"TR's Windows 7 system guide: Recommendations for building the right enthusiast's PCs Gives some configurations and suggestions
A Slashdot thread: Windows 7 On Multicore — How Much Faster? to slide over; could be informative if you can handle some distraction. Lighter reading at InfoWorld: How Intel Nehalem processors and Windows 7 work together"
Windows 7 includes parallel processing enhancements that utilizes multi-core CPU's. Thus, you will gain solid performance improvements going from a Dual Core to a Quad core to a Core i7/i5 CPU.
