Upgrade to Existing Gaming System - max $1500 budget

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Within a week

BUDGET RANGE: Maximum $1500 Canadian (Hard limit would like to coming in less)

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming, Internet, Movies, Office Applications, listening to music, and basic photo and video editing(using windows software)

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Case, Hard Drives, DVD drive, current power supply is Thermal Take 1000 watt modular supply. I will also be running Windows 7 Ultimate Edition 64 bit.

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: www.memoryexpress.com (as I can pick the parts up)

PARTS PREFERENCES: Intel processor only and if possible a MOBO with Dolby Real time encoding.

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe (never done it but curious)

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Yes in future would like to get a second card. I currently have a eVGA 295 Co-op Edition 1792 mb

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920*1080 on 47" LG TV.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS:
What I want to upgrade is the Processor, MOBO and memory. The machine is used for 80% gaming the rest is mixed.

I am currently running a Q6700, ASUS Striker Extreme and 8gig of memory don't remember type.

I am considering the following:
i7 920 -
www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX22588(ME).aspx

eVGA X58 SLI w/ TripleDDR3 1600+, 7.1 Audio, Dual Gigabit Lan, 1394, PCI-E, 3-way SLI
www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX25137(ME).aspx

and two
Patriot Extreme Performance Viper Series DDR3 6GB (3 x 2GB) PC3-10666 Enhanced Latency DIMM Kits
www.memoryexpress.com/Products/PID-MX22582(ME).aspx

I like to upgrade about every three years so I am looking at getting the most bang for my buck.

I currently have an ASUS Xonar D2/PM sound card which I am not very happy with but it does real time Dolby encoding to my home theater.

Is there a motherboard that would support that real time encoding so I can stop using that card.

I am open to any other parts combination's.

Thanks for the feedback

The CPU/Proc combo is good but I would change the RAM as well, perhaps to this:


Mushkin XP3-12800 Xtreme Performance Redline DDR3 SDRAM (6-7-6-18), 6GB Triple Channel Kit
http://www.memoryexpress.com/Produ [...] 2(ME).aspx

It will allow upgrading to gulftown indeed, which is great. However, that will be horribly expensive (I've seen $700 as a retail price being suggested). Maybe you could consider AM3/965? The Thuban (amd 6-core) will be more affordable I guess.

To sum it up:

-i5-750 for extremely good gaming performance at a reasonable cost, but not upgradeable without changing the motherboard.
-i7-920 for the same gaming performance at a much higher cost and power consumption, but great upgradeability.
-AMD 965 for great gaming performance and great upgradeability at a moderate cost.

With upgrading in mind, I'd say:
AMD 965 for price/performance
i7-920 if price isn't an issue.