Upgrading- Need opinions

I have a friend who wants me to build a computer for him, he has no problem with buying some of my parts and then I get upgraded. Need some opinions on what's the better hardwares, I have been out of the loop for a while. Right now I have a XP64 3200+, MSI Neo2 Plat mobo,and a Asus 6800GT 128 mb vid card. These are the main items he will buy, maybe my Crucial Ballistix (2x512) if I change memory. I was thinking of going Dual Core. Which one is best worth it's price and what mobo are turning out to be the best (stability, options and some oc'ing). Is the Geforce7800 worth it. My main uses are some graphic intense games, digital video editing (on an amatuer level), and like doing 2 things at once. What will it take for me to get a noticable improvement over what I have now. Also with the processors, I prefer AMD and want to know if there is any certain core that is better than the other.

Thanks to ALL who share their opinions and advice with me, it is all greatly appreciated.

what's an xp64? i only know of the XP series and the 64 series. a 3800+ manchester is a really good dual core model and i think the Epox Board nForce4 ultra board is pretty good too. the 7800gt is a great buy. it's like 400 dollars i think? you could sli them later if you got an sli motherboard

-1cem4n

If you go with the X2 series and get a 7800 series, you may actually have a pretty big noticeable difference from your current system. You'll also have the benefit of selling your current system right away and have money for a newer one.

The best price/performance ratio X2 would be the X2 3800+. But the X2 4400+ has 2MB of L2 cache for both cores combined, while the X2 3800+ only has 1MB of L2 cache. The extra cache may be worth it if you are doing encoding and/or other multitasking things. But in terms of gaming, it may give you only a few fps and a few seconds faster in load up times, so it may not be worth it's extra cost.

Since you play a decent amount of games and do video editing, a 7800 series may be a good choice. Get either the 7800GTX or 7800GT, both are great cards, and of course the more expensive 7800GTX would perform better then the 7800GT.
I'd also second the Epox board recommendation.

Sorry 'bout that, meant to type A64.

oh it's all right. a 7800gt is a good buy though with 20pipelines.

-1cem4n

I have manchesters with the epox board with the 7800 GT, once my power supply gets here I'll let you know how it sails

can i have a link of this motherboard that can run dual manchesters? i'm too lazy to google it and the only place i checked was newegg.com

-1cem4n