New computer build time? Or hold off?

[Lissa]

Actually, right now there's very little performance gain going on. The big differences is the amount of power that CPUs are drawing now. Performancewise, an i5-45/6xx is only about 5% to 6% better than an i5-24/5xx series processor (3 generations in difference, but nearly the same performance, the difference is the 24/5xx is using 25% to 33% more power than the 45/6xx). If power draw isn't an issue, then stick with the old equipment for as long as possible on CPUs/MBs/Memory. The only things where you will see real performance increases right now is in GPUs and SSDs. So, spend your money on getting better GPUs and SSDs first.