Processor, CPU selection for SolidWorks

Selecting a processor for SolidWorks will depend on your use of SolidWorks!
Core SolidWorks is a single threaded application. This means that SolidWorks wont take advantage of multiple processor cores. In theory this means a single core 3.0 GHZ processor would outperform a dual core 2.8 GHZ Processor. Since single cores are not available anymore and we hardly ever run one application at a time a dualcore makes more sense. If you are working in a drawing, SolidWorks is no longer single threaded. If you work with photoview 360 SolidWorks would take advantage of a quadcore even a dual processor quadcore, some parts of SolidWorks Simulation will also take advantage of multiple cores and processors. To summarize all the above if you are running SolidWorks and only model and create drawings, you are better served by a high clock speed dualcore than a lower clock speed quadcore.
In essence Core SolidWorks wants clock speed.
I highly recommend Windows 7 64bit and 8GB of Ram if you work in larger assemblies.
Stay away from XP 64 Bit. Also I would use a quadro FX 580 minimum recommended  FX 1800.
At last dont forget the HDD get a 7200 RPM better yet a 10000RPM HDD.
Please see the graph below for some info on some benchmarks.
The higher the number the longer it took the computer to rebuild the model.