9450 @ 3.4, i couldent ask for anything more.
Im a graphic designer myself, so i have InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop all open at once, with multiple documents open within each program and i absolutely never have a lockup.
Mines paired with 4gb of ddr2 & 1066 for measure

I had a dual core for a while, it was good but the quad really shines through for design.
Hope it all works out for you.

I'm a hobbyist animator/artist and I normally have Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Painter all up at once... trust me, a good scratch disk does alot of difference (even when I only have a dual-core Athlon...)

The e8400 was my top pick for a while due to the clockspeed, but you guys bring up some great points. I typically work with 4-5 apps at a time and I think I'd really benefit from a quad. Its mostly graphics work and web design, but I'd like to get into 3D animation and video composition in the future.

I've been using a partition on my primary drive as a scratch disk. For about the same price, I could add another 4GB of ram (total of 8 GB) or another hard drive. I'm leaning towards the hard drive. Any thoughts?

@warcry: Thanks for the input. What motherboard are you using with your Q9450?

It depends. Some 3d animation programs are ram hogs. If it overshoots the 4gb limit and start using page file off hdd, it'll really drag down performance. Aviod it however possible. Try looking up typical ram usage for the programs you use before deciding between ram or hdd.

I have a very cheap motherboard, the only part i skimped on in my setup.
Its an Asus P5K-SE, it only cost me roughly $70 AU, and it can handle up to 3.5ghz from that cpu, although with a more expensive board the q9450 can hit 3.7+