CPU Upgrade -- Opinion

Hey there.
I built my PC about a year ago with the following specs:

• E8500 CPU
• P5QL Pro
• 4 GB Patriot Extreme
• EVGA 260 GTX

Just recently, I have started editing video and while I do not wish to do a total upgrade of my PC just yet; however, I was wondering if a simple CPU upgrade to a quad-core (not looking at anything specific just yet) would help me get faster rendering times.

I mostly work in After Effects, and I am aware that in order to utilize my memory fully, I need to upgrade my XP 32bit (and I plan to do that when Win 7 is available).

At the moment I have no budget in mind, something around 100-200 dollars is reasonable.

Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks very much for your time!

+1^ the Q9550 is a good choice for u especially since u do renderings which benefit from extra cores

Thanks very much for the reply. I'm quite interested; however, I do have an additional question.
I do play games on the side. With my current setup, I think it is safe to say I can game quite comfortably, heh.

What kind of performance drop would I see with non-quad-core optimized games and applications if I were to switch over to the Q9550? I play mostly FPS and driving games.

Thanks again!