As I said, If it works for what you want it to do...

I guess I play on a higher cloud then most here...

My biggest graphic file to date that I have created is over 1 gig. My system opens this file in photoshop in less then 10 seconds. Once it's open I can move around in Photoshop with out issues...NO JERKING from puck...

Photoshop also needs a video card that supports open GL.
Check your pref. to see if it's checked, makes a big difference and opens some new doors just as using a stylus in Photoshop. Let the water flow...

I guess I have the need for Speed and Power!

32 gigs of ram with Solid State drives and on and on. I love it...

Not putting you down for your views mind you!

Kudos,

Have a great day...

DesignPro,
I don't think anyone starts out driving a Ferrari or a Porsche for their first car either, so let's get reasonable. And not everyone needs $40,000 cameras with $50,000 in glass or $10,000 computer systems. Let's be more down to earth here. Yes, what you have for a system and photo equipment is nice and in your case may even be required since you're diong this as a busuness and it's your livelyhood. Kudos to you. But your suggestions are like dangling the best champaign in front of someone with a beer budget. We don't all have 164 Meg RAW photo files to process. For graphics and photography applications the standard for computers for years has been MAC. They're resistant to outside attack by viruses, and most graphics programs were originally designed on them. They are about twice the initial cost of a PC though. The MAC OS is more stable than any PC running Windows, and they run well right out of the box. Seems Microsoft releases their OS systems with all kinds of bugs and then expects them to be fixed with patches and updates that drive me nuts. (personal opinion, I never liked Bill Gates since I met him at Stanford).
That said, i5 or i7 CPU is definately the way to go but for desktop applications, power consumption is not a consideration so the newer quad core AMD CPU's will do fine and they cost half the price of Intel. A minimum of 4Gig Ram (preferably 8Gig or more) and an Nvidea controller and video card with it's own 1 Gig of VRAM (preferably 2 Gig) will work fine for your video card, and definately Windows7 Pro 64. The Intel video chips that come on cheap motherboards, do not do a good job for photo programs as they steal your RAM for video instead of a dedicated memory and VRAM is faster for processing video data. You will need DVI, HDMI and a video output to accomodate your output options for a display. You also need a display monitor and a printer. Asus makes some fine motherboards that you can grow with and accomodate up to 32 Gig of RAM or more when you get the need for more (the new motherboards will accomodate up to 132 Gig of RAM). Remember, to reduce wear and tear on your hard drive, it's cheap insurance to load up on RAM memory. It's the temperary storage location for all your work. And don't forget about a backup hard drive. Solid state drives are nice for program execution, since their fast and have no moving parts, but not necessary and still expensive.
Depending on what you intend to do, I suggest you pick a Post-processing program that suits your needs. Most will cost you from $50 to $200. There are some good freeware programs out there for beginners with applications that rival the Photoshop and CS programs though to get your feet wet, so to speak. They may not have all the whistles and bells, but they get the job done for a beginner. Picassa is an example.