i would also suggest the sandy bridge
an i5 in that performs extremely well, makes the extra money for the i7 seem a silly waste for such little gain
plus they over clock obscenely. have a friend at 4.5 ghz
some reviews of the i5 2500 and the more expensive 980x and such
for gaming. the extra 2 cores do not add much to the table yet
i've only have a small handfull of games that actually like 3 or more cores
AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Processor Review AnandTech - AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Review
considering the 970 is almost 600.00 while even a i5 2500K is just over 200.00.
at this time. 6 core is overkill and won't give you any huge benefits. not for what you described what you want your computer to be used for. the folding at home can run on the gtx 570 and do 10 times the amount the cpu could every hope to achieve...if not more
plus the i7 motherboard is about 100.00 more as well.
also just wondering why those design of cases ?
looks rather compact and small. i still have to read up on them and see
just from the images i quickly looked at