help me choose my hardware...

Im wanting to upgrade my machine, the current unit has 4Gb Ram, and cannot take any more, with Win7 sucking up so much, it leaves me little for video and image editing, video is starting to get tedious.

I have a Radeon HD 6670, which will need to go in the new machine, needs 6 SATA ports minimum. I have 3x 1Tb drives and 1 160Gb drive for the o/s and programs.

Im looking for options/opinions on the motherboard and processor.
perferably one that has some ooph when needed but doesn't heat the room (if such a thing exists)
I dont want to buy stuff thats incompatible, hence my questioning,
The last couple of machines I have built have been barebones or bundles, and have found limitations with the boards after 6 months (like this machine and its 4Gb limit)

Dunno about the hardware side, but have you considered loading it with a Linux distro as the OS? Certainly less memory intensive than Windows.

Ive looked at linux, and currently have a non-functioning ubuntu on my system in dual boot, a graphics driver issue, that I have, as yet, have not been able to fix.
Theres also some programs that I use that Im unsure if they will run under wine, the adobe suite and sony vegas to name a couple.

If money is an issue why not go for a Q6600 coupled with an Asus P5Q Deluxe, I bought 2 of each a few months back when I built 3 new towers.

Q6600 is 2.4 at stockand can be clocked to 3.4 with a capable mobo hence P5Q deluxe which has an amazing rep!! which is why i bought 2

One thing to note, make sure your next mobo has 4 banks, and google its model number to see max RAM, 4 banks for memory is usually 16 Gig

Q6600 on Ebay is around £35-45
P5Q Deluxe is around £60-90

If you can get both plus memory in a bundle you will not regret it!!