I have the Athlon XP 3200+ system you speak of (ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe, Corsair XMS) and it is fast enough for pretty much anything I want to do. IMHO, the 64 bit systems are still too new to be trusted, but let's wait an hear more educated opinions on that.

I agree with David, The XP3200+ is a smoking little processor and a lot cheaper than the 64. The 64's are still new, there is a shortage of good Nvidia chipsets (only VIA crap out there) and you can't take advantage of the 64 bit processing. The processor is capable but the OS and software available are not so you would only be running true 32 bit. I'd suggest leaving the 64's for gamers who overclock and buying the XP.

There seems to be a anti-VIA vibe around here.
I'd just like to point out that it depends on what platform the DAW will be based on. I dont know anything about other than PT LE, and there the VIA/AMD have outperformed in trackcount and stability.

Just a note: Cubase SX3 is a 64 bit app.

FWIW I'm not a big fan of VIA. They have always sort of marched to the beat of a different drummer. Without getting technical they don't really follow industry standards. That wouldn't be so bad if they worked with other hardware vendors to provide driver updates for their chipsets and tried to make their chipsets a little more compatible with other hardware. But they seem to build only for today. I've seen literally dozens of times VIA has rushed some new technology to market on engineering specs before the standard has been written. The poor consumer is left with a product that doesn't work properly and VIA is slow to produce new drivers or doesn't provide them at all. Just open any game and look at the Known Issues section. The list usually has plenty of VIA issues, way more than others. Now granted this usually affects gamers and users of other high end PC's but isn't a DAW a high end PC. I hate to bash them because they make a decent chipset and I know they are just trying to get a leg up on Intel but their support really needs to improve before I'll ever consider them.

Just a note: Cubase SX3 is a 64 bit app.

Thanks for the info David, there's alot of 64 bit apps in the pipeline. Unfortunetly until Win XP-64 is released SX3 will only run in 32 bit. It's been in beta since early spring 04 so maybe we'll see it spring 05. For anyone who likes to gamble you can get a free 1 year trial from Microsoft if your a subscriber but I wouldn't put it on your main box.

Well, I've looked a little further into this. Been reading at Tom's Hardware & checking prices on Price Watch and NewEgg. Some of the Athlon 64 CPUs and Mobos are coming in at similar prices to the Athlon XPs. Has anyone had any experience with the A64? (not FX or Opteron). If it behaves well when running 32bit instructions, with no decrease in performance vs the 32 bit Athlon then I'm starting to think this might be the way to go. It also seems that the on die controller etc should make for a faster CPU. I'd probably be looking at the NForce 3 chipset. Any more thoughts?
JTC

i'm getting ready to build it with my new Dual opteron daw. just testing it out i'm using server2003 on it and this system runs circles around my current xp3200 with a gigabyte k7Triton Mb.
i have a Tyan S2885 Mb with 4Gig on ddr400 ram
X64 post to be out febuary-march 05.. but who knows with microsoft