Assuming I don't fall to the Dark Side i.e consoles, I plan on doing a fairly large PC upgrade in the next couple months. However, I know absolutely jack about Conroe, DDR2 and all of the other Intel stuff, so I need some help here:

CPU: Seems the E6850 is the way to go right now? I plan on overclocking the crap out of whatever chip I eventually get...

Mobo: Here I have absolutely no clue. I've had good experiences with Abit and DFi, but apparently the RAID 0 support sucks on the new Intel boards?

RAM: Seems DDR2 800 is the most popular, but what do I know about DDR2? I'm also assuming 4GB is in order? Brand?

GFX: 8800GTX or 2900XT?

22" LCD: Samsung 226BW? Or save a few bucks on the BenQ?

Otherwise, I reckon I'm good for all the other bits and pieces, except maybe for my AOpen 700W PSU: will it be sufficient for the above rig?

Also, is it better to just buy through one of the local dealers (Andy, Slick, etc.) or go via overseas i.e. through ColonelDebugger? Absolute max I can cough up is around R15k (which should hopefully be softened by selling all my old stuff), but if there are wiser/cheaper options then I'm all ears!

rust 8800gtx does not have a competitor the x2900xt is in direct competition with the 8800gts 640MB

mobo's: don't take my word that RAID 0 sucks across all board but this is my personal experience on the DFI with the RD600 chipset - RAID 0 only caters for 16bit allocation size too small for my liking as I have huge mother files as well as thousands of smaller files so anything without 64bit does not work for me

My mobo atm: Asus P5B-Deluxe nice board, has everything dual lan, firewire, the works BUT feking mobo has heat pipes from the NB to the VReg and I cannot cool my vreg down with a fan they provided as my radi is in the way.
Worst off my firewire transfers @ 5MB/s instead of the sustainted 28MB/s same applied to my USB until I found a beta INF driver - stupid all in 1 crap that is 100% worse than the AMD-Nvidia chipsets.
also I feel that my 2x250 in RAID 0 is much more sluggish in this intel than it was on my AMD 4200+ dual core...

LCD: Samsung 22' is the way to go benq is really shit for movie playback but good for gaming... samsung = good looking, awesome gaming, decent movie playback!

Intel is now moving to DDR3 if you didnt' know that already... so RAM... lets see DDR800 is more than sufficient unless you plan on pushing the CPU to hell and back then you'll need 1333MHz one...
Only decent thing with this intel is the ALT-TAB works extremely fast compared to my AMD.

Personally I don't think paying over R2000 for the E6600 and over R2000 for a decent mobo justifies buying a Intel... for that price you could get the AMD 6000+ @ 3GHz and have tons of space for more overclocking plus the AMD mobos don't cost you over 2k for a decent one.

Oh and you would at least have more life in a AMD than a INTEL... I mean what... the next upgrade I ahve to do will be new RAM, Mobo and CPU...

if I'm correct AMD only cycles thru different pin/ram once every 12 months... intel? every feking 4-6 months... doesn't justify me buying DDR3 with a new mobo just so I can run a decent CPU

Personally I think you've missed the whole Core2Duo hype... it time to consider the next generation if you going the PC route

Ah, so 8800GTX and Samsung 226BW it is then

So you reckon it's better to stick to the AMD side? I'll have to get a new mobo, cpu, ram and gfx card either way though.

RAID 0 is important for me but can't be bothered with firewire since I never use it. And will DDR800 be sufficient considering I plan on overclocking?

right now? I would recommend you wait for price drops

but like I said I've seen better AMD boards... care to buy my E6600 and mobo?

I'll go over to AMD

Lol but then I still need RAM. Depends how much you selling for though

Ok, considering I've already got a dual core Opty and a fair system otherwise, would it be a smart option to just grab an 8800GTX for now? Would I be ok for Crysis and such?

well provided your PSU can support it... right now a 8800gtx will last for the next 1-1.5 years

but CPU will become a bottle neck later

So now I'm told my Opty won't be sufficient for an 8800 GTX/Ultra... will the bottleneck be that severe? Would I be wasting cash on such a high-end card?

yep!

even with the GTX your CPU will be a bottleneck BUT look at it this way. the only time you're CPU won't be a bottleneck is when you have a quad core.

EVEN SO it's pointless as what you'll gain an extra 4-6 FPS on any top GPU intensive game... and you won't notice a difference unless when you are running 1280x1024. At 1600x1080 you might see some difference but nothing serious and definately not a serious performance drop
with the next few game title releases...

Personally I would rather get a x2900xt (comparabled to 8800gts 640) and if you having issues running at 1600x1080 then crossfire the beast to get a performance comparable to the 8800 Ultra.

Well I've seen that in upcoming Dx10 titles the 2900XT kicks the 8800's ass, but doesn't do so good in older games.

Think that's probably my best option right now, and the price isn't too bad either.

only the 8800gts 640mb but nothing higher