[dcbryan]

Alright casecutter, thanks for the input, it's nice to hear somebody with some different ideas. I guess really the only reason that I wanted to stay with AMD is because I thought it would be a better deal. But if not, then I'd switch to an Intel.

As for the OCZ PSU, I searched newegg for highest ratings and most wattage output. That power supply's got 700 5 star reviews, it's hard to argue with that, don't you think? I will do some reaseach into the Corsair 550W & 620W though.

"Again with the ram, you could cheap out on that too unless you are overclocking."

Are you saying that I don't need 4GB of ram unless I'm overclocking? When I use Adobe After Effect it eats through the gig and half of ram I have in no time.

I took a look at the benchmarks on Tom's Hardware and I think your right, the Q6600 is a better processor. The Q6600 beat the Phenom on the C4D render, Photoshop test, and Adobe Premiere. But the AMD did score better at DVD Playback.

For video cards, I didn't think most cards had HDMI out, do they? The crossfire feature I wasn't aware of, I was reading about it here and it sounds pretty good. Was there a specific ATI video card you had in mind?

Anyway, Casecutter it sounds like you know what you've got some pretty strong opinions, so if you wouldn't mind could you put together a "better Intel setup for the same or less money." I'm all for less money (and a faster computer).

Thanks again for the input.