I'm trying to squeeze another year or two out of my faithful rig, I'm not a gamer anymore so I don't need cutting edge. My weekend hobby is taking 100s of pictures of my kids sports on my DSLR, dumping them into Photoshop Elements, parsing through them and editing in Photoshop. I don't play video intensive games anymore, but I do some video editing. If I were to specify a $200 budget, where do I put my money?
CPU: According to CPU benchmarks, going from E6850 to Q9505 ($60 on ebay) will double CPU performance and another 25% bump going to Q9550 ($80 on ebay). Which Intel CPU makes the most sense? Note: Those chips are 95w, will my MB support?
RAM: I'm at 4 GB with fast RAM, would like to go to 8 GB. Specific brand/model recommendations?
SYSTEM SPECS:
MB: EVGA 780i (EVGA 132-CK-NF78-A1 LGA 775)
CPU: Intel C2D E6850 (3.0 GHz, DDR3-1333, 4 MB L2 cache) --> plan to upgrade
HD: Intel 530 SSD 480 GB, WD 250 GB SATA-II (3 in RAID 5)
NAS: Synology DS213J, 2 WD RED 1 TB
RAM: 4 GB Patriot DDR2 800 (PDC22G6400LLK) --> plan to upgrade to 8 GB
VID: EVGA 260 GTX
PWR: Thermaltake Toughpower 850W
OS: Windows 7sp1