Mac vs PC - same price hardware

I've seen plenty of discussions comparing similarly spec'd pc's and mac's, but i'd like to know how the two compare with similar prices.

I've been shopping for a new desktop (my machine is 8 years old btw), and the only thing i've seen are the new imac's, and i'm impressed. But if i'm going to spend $1500+ on an imac, it got me thinking what can i get in the pc world for that price.

for 1500, i can get an i7 processor, x58 mb, 6gb of triple channel ram, a top 5 video card, and I would have a choice between running XP or vista (probably go with xp).

So how would a pc with the above compare to an imac?

I do my gaming on my consoles, so that really isn't an issue. I want to use it mostly for audio/video...nothing professional. I just want a machine that will render relatively quick, or allow for smooth audio recording (probably up to 2 tracks at once), and edit up to 8 at a time.