Athalon......mmmmmm good choice.Go to digidesign.com user forum(Pro tools le for windows/digi 001 or something)That's almost all they talk about.Very good info however. :w:

Another source for such talk is the RME newsgroup at http://www.rme-audio.de
Ted

Yet another source for info is the DAWworld section of this very website, which should keep you reading about motherboards and processors into the wee hours. Try arstechnica.com and tomshardware.com for non-audio specific resources, too.

Depends on what software you are going with. For PTLE the AMD761 chipsets are unbeatable right now. Specifically the A7M266 and GA7DX motherboards. I recommend using a Promise ATA100 TX2 controller card with either of these boards, or getting the GA7DXR that has it built onboard. The first two will give you better ability to configure your IRQ settings which becomes important when you start adding PC cards.

How much better are these over the P3, P4 and Mac?

On a standard stress test now known as the DAVEC PT Performance test, the AMD761 chipsets with an XP1800+ or higher processor will give you over 40 Tracks with 5 plugins per track and over 200 plugins. That is double the performance of the P3, P4, and Mac G4s at this time and the most stable system we have seen yet with WinME. WinXP support is in beta testing now and due out Mar-May of this year.

How stable are they?

I know of 4 systems using the A7M266 motherboard with WinME that have gone over 6 months without a freeze, error, or crash. Now that is hard to believe with Windows. Stay away from Win98SE and these new Athlon boards. Believe me I provide alot of tech. support and Win98SE just plain sucks for driver support on these new boards.

For more info see the thread "Best Performing System for Under 900.00" in the http://www.digidesign.com Digi001 for Windows forum.

The AMD761 is also one of the most popular chipsets being used with Nuendo now and many have gone to the dual processor A7M266-D motherboard.

Have fun.
Allen :w: