I just filed for the tax refund and it looks to be a bit more than I anticipated, so happy days.
I last upgraded according to new egg history in May of 07.
For reference Im running an intel dual core E6320, 4gb ddr2, a geforce gt 260, and a corsair 650psu.
Im happy with the video card for now Id say and the psu should still be good for awhile. I still have a boatload of sata drives and just got a 2gb 2 weeks ago so I dont need to worry about that I dont think.
Anyone have recommendations on what kind of mobo n cpu to start watching for?
Ill have to measure this dumb pc desk cuz I need a more spacious case. vid card blocks 2 of my bays.
And 1 or 2 pci slots preferably.
TIA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLjWINlqjx8

Thats the antec case its pretty big and weighs around 11kg - 25lbs I own that one plenty of room and have a full size atx board with dual PCI-E slots for sli cards....the smaller pci slots Ithe card covers it but its no big deal as have another 2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IJwtgX8cWI

Cooler master HAF-X I was going to get this one instead but prefered the antec one both are £130 each in the UK both are fecking huge cases.

I like steathy cases, minilism, maximum function. Check out Fractal Designs line of cases. They are competively priced and have sound dampening preinstalled. They'll remind you off the Antec P180 series.

no recommendations
but I do take hardware donations LOL

Hah, im the one usually receiving hardware donations.
Im using someone elses 19" monitor, my mouse died so im back to a standard hp BALL mouse. 5 <500gb hdds, etc.
I like how stuff I got less then legit all died within 2 weeks. 4x2gb memory, all bad. 80gb ssd, went bad, etc.
I have bad luck with this crap.
i figure new mobo, cpu, mem, and a case. maybe sli if these cards are cheaper
matter fact my bro in law gave me his cuz he got an ati board by mistake. i talk em into buying himself a new card, i get the old one

I have an antec P182... awesome case, super quiet, very sleek/stealthy... two complaints its heavy and expensive. I've had friends comment on how quiet it is and the temps I get.

I would wait right now. Many etailers are stopping sales of Sandybridge CPUs because all of the available motherboards have a chipset that has a bug. ALL boards are being recalled. Some time in April things will be sorted out, plus a chipset will be out (Z68). Some etailers are still selling sandybridge hardware with the promise of replacing the motherboard when a replacement (with new chipset revision) is available.

RAM prices are very cheap. Don't know when prices will bottom out. Really fast SSDs will be out in the next 3 months or so. The fastest ones today should get even cheaper.

I really like my Corsair Obsidian 800D case. Plenty of room. No problems doing SLI and watercooling (triple radiator). Make sure to get a PSU with long cables if you get a FULL tower like the 800D.

JFYI, the Geforce GTX560 Ti is a great card (overclocks very well). Get two (SLI) and you can play any game at highest settings at high res ( beats GTX580 and costs about the same).

The Intel i7 2600K is a great CPU (the i5 2500K isn't too shabby either). When the motherboard problem is sorted out, the ASUS P67 boards are nice (and I'm not an ASUS fan). I'm waiting for Z68 chipset motherboards. They allow overclocking and use of built-in GPU (if MB provides video connections). The drivers and firmware still need to mature.

The Antec P193 is not to shabby. It's has many of the good features from the P18x cases combined. The Silverstone TJ10 is real nice too.

Depends if you like intel I prefer AMD always have. I know the "I" chips are better but then that depends what you want to do (video editing/conversion) is a lot faster especially with the i7 extreme chips but the x6 core is like £900.

I did read a review but I can't remember which i7 it was but it was nearly as quick as the extreme range at a fraction of the cost something like £300.

I have a AM3 board with a 965BE running at 3.4ghz x4 with (4gig or ram) soon 8 running a geforce 260GTX

running all games that allow 1920x1080 max settings and not come across anything that has slowed the card down.

My only gripe was trying to get "black ops" running at all on any setting with a 2.8ghz dualcore found out in the end it needed a tricore but not tried it since I upgraded everything 2 days ago

Most dual-cores can be unlocked into a tri or quad-core. Unless your MB is older.

My older AMD board didn't have the unlocker, this new one does not that I need it with my quadcore I have now.

My only gripe with the unlocker was there can be problems ranging from CPU no longer works, motherboard dies or it simply wont unlock or is unstable.

Which was the reason I decided against it either way. still if you can get it to work then great why not.