Quick question and hopefully quick answer:

Rig i5 sandybridge quad core processor
8GB DDR3 Ram
Plenty of HD space

Click on CK and about two seconds later the steam splash disappears and the CK interface arrives, then the blue circle of boredom whirls around and around and around, boring boring boring. Five or sometimes more minutes later the CK interface became useable. Sometimes I have to close it down and restart to get it to run. Any ideas?

Same issue. I ended up moving the entire Skyrim install to my non-boot volume so if the 1.5 minutes of thrashing at launch, every launch, toast the drive at least it won't wreck all the other apps. or OS. It was suggested to me to add to the INI file:

[General]
bSkipValidateForms=1

From what I understand this was to be made default so it may not be required anymore. It didn't fix it for me; hope you have better luck.

So...the interface freezes for five minutes before you even load the data files? That's strange.

30-secs maybe ... 5 minutes, no.

I would say including loading data files, and all the references anolysis etc ... is maybe 2 minutes at the absolute outside. And I have no where near the rig you have (Core II and 4GB Ram on Win7)

I kick it off, wait a short while, load the data files ... go put the coffee on, wander back to the PC, click "Yes to All", go pour my coffee, it's ready when I'm back.