Originally Posted by rich219content

lets seperate fact and fiction

the answer depends a lot on what your goal and budget is, the codecs your using, what software your using.

there are a few programs that support multi-cpu, a few, not most.
99% of what your using was not built for 64bit cpu.
HT and Dual Core might not make you any faster.

in some instances amd outperforms intel, in others it does not.

what does matter from my observations:

lots of L2 cache - compare similar machines in the 3ghz range, those with 1mb-2mb L2 can save 5-10% on various apps vs 256-512kb L2.

fast memory = better than more memory. 512mb of 1066mhz rambus is faster than 2gb of ddr/ddr2.

sata hard drives are faster than eide. 8-16mb buffer. personally hot swap racks are the method of choice. i have bays in 5 encode machines and 5 250gb sata's i can move between each and also a internal 250gb installed in each machine, in addition to a small c drive.

video card does not need to meet up to "gaming" standards, unless you have some video your filming that is higher than 29.97fps?? now.. with that being said... dont skimp the budget here either, a 64mb card wont do. a 256 can be had reasonably.

you could just ship your mini-dv's over here =]