As I said, you're likely to get as many opinions about hardware, as there are posters on this list.  Everyone has their own success and horror stories.

But to add to the confusion, minor things can affect similar rigs either adversely or beneficially.  Like, you could build two identical systems, except for the brand of ram, and find one works well and the other runs like a spastic sloth.

I think the best we can do is to tell you what works for us.  For me, AMD cpu's and Gigabyte boards have always worked well.  A reputable brand of ram is best - but the brand name will probably vary from country to country.  I use Kingmax which I buy from the same supplier who provides my motherboards, because it's warranted.  IBM, Maxtor and Western Digital drives are all good.

Cases?....well.....roomy, good ventilation, good power supply, easy to work on, not too heavy and not too expensive.

CD drives - nothing much to chose from there, but for CDRW's I won't go past LiteOn, they've always performed well for me and they're always getting good raps, in this hemisphere anyway.  I use an LG 16x DVD drive.

My current mobo is a Gigabyte 7VAXP-A-Ultra, the CPU is an AMD 2500+ (Barton core).  Ram is 512Mb DDR 400 Kingmax.  Hard drive is a 20Gb WD 7200rpm for the system, with a 40Gb Maxtor 7200 running in a USB 2.0 enclosure to hold pics, music and files. 

(I've never been able to see the point of having a big system drive - it just means more junk for Windows to keep track of - hence my drive setup.  If I'm not using the USB drive, I turn it off)

I'm currently running XP Pro, tho it's been a struggle, I gotta say, to get away from W98SE.  But I think I'll stick with it:--))

For still image manipulation you can't beat Adobe Photoshop, but it's damned expensive.  Someone else might point you at a simpler prog.

For video editing, I'm still trying to understand the in's and out's, myself.  Mark Rode is our resident expert, maybe he'll add his take on this complex subject.

One more thing - music.  You can spend big bucks on a fancy sound card and 5 or 6 channel speakers.  But I can tell you a simple, cheap way to get great noises out of your pc.  Most mobos come with onboard sound, and it's quality is pretty good.  Just get yourself a cheap or used amplifier and a couple of old but beefy speakers in large boxes. That way, you can use them to prop up a shelf over your monitor like I do.  Then all you do is take a lead from the sound-out socket on the mobo and feed it to your amplifier.  Very effective and cheap.

Oh, there's a couple of other things you'll need that you can't buy - patience and luck!

Ian Porter
Computer Guys Inc.
Arrowtown
New Zealand
[log in to unmask]

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Scot 
  Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] PCBUILD Digest - 24 Jun 2003 to 25 Jun 2003 (#2003-176)


  Thanks for the reply Ian.

  The PC will be the general use for my wife and I. I would like to store and
  listen to music and run Photoshop, Flash and other photo editing and graphic
  applications.

  I guess what I'm really asking is for  recommendations as to mother boards,
  which you did, and  processors. AMD or P4 ...Do I get the fastest available
  or get the best bang for the buck?

  Should I get  video and audio capture?  What is this for?

  If I get a Digital Video camera and want to edit movies...what should I look
  for?



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