Thanks for the replies.
I am using a Presonus Firepod, Cubase, Reason 3.0, Guitar Rig 2, and a bunch of VST plugs. I ran all of this on an old AMD 3000+, MSI k8t neo-fsr, 1.5 GB RAM, machine that I built a while ago. It worked really well until about two weeks ago when that computer died.... I was recording 24bit, 96kHz with about 3ms latency. And was able to run about 15 tracks w/ plug-ins on most tracks before things would get bogged down.
So I guess what I want out of this machine is more power (more tracks with Plug-ins running).... but most of all, lower latencies. 3ms isn't bad (I could still hear the delay, but it wasn't bad enough REALLY to bother me. Especially If I put a little verb on the track)... but If I could record at even lower latencies then that would be ideal. Unfortunately, I don't know which part of the computer effects latency the most... any ideas?
The problem with all of this is that there seems to be conflicting information about which parts are the best to use (for audio recording). For instance, Scott from ADK audio (who is pretty respected in the custom DAW scene) says use the P35 or X38 intel chipset MOBO, but not ASUS or ABIT (I have no idea why). But if you go to the Sweetwater.com "creation station" they clearly use ASUS MOBO's!!!! This same "conflicting information" trend becomes even worse when you start looking at Laptops. UGH!
One final thing.... I was reading some Mobo reviews on Newegg (I know, I know) and found one where a guy with a Foxconn Mobo couldn't get Windows XP to install because he only had SP1 on disk. Well, that's what I have on disk, SP1 (obviously I would install SP2 right away but that is on a different disk and I will need SP1 to be running before I install)..... Is that going to be a problem? I don't want to have to buy another copy of XP....
Edit:
Oh yeah, I already have a PCI Firewire card that I"m planning on using.... just in case anyone realized that the MOBO I am looking at doesn't have Firewire onboard.
