I was gonna go for Asus anyway just wasn't sure which model to pick. Socket 2011 here i come. Thank you good sir. [good]
Sorry to go a little off topic but what software do you use for video conversion?
I'm converting lots of different things. HD movies, wedding videos, videos of my diving trips. I've even put my entire DVD and BD collection on my nas for quick access through my PS3. I started doing this when I was deployed to Iraq because I could carry just a single hard drive with all my movies instead of carrying my entire DVD collection into a dusty area.
x264 is CPU bound, so no GPU support. But it also considered one of the best converters out there and I know a lot of people prefer it's output quality more then GPU encoders.
If you want on the fly transcoding, you can go with something with GPU support. But for permanent encodes, x264 on CPU is a better option.