8 core cpu --> Waste

Reason:

By the time there's actually any commercial consumer application, game, or OS that will support it you're going to want to upgrade your entire system anyways.

I took the PC to a local shop. They're going to run a diagnostic and let me know when they find out what's wrong with it.

Nerian: Not bad. I'd probably throw in an SSD as well for essential programs and the operating system, so you can have something that boots extremely fast and loads programs even faster, then use the 2TB as a data drive, and for programs you don't need particularly quickly.
Don't expect the 8 cores to make a huge difference - AMD CPUs are not as efficient or fast as Intel's, and need more cores to compensate for their lack of punch. On the other paw, they are still good, and great bang for the buck, and do a lot better in games and similar real-life applications than the comparatively low benchmark numbers would have you believe.

Greyfield, I saw elsewhere that you got your computer back from the shop. Just curious: What was wrong with it, in the end?

I didn't bracket my motherboard properly, and something about the plugs on the GPU not being set right.

I hope they didn't charge you much to rectify it?

Well, the diagnostic was a flat $50. I ended up paying $80 altogether for that and the labor of fixing the issue.

Pretty standard basic repair fee then.