Originally posted by Grantref
This should not be your biggest concern. Why should it bother you if you get a processor that is phased out in a month or two, as long as the processor you get is a good value for the price and meets your needs?
That's a valid point. From my perspective though if I have some kind of heads up that a new processor will be introduced then the older ones will come down in price (I'm assuming). It seems they are cranking out new processors all the time, the E6550, the E6600, the E6750, now I think E6850, err, now a 4-cored processor is out there. These are Intel though.

Personally for me I will be spending 1000 to 1200 on a computer for gaming and to hopefully last me the next 3 to 4 years. I need to decide between building my own (feels risky) and buying a Dell. Buying oem gets me the blanket warranty which I like. However, dealing with individual component manufacturer's and possibly having to troubleshoot my own system in the event of problems isn't a plus. The current system I have selected is 1200 ($) for an E6550 with just 2 GB of 800MHz ram (can move up to 4). The card is an 8600 GT, but I don't know who it is made by... I think that processor is good but it might be an older one. However I get a 4 year warranty and a big software pack that includes Excel and Word (needed). Oh and 3 years McAfee virus. I know the importance of video cards too, but there is like 50 different manufacturer's with very different pricing.

Buying OEM is easy, building seems risky to me.