Todd,
I personally do not believe that i7's are necessarily the way-to-go for digital audio. There are so many other factors involved that are required to make a component-based system work as it should.
For my last personal build I went to an i5 as a direct recommendation from ASUS-US themselves!
Once the system is built, drivers installation order is the next thing to consider.
Lastly, on the last five new builds that I have done using WIN7 PRO, I have used the free
DriverPack Solution to install all the drivers
with no issues whatsoever!
This download - approx. 17GB-20GB, is really worth considering!