Yeah, I understand, I don't care for building a system myself, partly since you can't get a warranty that covers the whole package. I think that can be worth the extra cost.

Its important to understand the hardware to some extent. The processor you mentioned is a quad core, but with hyperthreading essentially allows two cpu's per core. Its kind of a hack by Intel to double the processing power. Having 8 cpus with hyperthreading is not the same processing power as eight actual cores, which is why AMD's new processor is a bigger bang for the buck.