Processor and Components for Encoding - Suggestions

Need help with deciding what CPU would be best for encoding video? I can spend close to $1,000 on the whole computer so not sure what to devote to the processor compared to the rest of the components. I was thinking of the Q9450 since the software I use is able to use multiple cores. Any suggestions?

Also, any other suggestions to go along with this CPU, motherboard, case.....? I am encoding h.264, AVCHD, whatever you want to call it. I do about 150 videos a week and they range from 250mb - 1.25gb.

Thanks for any help.

Shane

I'd do a Q6600 rig, stiil huge for the money and most will clock up to 3.4-3.6ghz
That, a decent board,4 gig of memory,case,PSU,DVDRW,HD and decent vid card should be under $1000.00

How important is the video card right now, will it help that much with the encoding? If not, I would wait and get one later down the road.

Well, nVidia showed some benchmarks using CUDA on graphics cards for encoding video, and it postively kicked a CPU's ass. So if you can afford it, get yourself two GTX280s and the CPU will be irrelevant.

That would solve all my problems with even one of those graphics cards. Thanks for the link to the video. I read in one of the comments that all GeForce GPU's over the 8xxx series had CUDA enabled. I am assuming those new cards would break the bank, so would you suggest one of the others HERE for a cheaper choice?

Also, I don't want to go crazy with OC, I heard the Q9450 was very easy to bump up to 3.1 without any hassle. I think I still want to head that direction. Any suggestions on a motherboard to tie the 9450 with one of Nvidia's GPU's that I linked above?

from what I understand, CUDAs support is very very limited - so I wouldnt bank on it :down: