Greetings to all:

I am in the process of getting ready to order components for a new machine
and wanted to get some feedback on my plans. This will be the first PC that
I have built and am looking forward to gaining the experience.

Firstly, I am looking to put together something that is fast and stable. I
currently have an HP machine running a 700 Mhz celeron processor, with an
intel 810 chipset and 512 Meg of ram. It's not meeting my needs speed wise,
and when I experimented with Linux it worked poorly. I've been told by
several, that my motherboard is one of the worst for Linux.

My current and ongoing need is doing sound restoration using Dcart.  I also
want to experiment with Linux, electronic design programs, ham radio digital
modes, and will be using my new machine to serve three other machines in the
house through a Linksys hub that I now use.

As of now, I have a 19" rack mount case with fans and filter and plenty of
room. I have a new TDK 40/12/48 cd drive, a WD 40 G drive, and on order a
550W atx power supply.

The motherboard that I am leaning toward is the Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra,
with an Athalon XP2000 processor and 512 Meg of DDR.

Does anyone have any comments to or suggestions on my plans so far?

I notice that the prices on the XP line of processors goes up exponentially
as you go up the line, while the processor speed does not. Are there other
characteristics of the faster processors that make them worth the additional
cost?

Thanks for any help,

Jeff Madore - CT ><>

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