Quote - What you are describing (save for the proccessor) is pretty pricy at this time. The great thing about computers (which is also the bad thing) is the speed at which they improve. By next year what you want should be available quite reasonably. I've got the AMD 6 core Phenom II and it was already pretty reasonable.

Yeah, that's why I am looking ahead. No matter what I choose, by the time I get down to putting it all together it should cost considerably less. Right now I've got a Phenom II x4 AM2+ 8 GB which hopefully I will be using as part of my network rendering even though I understand that the network will be rendering at or near my current speed(?)

Eddy