I'd pick an AMD CPU but as you are an Israeli you probably will chose the Intel CPU anyway since Israelis are co-developing it.

Anyways, 450W is enuff.

I was gonna go for the Athlon against the i3 540 until it struck me...

"holy crap, there are Sandy Bridge CPU's now!"

This i3 is simply better than the Athlon 645 - and better than the Phenom 955 that was my second option. And if it ever proves to not be enough (doubtful!), I can easily get an i5 to succeed it. The next gen Ivy Bridge is also reported to be compatible with LGA 1155, so I only win with Intel here. Plus, the mobo is far better and only $20 more expensive. Being Israeli has pretty much nothing to do with it... since I went for an Athlon 64x2 back when I had to choose between it and the Core 2 Duo. It was simply an awesome CPU.

Bring on Bulldozer, AMD ;)

Bulldozer will kick Intel's ass! (I hope lol) IMA get one this Autumn.

I'm too much of a fanboy tbh :P But yea, I was thinking of using it for the OS and getting a 2TB for HDD for storage. It won't cost you too much money... around an extra $120 USD for a 50-60GB SSD.. then adding another $100 USB for a 2TB HDD and it's essentially future proof. Again I think like a gamer, so even when I'm asked to get a casual PC, I usually think about future gaming potential xD

But yea, it would be nice to also tell us your budget. Will you also be buying monitor / speaker / mouse / keyboard etc.

My system is more powerful than that and it's on a 500w PSU (955be+5850)

You should do fine even with a good quality 400w, that system propably won't even peak at 300w (do note that capacitators age so having a little more will increase the lifespan)

I'd suggest reading sum reviews and opinions about PSUs, some are really unreliable and some are electricity hogs. +80 certified ones are more efficient with less electricity used.

Problem with Socket 1155 however is that you will never see anything more than a quad core on the platform and only slight clockspeed increases (And improved IPC) with Ivy Bridge.
Socket 1356 and Socket 2011 will be the Intel sockets that will see 6 and 8 core processors, socket 1155 is the low-end/mid-range socket for the bridge family.
So if you're hoping to be able to drop a spanking new 8 core processor in a few years, it simply won't happen.

If you wan't something that is going to last a long time then I suggest taking a look at an AMD 990FX based AM3+ motherboard which supports all current AM3 chips today and 4/6/8 core AM3+ chips on Zambezi's (Server chip is called Bulldozer, desktop is Zambezi) release in a couple of months, And support AMD's Komodo 10-core CPU's next year.

Decision is up to you, but by the sounds if it you wanted to go Sandy Bridge as you expected decent platform longevity, which simply isn't going to be the case.

It's going to be my folks' PC, start to finish. There's no need for anything more than a quad-core, and even that I'm not getting ATM... it covers the future well enough I think. Myself, I hope to build a gaming machine for myself next year based on Sandybridge-e or Bulldozer. Whichever turns out better. Even so, I don't think there's much need for anything more than a quad for a gamer - most games are not optimized to exploit them to their full potential.

@mibu: Given the inflated prices in my country, giving you a budget wouldn't really help much. I can only see myself saving money on the PSU right now.

@Vashyo: Good pointers. I'll take a look!

Fair enough, disregard the HDD/SSD suggestion if you have no intention of ever using the comp :)