Great, keep your X2 5600+ CPU then. Soleron agrees with that too.

Sry if i got you all mixed up with the bottle necking thing. However it seems like you want to most from what your spending i just see it as a waste to spend money on something you cant fully use. However if you do by a high end gpu it will still be blazing fast but not as fast as it could be. I just wanted to make it known that you wont being using everything its got. But if your going to slowly over haul your rig the gpu would be that 1st thing to trade out just make sure your 12 volt rails have the amps needed. I tried to read all the posts before my last one but i hate reading so i just skimed them kinda got the idea. Did you post your full system specs? X2 5600+ i saw what kinda mobo is it a am2+????? or just am2

*EDIT*

have you looked at any gpu benchmarks? However i dont know what the rest of their system specs are they test these with i can only think its something crazy and completely overkill. Have you thought about crossfire or sli? can be cheaper sometimes.

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

let me rephrase it.

-It's an AM2 Socket board
-Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 2.7Ghz
-2GB RAM

It's not a 5600+

Also crossfire and SLI are out of the question. I'd be packing extra luggage and maybe give me hard time once I move out.

Anything is possible. But its what you want to do down the road. If you want to slowly replace all your hardware then you need a very vesitial mother board. One thats am2/am2+/am3 if your going to upgrade AMD down the road if your thinking about Intel well you know the story. The link below is a few ASUS boards that are all those slots and an AM3 cpu will run in a am2+ slot if the bios is updated on most boards. I favor ASUS boards becasue iv never had a problem with them but others could be good ask around.

So going that way you might not need new ram if your running ddr2 just add some to it if the bus is right for the board. Personaly i wouldnt go above 4 gigs for gaming but if your going to mess around with 3dmax get as much as the board holds, as far as photoshop i dont know iv never got that far into it to see if it will eat 4 gigs of ram.

On another note you said you where looking at 700-1200 dollars? is that USD? either way thats a whole new rig right there and a good one at that im running AMD 965, V8 coolmaster, DDR3 1600 mhz, Sapphire 5850, ASUS Crosshair Formula 3, Corsair 750 watt psu. That set up was around 1300 usd new. Im happy with it but its over kill unless i put it on my 120 hz tv.

What kinda power supply do you have the whole model number if you could so i can look at the rails. Also you play BFBC2 and looking at playing crysis 2? From what iv read crysis 2 isnt going to pound a system like the 1st one did but still take some power. What resolution are you running at also that plays a big part in all this

*EDIT*

Also keeping mind that video editing is VERY cpu intensive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2010200022%2050001315%201070947010&name=ASUS

if you have steam for a faster convo add Mutedperson

Yea it's in USD since most of the parts I get come from the US. I ask someone to buy it for me then pay them back once I get them.

Wanted to do a Quad for that reason as well. Since I'm just starting out I don't need to pump out much on it. Games on the other hand playable FPS is a must on a high resolution. :)

Hey thanks for the advice guys I'm settled with getting GPU now. Now I just have to pick Nvidia or ATI.

Hey I read in one of your posts in the other thread that you have a 5850. If it's ok could you run tests if it's good on OpenGL in Photoshop?

BTW sorry I don't have a steam account. :(

I don't know about OpenGL for Photoshop, but for games I believe ATI has the edge right now with Nvidia's GTX 470 and 480 running to hot, using more power, and costing more for performance gains over the 5850 and 5870.

Ya i can run some OpenGL benckmarks however i dont really know what benchmark to run for Photoshop if you have one or tell me where to get one ill snag it up and post the results, ill even run them in my other rig that has an Amd 9850 in it. Its the closest cpu i have to yours here. So just let me know where to get the Photoshop benchmark from.

I actually found one but it's likely that it's CPU based. I have yet to find an OpenGL benchmark for photoshop. Anyways thanks for the help pal. :)