The Tech Report points out the pricing of the Core 2s, and AMDs price cuts, have made it fairly cheap to set yourself up with a new system.  Check out the 4 system recommendations they offer, and their subsititions for those who don't like the basic setup.

Don't forget we have our own Hardware Leaderboard here at PCPerspective, with links right to New Egg to buy all the components.

"As we've seen in our review of the Core 2 lineup, these new CPUs pretty much unequivocally outclass

the competition in both raw performance and power consumption. They're rather affordable for new

introductions, too. The original Pentium 4 1.4GHz started at $644 and required expensive Rambus

memory, and the original Athlon 64 3200+ launched at $417. The Core 2 Duo line, meanwhile, starts at a

recommended price of just $183. Add in relatively affordable DDR2 memory and some nice motherboard

choices at around $150, and the Core 2 Duo is a very exciting choice indeed for early adopters.

Intel's new hotness hasn't left AMD entirely in the dust, though. The Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2, and

Sempron lines have recently been subjected to massive price cuts make them more affordable than ever

before. With those price cuts and the new Core 2 chips in mind, we've decided to roll out a

brand-spanking-new system guide to give you guidance in scratching the early adopter's itch."

Here are some more Systems articles from around the web:

  
Systems

• Bang for the

  Buck Build It: Fall 2006 @ ExtremeTech

• Mac Pro @ ars

  technica

• Apple's Mac Pro: A

  Discussion of Specifications @ AnandTech

• System

  Upgrading Guide: Part 3 - the CPU, RAM and Motherboard @ GDHardware