Thanks to both of you. I'll think about it a while longer, probably after I get the HD tuner card, which is my first priority. At the moment, I'm looking at the DVICO FusionHDTV 3. From what I've read on forums, it's one of the front-runners, and does software decoding and native MPEG2 encoding. They also have some nice downloadable demos, including the actual playback program and some sample files, mostly so you can see if your system will be able to keep up. They looked gorgeous!!

As for the rest, I think I'll probably go with another 250GB drive like Mark suggested. I hadn't thought about that aspect, and it makes sense, especially since that is the only type of large task that I'll be using my machine for. Will I at least notice an improvement with the 250GB SATA drive over my current OS drive?

Also, woudl it make more sense to move all my SATA drives to a controller card, to make room for more expansion, or make use of the motherboard ports? Does anyone know of a good, not-too-expensive SATA controller card?

Archeon, thanks for the replies. My mobo supports the high end stuff (PC3200 and Barton AMDs), but I haven't been sure of the price vs increased performance benefits. I recently asked about upgrading the processor, but was told I wouldn't see much of an improvement. At this point, I'm not so sure myself.

I guess I'll take this one component at a time. If I feel like upgrading and want to sell my old stuff, there's always ebay

Thanks, guys.