i7 2600. Sandy Bridge is the newest archtecture and is considerably faster than the original i7 architecture.

HOWEVER. . .

The chipset has a problem with the south bridge chips that was big enough for Intel to recall all the Socket 1155 motherboards. The bug has to do with over-volting the SATA II ports potentially causing hard drive failure.

The corrected motherboards should be out mid-march.

For more information, see here:

http://www.infoworld.com/t/processor...e-industry-216

If I were you, I would wait until mid- to late- March to buy a Sandy Bridge (i7-2600) system.