For a newbie like me it is very frustrating reading contradictory advice all over the web about how to set up an effective editing computer: "Only use Intel//AMD kicks Intel's butt" "You have to use RAID 0//RAID is overkill" "Get the fastest RAM you can afford//value RAM is just as good", etc, etc.

It would be really great if a knowledgable Premiere Pro user created a benchmark consisting of a small video clip that is used over and over in a Premiere Pro project with lots of different transitions and effects applied (and make the clip and project file publicly available). Then maybe we could see some meaningful discussion of how different system components effect rendering time and whatnot, or how video cards effect smooth playback of previews, etc. I think it would be more useful than synthetic benchmarks.

Has something like this already been done?

Hello Mike Laven

I have been editing on Premiere for two years now. What would you like to know I might be able to help.

Looks like someone had already done something like this after all:
" This Premiere Pro Benchmark (PPBM+) is designed to be a highly portable, easily reportable, hardware evaluation tool. It will allow you to optimize your Premiere Pro hardware configuration and give you solid data for upgrading or for selecting a new cost effective configuration."
http://mysite.verizon.net/wgehrke/ppbm/