Well this rig is for now a quick-fix to get me back up and gaming (Been about a year and a half now without a working box of my own, Work was just a madhouse/ 70-80 hr week's for a year so no time to bother really, now I barely find 40 hrs. worth :/ ) Once I've seen Intel figure out what their gameplan / replacement is for the quad core, then I'll dump the $3k into the mega system. For now I basicly want a system that will handle ArmA, COD, MOHaa/sh/bt and hopefully airborne AND IL2 Sturmovik. And of course it will be nice to have around after the Mega-rig is constructed for a media center / something for Jr. to mess with, ect.
Mabey it's an incorrect assumption, but my thinking was that much like hyper-threading, the benefit's of a Duo-core setup would only apply to software written to take advantage of the feature??

I've always been skeptical about PNY myself, but as this is a "filler" PC I'm trying to keep it to around a $500-600 pricetag at geeks.com thou I guess another hundred for a better card wont kill me. (I know I'm paying too much, I'm just not "eBay patient")
p.s. @ Oath: How ya' like that Raptor drive? Very noticable difference in load times?