I'm sorry, I should have explained that I've been editing 20 years. I just don't want to go back to the same turnkey builder, as all the post-service he touted never materialized. Plus, in his case, I think he would charge 4X what this build would cost!
I still might be looking at hardware acceleration boards, which would add another $1k ~ $3K. My current editing systems each have Canopus Storm cards in them, and I think I'll miss real-time capabilities, which I wouldn't expect from the screamer outlined above!
If you can add the Canopus cards then do it, that will take the load off the CPU. That doesn't mean you shouldn't upgrade the CPU though
but you'll have the draw the line somewhere.
I'll second what ClubNeon says, no need for any Quadro (NVidia) or Fire (ATI) series cards, just get the mainstream ones. Don't know what your budget is, but the i7 920 and 12GB RAM is a good start. If you have extra to spend, I'd upgrade the CPU before the RAM.
