Dont mind Harm. Its generally known he is biased against dual xeon systems.And guess which system he does have  ......

Depending on what codec footage you edit and the kind of work you do, a  powerful GPU and  multicore CPUs power can come in handy. And if you can afford it, much the better. Bang for buck isnt always a wise guideline for purchasing equipment. How it fits your needs is sometimes more important. But if you a just doing weddings or anything but Red / Epic stuff, he may have a point 

Most people that I know that are working professionally on a wide range of formats, are involved in motion graphics  and make longer form projects will benefit from a more powerful system. Hobbyists maybe not so much.

I certainly agree about big box stores, that why I went to ADK and Puget eventually!

Some issues that somewhat negate your stance are ....most editors / facilities I know dont overclock (which is a moot point with E5).....current PPBM benchmarks do not  reflect a work flow with Red / Epic / Arri / Alexa  footage which for the "industry" are becoming a standard. They also dont take into account that lots of PrP editors do a lot of dynamic linking with AE.

So its really a matter of where you stand and what you do in this wide field known as video editing that is determinant of what you buy.

In addition to Randalls remark, there are practical considerations like:

• Download size of the test. It is impractical to include footage of RED 4K and EPIC 5K and Arri and Alexa. It would mean a huge download.
• The testing time. Consider testing times on the current test roughly varying between 131 seconds to more than 4000 seconds. If the new test we are working on, which includes Canon XF 422 and RED 4K material, increases by a factor 10, the testing time for lesser machines would become prohibitive. You can't expect people to run a benchmark test if it means 11 hours or even more to run it.

We have to compromise.

I can appreciate the constraints Harm and Bill have to deal with, with the large professional formats. But as Premiere gets more refined, its attracting the kind of crowd that uses them. If its not practical to run benchmarks, then we will have to acknowledge that the PPBM is not the final word in which systems to purchase since it cant reflect all the new work conditions that facilities and higher end freelancers have to deal with.

The questions is, do you for see editing large files like Red / Prores 4444 / Epic or a like. If so, you might need the power of the dual Xeon Sandy Bridge EP system. If not, the single SB should do it. Hey, if you are buying from ADK, Eric should be your spirital advisor on such matters. He is a very smart and friendly guy.

Sorry, until I switch Im a Mac guy switching to a Sandy Bridge Dual Xeon systems for reasons discussed above. It would be wise to call Eric who has much more intelligent things to say about it than I do.

http://malware.cbronline.com/news/apple-10-years-behind-microsoft-on-s ecurity-kaspersky-250412

Interesting theory gents, but in 4 years of Mac use I never had a problem. Eight years on a PC was fraught with issues. Some due to the protection software fighting the edit software. Id be willing to wager that if 1 million Mac users were interviewed you would have about 1% complain about virus/malware problems. Compare that to a projected 95% of PC users and I think I make a point on most folks experience with this stuff. Iknow its an Achilles heel of sensitivity, but it exists and its a constant PITA and issue. We can bicker about this till the cows come in, that doesnt change the nature of the beast. 

From my perspective it works better on PC, going by the number of posts from MAC users. There may be other factors here, general lack of expertise of MAC users who don't know much about computers and expect everything to work after plugging into the wall outlet, having to get acquainted with using native formats instead of intermediate formats in either ProRes or QT, learning a new workflow, missing effects and transitions that are not available on MAC that are available on PC, and MAC's being slower and much more costly than equally equipped PC's, etc.

Not to get into a fighting war MAC - PC, it is your choice to go for one platform or the other. Some crave the MAC environment, others the Windows environment.  So be it.