I have a P5W DH Deluxe 1.02g that I have been running a E6600 @ 3.4ghz with 2GB of ram on for over 2 years. Everything is fine, but I am ready for an upgrade. My usage is mainly general productivity, however, I use VMware a lot and have multiple OS's running simultaneously. On top of that, I do a bit of gaming and a bit of video encoding.

I've read through this thread and done as much research as I can, and I believe that my options are pretty limited on this motherboard. I have my eye on a Q9550 and an upgrade to 4gb of RAM. I know I can run this combo on my board, but I also know I will not be able to overclock very well, if at all. That is essentially unacceptable to me. My current E6600 @ 3.4ghz would outperform a stock clocked Q9550 @ 2.66 in most games. I've thought about a Q6600, which should allow me a modest OC up around 3.2ghz which is basically just a lateral move in my mind.

My question is this. What is the best upgrade I can do on this motherboard? I am definitely going to overclock and take advantage of whatever I can to achieve optimal performance. I need a step up from my E6600 @ 3.4ghz, and I am already OK spending around $400 in order to do this (Q9550 + 4gb kit is in this price range). Is it worth upping the budget to around $500 and buying a new motherboard along with the CPU and RAM? There seem to be some well priced options (Asus P5Q-E, Asus P5Q SE+, Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R). Will these suit my needs? I have an external X-Fi sound card, one 8800GTS, and only 2 hard drives, so I really don't need many onboard features. I just need performance, OC-ability and stability. Also, for around $500 would it be possible to do i7? Would it be worth it?

Thanks