It is STILL a good idea, igohigh, expecially when we can compare scores from very different specs (and if I recall correctly - just awoke... - there's no one spec similar to another).

Look at the last info from mountainmaster: he has the best specs stated until now, and has even one of the best score, so NOW I can say "CPU power AND memory bus speed does matter, and REAL Mhz among processors does matter".
Look, a 3.06 P4 can easily overrule all the AMDs, but AMDs are running at MUCH LESSER Mhz counts, and don't get so low scores.

Example: a 2.2 real Mhz AMD takes 192 secs to render this scene, when a P4 with 30% more Mhz takes 176 secs.
Is it worth the way more money spent on the P4, only to have 16 seconds less in this render???
Yes if you don't want only render power, no if you're a simple hobbyist who fire up Poser and play with DAZ's or Renderosity's toys, dreaming to be a photographer :-)
Well, this is only one of the miriads of conclusions that can be got.

But as we are talking of pure render speed, there's one other thing to keep in mind: the time for the final render is a small fraction of the time spent overall on the picture, unless you are an animator and you regularly make one hour lenght films (but I think at this time you aren't using a P4 and Poser, aren't you? ;-) ).
So, if you want render speed AND workflow, the 16 seconds for the first could be HOURS for the second...now it's up to you to decide how many budget to be allocated for your needs.

And this thread had convinced me that my last buy was a REAL bargain :-)))