New Build, plz advice, for Educational purpose

Hai guys,
for my educational purpose i'm going to build a new PC, so tech guys at tomhardware community please help me.

First off, just a bit of background, i'm Learning the following Certification courses - MSCE, CCNP, RHCE, and some others.
my career path is in the computer Hardware and network side.
so to make my study and work easy at home, i'm trying to build a new system, so i can do lot of virtual machine works. - to test software, windows, and you know what..., and to make my study and work easy.

So the most important thing is the system should be able to run lot of virtual machines (at least 5 at a given time), so the performence is important but price comes first.

other things i would be doing in my pc would be :
1. Games (i'm not a hardcore gamer), but i play the following games,- MSTS, Trainz 2006, NFS (series) , C&C (series), Mafia, GTA (series) - (series means all versions). but i dont always play games in full graphics so dont recommend ATI 4870 or GT280.

2. Music, movies and internet browsing

3. development in Visual Studio 2008/ sometimes photoshop (rare)

4. Encoding Videos (DVD to Dvix), MPEG2 to Xvid, to flv, to 3g, and etc...

PC components should have/be
1. Intel SYSTEM
2. Intel Core 2 Quad
3. DDR2 Ram
4. MB makers: giga-byte, asus, msi
5. Intel P45, G45 Chipsets or P???
6. OS: Vista Ultimate x64

for now I have selected the following
1. MB: Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
2. RAM:
3. CPU:
4. VGA:
5. Soundcard:
6. HDD:
7. Power supply:

i'm trying to go for the max ram possible
i would like to hear about other Intel chipsets also ?

what kind of virtual images will i will be running?
Windows XP, 98, 2000, 2003, vista, 2008, Redhat, And others, but most of the time XP and 2003

and no Intel Core i7 advices,

the above ones are not must, but i would like it that way, you can advice me on your own idea.

so i have given the info all you need, but still something may be missing so please ask me.

and i live in sri lanka , outside US so no newegg, but please give me the newegg links to check the products out, (image, etc..)

so please help me build this system, thank you for your advices

Good suggestions from Shadow.

Hello guys,
thank you for your advices,

i wanted to know is
what about Intel P45 Chip ?
what about Intel new 45nm CPUs ?
you said Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P has few BIOS issues what are they ?
wont an bios update fix those

shortstuff_mt, thank you very much, but little high price,

and when is intel price cut coming and anyone have any details on that, i hard that it was on 19/10/2008

I don't like doing the research and I know there are boatloads of tom people that would be willing to put in their two cents. So, basically I'd like you guys to 'build' a computer for me. that's why i asked.

I just don't have the time to do the research to get the most bang for my buck. I know there are people on here that have spent countless hours doing just that, and I am pretty sure they wouldn't mind helping me out. I'm looking for specific parts, what processor. There are hundreds. What video card, there are hundreds., what chipsets or Mainboards, what RAm