Ahhhhh...such a tough decision. I have been reading all the reviews and drooling, this CPU is a beast. Truly awesome high-end for a desktop CPU. However, you are paying 2x the price of a S.B. i7 2600 for LESS than 2x the performance. Significantly less than 2x the performance, actually.

There are a couple ways to think about this, and I'm sure it's exactly what's going on in your head . . . you could get a "regular" S.B. i7 2600 CPU for half the cost and hope that Ivy Bridge, which will be compatible with the mobo is enough better to be worth it. I'd say there's a pretty good chance that a high end Ivy Bridge CPU will perform pretty close to the S.B.-E CPU you are looking at now.

The other thought is, if you get the big S.B.-E CPU now, they are going to do an Ivy Bridge-E CPU months after the "regular" Ivy Bridge comes out, and it *should* be compatible with the S.B.-E socket you are thinking about. However, I have no idea if the cost of that CPU will be worth the upgrade to you or not at that point.

Third option - if you are really wanting to consolidate into less rigs, and use less energy: one of those 16 core AMD Interlogos Opteron 6272 server CPUs. Less watts than the S.B.-E CPU, and 16 cores. Now, even if Intel's cores were worth 2 of the AMD cores, you're still coming out 4 cores ahead with the AMD, and using less juice. Not only that...you could add another 16 core CPU any time you wanted, and not have to make another rig. Also, (supposedly) they are going to have a 20 core CPU for that socket within months. The mobo is not that much more than the one you're looking at for the S.B.-E, and this CPU is actually cheaper...and you could run 2 hog GPUs off that ASUS G34 mobo - the 8x slot on the bottom has an open end, so a 16x GPU will fit just fine.

Fourth option - if there is $ for it - an Intel XEON setup. You will pay dearly for it, of course, but it would beat the AMD system above. However, bang for the buck it is not. Simply for max power in one box...but I'd not be recommending it unless there was a somewhat endless supply of green stuff around!