The Core i7 is a very nice chip indeed. Its by far the best there is right now.
I say that, even though I just dumped a few grand into AMD stock.

I stick by what I say earlier. CPU's are generally not a bottleneck for gaming. If you are into CPU intensive apps such as encoding/decoding/simultaion then I say go with a strong CPU.
You will pay a premium for early adoption. The benefits in my opinion aren't worth the cost. At most it will be 5-7 more FPS in crysis. I am not the type to pay $200+ for that small of a gain. In fact the computer I build when I get back from Iraq will consist of a good ole Q6600, but with 8gb of ram, and 2x 4870's.