Intel I7-960, or wait? (want 3-4 year future-proof gaming CPU)

Get the i7 860 or i7 920, they both perform similarly, and can easily be overclocked beyond the performance level of the 960. The 920 offers triple channel ram and more PCI-E slots allowing for three graphics cards, the 860 offers only 2 16x PCI-E slots which will be reduced to 8x/8x for 2 card SLI or crossfire. The LGA 1156 motherboards that the 860 uses tend to be signficantly cheap. An i7 performs well enough that it will not prove to be a significant bottleneck in any game right now.

The GPUs tend to be the slowest part of gaming performance, if you want something that will be future proof consider the new 5850 or 5870, get a 750 watt PSU so you can add a second one in down the line.

Thanks everyone..my GPU/gaming demands at the moment are pretty low so I do not need to spend much on a video card. I want to play Dragon Age, Oblivion, the next Oblivion (if/when it comes out), Diablo 3, Starcraft 2, etc...nothing like Crysis...

In a few years however my GPU demands will def. increase especially with games like Doom 4. When this time comes I plan to upgrade to a better video card.

The reason I am looking to spend more $$$ on CPU versus GPU is that I am not very comfortable with overclocking and I'd consider upgrading a CPU if I have to but I would rather not. Therefore I am fine with a GPU that only lasts ~2 years but I'd like my CPU to be battle-ready much longer.

About the price..I have no quote how much it would cost standalone as its a new product. however its somewhat expensive (cyberpowerpc will add $290 to your price if you upgrade from the 920 to the 960.

I think you nailed that analysis.
Even a non-OC'd i7 920 will be a strong performer over the next four years.
And that's plenty of time to learn the easy steps to tweak the clock speeds gently. Speed for free.....if you want it.

Yeah you can choose your motherboard, PSU, everything...its a lot like building your own PC only without getting your hands dirty. I'd actually rather do it myself as I hear they have terrible terrible customer service but their prices are just too good probably because they get their parts wholesale. That and I want a copy of Windows 7 and if I buy that myself that would already be 1/4-1/5 of budget

thanks for the advice

No point in getting an i7 960. Get an i7 920 or Phenom II 955 and upgrade them in the next two years. Or better yet, upgrade the graphics card in the next two years.

That's exactly right in my opinion.

I would rather get i7-860 than i7-920 though. They cost about the same but 860 has a higher base clock and a more aggressive turbo boost. Loosing a memory channel won't hurt you in games. http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/15967/7 Faster CPU will have more impact on performance.

As for crosfire/SLI performance (16x/16x vs 8x/8x):
It won't be a game changer if you are using two single GPU cards. If you are using two dual GPU cards it still probably won't make too much of a difference but 16x/16x will enjoy a small bandwidth benefit. I expect Radeon HD5870x2 boards will be the first boards where 16x crossfire is going to make a difference at highest resolutions and high AA settings. If you are willing to spend the money on a 4 GPU machine then the added cost of 16x/16x probably won't matter anyway and that's what you should get. But with "only" 2 GPUs you won't get burned with a 8x/8x set up.

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/core [...] 72-12.html
From conclusion: "Core i7 for LGA 1366 does have an advantage in its QPI link to the X58 chipset, which offers high-end graphics cards full x16 PCI Express links. However, current-generation GPUs still deliver compelling performance over the x8 links enabled through P55, P45, and 790GX running in CrossFire mode."

Note though that the comparison is between i7-920 and i5-750, not i7-860. Also note that the "current generation" GPUs in that article are HD4800 series and GT200. Like I said earlier HD5870x2 probably has the power to benefit from larger bandwidth. But single GPU versions won't be crippled.

Here's another test: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/core [...] 31673.html
Note though that here i7-920 is compared to i7-870 instead of i7-860. But still it shows that 8x/8x bandwith is not going to cripple your PC.