I would be looking into the latest generation of "dual core" CPU's from either Intel or AMD. Although at this point in time there aren't a lot of software and or programs that support (make full use of) they are wonderful for "Multi tasking". You can literally run one program (say video encoding) with one core and play games with the other. My next build (for me personally) will most likely be an Intel pentium "D" 930. This will give me comparible performance to what I currently run (P4 3.0E) but with "twin cores". I do game alot but also find the need to do other tasks at the same time. Prelimanary tests I have run using a Pentium "D" 805 lead me to believe that I will infact, be able to pay BF2 and encode video at the same time. The other cool thing (for me personally) is that they overclock extremely well.
