On Sun, 19 Nov 2006 10:24:48 -0600, "Jim Macklin"
wrote:

You may want to look into one of the new computers with a
dual core CPU, PCIe video and plenty of power and cooling.

the good thing of those core 2 duo machines is that they didn't use this
much power anymore (350W PSU are OK, depending on graphics and other
accessories) and don't produce that much heat than the prescott modells
did. And they also produce less noise, too.

my suggestion:
- motherboard with either raid on board or a extra raid controller
(fasttrack has cheap and good ones)
- 2 S-ATA harddrives with raid 1 mirroring. If you lose one drive you can
still work (fly) and can get yourself a new drive, so you save yourself
setting up the machine again. samsung!
- intel core 2 duo cpu
- min. 1 gig ram, the faster the better (ddr2 667mhz, samsung ... *yammi*)
- graphic card with DVI out (you'll buy new monitors later and will have
DVI-IN), ~256mb ram.
- optical drive (samsung)
- floppy (yes, you'll need one for the raid controller, external usb will
not be recognised by windows during install)

IMHO, RAID will save you a lot of time and hassle, because you'll lose one
drive the monemt you will like it the least (according to Murphy's law).

#m
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