Suit yourself. But, I see people complaining about their PCs choking all the time. I also see them reporting how much faster their new PCs are after upgrading (especially those working with larger images that go with a Core i7 based PC).
I'm thinking about getting a new PC myself soon, as my current PCs are just too slow (and some of it is CPU bound), and I hate waiting on images to render, etc. I've been working with a lot of files from a Sony A850 lately, and you can really feel the need for a faster PC working with them.
When someone says "money is not an issue" it just means that person has no idea how expensive high-end equipment can be.
Perhaps. That's why I suggested he give members here a better idea of budget. ;-)
That's also why I suggested a far less expensive alternative in this post:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1004&message=35001509
http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/saving/show.aspx?id=197636
That case gets great reviews and helps components stay cool. Here's a 6 page review of it that includes some temperature testing:
http://www.overclockersclub.com/reviews/cm_storm/
That motherboard is well liked by users and is one of only two options that vendor (cyberpowerpc in the UK) offers with support for the newer 6Gpbs SATA and 5Gbps USB 3.0 standards (and it also has nice tools for overclocking).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131614&Tpk=P6X58D
If I were building a new system and had the budget, I'd get a board with support for those newer standards, especially if I were planning on keeping one for a while, since faster and faster SSDs will surely come out as time passes, and we're already seeing USB 3.0 devices on shelves. You could add cards later. But, I'd just get a board that already supports those features. That board also works with the Gulftown CPUs straight from the box.
The PSU I suggested also gets great reviews. Here's one from someone that's got a reputation for being very tough in his PSU reviews:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=169
The Nvidia GTS 250 is a decent mid range video card. You could choose something else if desired. Personally, I prefer Nvidia chipsets since I run both Linux and Windows (and with some Windows apps for transcoding video, CUDA support can improve performance). I've also seen less in the way of problems (drivers, temperature, etc.) reported with the GTS 250 versus some of their other chipsets. But, there are faster cards if you want them (and as time passes, I'd expect more applications to support GPU acceleration). I also use VirtualBox so I can run more than one OS at the same time, and it has experimental hardware 3D acceleration now, too. So, it's not just CS4 that can use the GPU.
Heck, I've been working with a lot of larger raw files lately and trying to find faster ways of going through them and easily seeing 100% viewing size to scroll around and check sharpness, and found that Fast Picture Viewer even has GPU acceleration to help out that process now (it's very good for rendering full size raw files faster than most viewers).
As time passes, I'd expect more applications to be written more efficiently (spinning off more threads) to take advantage of more CPU cores, too. We're already seeing that with a number of applications (including many raw converters and video transcoding tools). Running more than one application at a time can also benefit from more cores. Ditto for more memory. I've got 6GB installed in two boxes now, and I'll probably go more with the next system I buy (since I like having more than one OS running at the same time which eats up memory, and the OS should use any spare memory for disk cache to speed up things, too).
As for the vendor, you can find more expensive. But, I doubt you'll find many that give you the same components at lower prices if they're building it for you and including a 3 year warranty. I know more than one user that's used them before (including in the UK), and they were pleased with their systems (including someone that reported his results to me after getting a Core i7 920 based box from them when I suggested he try them, letting me know that it was a quality build, and worked just fine, and he got it for about what he was going to spend on the components to build it himself in the UK).
Since the OP is in Europe, I suggested he take a look at them.
Sure, you could spend less, or spend more for a system. If you go Dell, they're not exactly cheap for their Workstation line, and I see pretty "slim pickings" for desktops in the home lineup at Dell Portugal's web site right now (I checked it earlier today and I only saw one box with a Core i7 CPU in their home lineup, and it was using a cheaper case design, lower wattage PSU, very little expandability, etc.
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JimC
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http://www.pbase.com/jcockfield 
