AMD 6-core or i7

[souperm]

Hi guys,

I'm currently planning a new build so far i have decided on:

Hard Drive's: 2 x Spinpoint F3 1TB in RAID 0 - for mass storage - BOUGHT
Main Hard Drive: SSD - probably OCZ Vertex 2E 60GB for OS, scratch, apps and 1 game at a time (to be purchased when cheaper/more money)
DVD Drive: Samsung 223L SATA with patch utility hack
Monitor: 24" Dell 2409W (for 1080p gaming) - BOUGHT
Total budget: 750 (excluding monitor)

And that's it!!

The main purpose of this rig will be games and media.

Furthermore the work i do involves a lot of compressed files, i get sent and uncompress them but don't really compress anything myself, other than using winrar occasionally to group photo's in one file.

My first question is which processor to go for?

Initially I was thinking of get an i7-950 with the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R and 6GB of memory however with sandy bridge coming out soon there seems to be the opportunity for a decent upgrade later.

So now I am a little confused, would you recommend a X4 955/965/970, an X6 1055/1075/1090 or should i stick with the i7 950? Bare in mind, the upgrade may not go through but i have decent room in my budget for most of these options.

In essence whats the best option for:
1) An interim period until sandy bridge is released and reaches a decent price?
2) A decent long-term option?

Could you also recommend me a decent motherboard? USB 3.0 is a must and I am not interested in overclocking at the moment, but will undoubtedly get into it after a couple of months.

I'd really appreciate your help, it's all getting a little too complicated for my mind.

Thanks

SouperM

[Blackmage]

Wait for Sandy bridge; trust me. Not worth putting money into a soon to bed dead socket!