Okay my old pc is starting to show its age with a processor not much faster than the empeg its self

What i want is reccondations for a truely fast PC that is used for ripping tracks fast and well, going online, some games, and genrally buggering about

what would also be cool is DVD capacity and i want a card so it can be used instead of a video to record telly which i could then stick on a cd rom and take with me to ship

Well, then I suppose the ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 9700pro is the vid card you want. I have it and it's incredible. I also love my new mobo, the Asus A7N8X. That's if you go AMD. Any particular choice between AMD and Intel?

Well those are my recommendations.

For high speed ripping I'd recommend a Plextor CD writer or one of their SCSI drives if you got the cash to go SCSI.
Match that with the fastest CPU you can afford as the encoding process is purely dependent on horsepower.
DiGNAN17 is correct in suggesting the ATI AIW, I have one of their older cards and the TV features are great, although I now wish I had gotten there PCI TV card and a seperate AGP video card to make upgrading easier / cheaper.

If I was building a new PC now I'd be going with one of the small Shuttle cube-like PCs, either the SK41G ($309) or the SB51G ($342) depending on your religon (AMD/Intel). Add in a CPU Athlon XP 2400 ($195) or P4 2.8Ghz ($185) (note: if you drop the Athlon speed by 300 you save almost $90).
256MB/512MB of DDR ram ($56/$128) for a bloated OS.
The ATI All-In-Wonder RADEON 9700 cost $393 but if you can slum it with the 8500DV you'll save for $230.
The on-board sound & NIC are good enough for me.
As there is only on 5.25 bay I'd be filling it with Plextors DVD/CDRW drive ($132) or in black ($140) so I can still watch movies. Add in a black floppy ($11) and the BIGGEST hard drive you can afford WD 120gb/8mb ($159) and you has a pretty powerful but small PC.

Pair it up with a wireless keyboard & mouse (bonus geek points for mounting it inside) and a good flat panel, and it will be a sleek looking PC that would not look out of place beside the TV.

but if you can slum it with the 8500DV you'll save

Good gawd, a year ago I was King of the Hill with the 8500DV, now I'm slummin' it?

Now i was thinking of going down this line as it might be a better idea than a laptop for onboard ship. The only time the laptop is portable is when flying or the occsional adventure down the pit to try and talk to something rs232 style since i know more about hyperterminal than almost anyone onboard.

You don't know if it has a 220/110v power supply

Will it fit in a big suitcase

thanks for the tips

Good gawd, a year ago I was King of the Hill with the 8500DV, now I'm slummin' it?

Don't feel bad, my main media system still has an All in Wonder Radeon (no model number).

Same here. When you pay $400 for a video card, you tend to keep it a while.

That's exactly what I had...until I got the 9700pro.

The SK41G (one of which is on the bench in front of me at the moment) is 8 inches x 7.5 inches x 11.5 inches overall, so should fit into a large suitcase. Shuttle also produce their own carry-bag for the thing, which is just the right size, has a pocket on either end that will hold the mouse and power cables, and also has a larger one on the front which is exactly the right size to take a happy hacking keyboard lite 2. This keyboard, while a bit pricey, is pretty neat, and includes a two-port usb hub, if you have the usb version of course.

The SK41G has an AGP slot and a PCI slot, runs linux very nicely, and with an Athlon XP2200+ in it is pretty damn quick. The power supply is a universal 115-230V type, and you can fit a CDROM, HD, and either a floppy or another HD. Two DIMM sockets, for at least a gigabyte of ram, and every port you could want except for video in. I can recommend one highly.

And yes, I do have one Two, in fact.

pca

Mine only has an all-in-wonder 128! I spent the money that could have gone towards a faster video card on storage. 0.65TB and rising. The biggest problem is the wooshing sound produced by seven hard drives, thee case fans, a very big processor fan, and a chipset fan. You have to turn the volume on the TV up quite a bit to drown it out

pca

as an alternative align all the fans in the same direction extend the cables and then your pc can hover above your house dramtically cutting down on noise.

My mate's machine causes the lights in his student accomodation to dim momentarily when he starts his machine up! He has a 6 drive SCSI RAID system for video editing and post production, those SCSI drives are noisey!

but if you can slum it with the 8500DV you'll save
Good gawd, a year ago I was King of the Hill with the 8500DV, now I'm slummin' it?

Just a referance to whether or not one can justify spending the big buck required for the latest video cards.
And also how quickly they go out of date!
ie the money is better spent on something like 0.65TB of storage.
I've been slumming it for the past 2 and a half years with an all-in-wonder 128pro and probably got more use out of the AIW part then the 128pro part, so it will be some time before I change it.

thinfourth2, if you do get the an AIW make sure it does support PAL and not NTSC, which might prove difficult in which case a PCI based TV tuner might be a better idea.

Yeah. If you don't play many games then you don't need the latest and greatest video card. And even if you do play some of the new ones, you don't need some massively powerful card if you're playing at lowish resolutions.

I've still got a Voodoo3 3000 in one of my desktops at home. Works great as a 2D card

- Trevor