Hi folks,

New here, and am looking for good info on a new home-built in
the next couple of months. First, what other PC oriented NGs
should I subscribe to (if they're on my server)? I'm already
on alt.music.home-studio and alt.music.home-recording.

I'm a bit out of touch with all the latest myriad of processor
sockets, as my last build is the 1Ghz Athlon with Abit KT7A-RAID
MB I'm on now. I've always used AMD processors in the past and
been pleased with them. Are they still as viable an alternative
as they were a few years ago? Still cheaper dollar per
performance? Any substantial reason to switch to Intell?
Abit still pretty rock solid? Or are their other/newer
alternative MBs I should be checking out? Recommended DVD/CD RW
that 'does it all' with good reputation and solid performance
at a decent price?

I still like my old huge Antec case that has lots of internal
and external drive slots; 4 fans; and maybe even an adequate
(350W?) power supply; so I may want to keep it to build in.

The 'new' machine will do dual duty as a home recording studio
DAW, and my general purpose business and gaming machine. So...
I've already figured, as usual, that MB and processor upgrades
will require purchase of new RAM. Also new Hard Drives and a
DVD/CD RW is needed. I'd like to have the option of SATA w/RAID
on the MB, and probably dual controllers and connectors on the
MB; so I can at least have a couple of my old HDD for OS and
swap file, and then a couple of new drives in a mirror set
for data. I don't care so much that my OS and applications
aren't backed up, because at worst case they can be reinstalled,
but I don't want to lose my hard earned photo and music data.
However, having those on a mirror set might be nice too, except
I prefer to keep my swap file off of the OS drive for faster
virtual memory access. Also, having data written to a mirror set
concerns me about slow writing times causing dropouts with
the high demand of sound recording multiple tracks.

Also, anyone experience in multi-track sound cards like Delta /
M-Audio etc... would help. Since I only record a few tracks
(1-4) simultainously, I shouldn't have to go very high scale
on the soundcard, but it would be nice if it did double duty
for gaming sound too. ASIO drivers and the ability to use
sound fonts would be nice too, if they aren't mutually exclusive.

And of course price is always a consideration, I don't need
nor want to pay for 'bleeding edge' stuff. Just a jump up to
a step or two down from the high cost of the latest-greatest
is my normal policy.

Any helpful thoughts on *any* of the above topics, to give me
guidance towards a good setup would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks and regards,

John King