PaulD
just an idea to consider.
for 200 buks you can find nice refurbed dual core desktop pc's around eg amd 64
with warranty. add a dedicated drive to record to for 70 buks..
7200 rpm 32 mb cache. and for 270 buks youll have a pretty decent system.
not an i7 of course. but i have such a system and have done tons of songs on it.
good for 70 traks or so if one doesnt go bonkers with plug ins.
just make sure you try out your music software and your sound device
on it prior to purchase.
if your not the kind of user that wants to run 200 traks n plug ins..
thus requiring an i7..lol...this type of cheap solution you can do a lot with.
and is a nice stop gap solution till new powerfull quad and possibly octo core systems hit the market at cheap prices. which is what i'm waiting for.

another possibility is there are quad core bundles on newegg for example.
quad processor plus mainboard for 260 buks or so.
eg amd 620 quad. some people are rolling their own systems with these.

retired puter engr....powertracks on amd......NICE !
"what is the black art of audio engineering ?"
my silly songs...motagator.com/bmanning
see my tips in the tips section.