I'd say wait 4 - 6 months to see what the new CPU, memory and motherboard developments settle down at, for reasonable costs check "Toms Hardware" site
Also there are the new PCI x and x16 modes to consider and .. SATA II drives @300 ATA as well as 'HD' TV modes, and the associated, new DVD - whatever that is I'd suggest 2Gb, or 3Gb memory, because XP seems happy to use 1Gb for a mix of applications, and 1.5GB up when converting video Is it worth moving your current drives to the new system - are they SATA II SATA II drives at 300 are not that much dearer than SATA I at 150, or P-ATA @ 130, yes it's additional expense, but my last major system build was 5 years ago 80GB drives were ridiculous prices, and the old system had 66ATA 2, 3, and 10GB drives That 2000 build system sports 7200rpm 8Mb cache, 250Gb drives at 100/133, with the 10Gb drives used a caddy'd booting OS backup,s ( you could consider a separate system for TV and video handling so you can get on with your own work on a system that response in seconds or less) Will you need a display for the system, or would a 32" widescreen TV do better. Re the power supply, Check how much power is needed for whatever CPU you chose allow at least 5 Watts per Gb for the memory allow at least 20 watts per hard drive Twin TV or 2 twins, depending on how many channels you want to handle and will the TV boards do encoding in hardware for recoding to disk ( separate hard drive connection path per video stream) Check limits on each power line/voltage are sufficient to cover the expected load also how many power leads are there on the supply - if you have to buy splitters or additional leads that's extra cost Don't just consider CPU speed, it's throughput you need to consider, Save £/$ 50 on the CPU, and spend it on a posh board with better IO/memory/drive handling facilities Save £/$ 100 on the CPU, and spend it on a posh board with better IO/memory/drive handling facilities, and more memory I've got a 1Ghz CPU system with 3 drives and CD/DVD, each on a separate IDE cable that, in data transfer processes outperforms the 2.4Ghz system I recently bought - 2 drives and a CD DVD but only 2 IDE cables JimB ----- Original Message ----- From: "McPeak, Harry D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> -- ---------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Is your picture included in the Official Win-Home List Members Profiles Page? http://www.besteffort.com/winhome/Profiles.html If not, write to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
