Digital Video (realistic) Dream Machine:

I've been fleshing out plans for a new machine lately. I've moved away from gaming, which used to drive my hardware purchasing. Unfortunately, I've replaced it with a pastime that's nearly as cash intensive -- video production. Video production requires speed -- raw processor speed, hard drive speed, RAM speed etc... What it does not require is 3D processing power, which as a gamer was my main focus. To wit, I've wasted a lot of money on 3Dfx and GeForce boards, but now I need to start again from scratch.

Keeping this realistic (within my buying power), requires quite a few compromises, but in the end I should have a "rip and flip" video machine that will do near realtime or better video conversions and merciless capture and video I/O features.

• 400W Black Full Tower Case -- $100 -- Tons of bays, big power supply, and cool Alienware ripoff case design make this a winner.
  
• Asus A7N8X Deluxe motherboard -- $160 -- Nforce2 based mobo from a solid company, solid specs, includes USB 2.0/Firewire/Serial ATA for room to grow
  
• Athlon XP 2000 -- $100 -- The sweet spot in the AMD processor line right now. I might bump this up a little when I actually get around to buying, but I want to keep the amount spent on a processor around $100. Besides when the 2800 XP is $100 I can always pop in a replacement.
  
• 512 MB PC-2700 RAM -- $130 -- Fast RAM and enough of it.
  
• 120 GB Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB hard drive -- $150 -- Tons of storage space, though not the fastest hard drive around. A later addition would be a pair of smaller (40 GB for another $150) drives to run in a striped configuration for video conversions.
  
• ATI All In Wonder 7500 -- $125 -- The "Swiss Army knife" of video cards. Like most AiW cards the 3D performance of this card isn't great, but the TV tuner, video in and video out features, along with the remote control and good software make this card too much of a value to pass up.
  
• Lite-On 40/12/48 CD-RW -- $65 -- Good performance, good reviews, and good price. I'd like a Plextor, but hey $35 extra is $35 extra.
  
• Creative 52X CD-ROM -- $35 -- Cheap and reliable... mmm cheap.
  
• Teac Floppy Drive -- $15 -- Eh... It's a floppy.
  
• Keyboard ? -- $20 -- A keyboard, non-ergo, non-crappy.
  
• Intellimouse Explorer 5 button optical mouse -- $35 -- I love this mouse. Something that M$ got right.
  
• Samsung 19" SyncMaster 950B monitor -- $190 -- Nice 19" monitor for a good price.
  
• Altec Lansing 251 5.1 Speakers -- $75 -- 5.1 speakers for under a $100? Yep. Klipsch sound quality? Nope. Then again Klipsch 5.1's check in at about $500.
  

Grand total -- $1200.

I can cut some bucks by not getting a monitor and the speakers to get it below $1000, but this is a dream so let's keep 'em and figure out a way to get $1200:)