CPU & motherboard

[tunetyme]

Trying to sort through what to buy. I want a AMD cpu (fed up with Intel's poor service). The applications is primarily music and now getting into video. I want to be able to use this like a server (wireless) but not a dedicated server. Plan on dual operating system with XP Pro 32. No gaming but I do a lot of business computing. Would like to recomendations on a budget level CPU & MB as well as mid and high end recommendations. I plan on both video and sound daughter boards. I had serious problems with Intel's integrated sound system. I welcome other component recommendations as well.

Thanks!
Tunetyme

 

[yomamafor1]

Given your specifications, I would highly recommend AMD's Phenom II CPUs for both high end and mid end. Thanks to the competition, they're really not that expensive to come by.

For high end:
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 940 BE = 229.99
MB: ASUS M4A79 Deluxe = 199.99
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Total: 429.98

For mid end
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 920 = 189.99
MB: Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H = 138.99
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Total: 328.99

For budget:
CPU: AMD Phenom X4 9850 = 149.99
MB: Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-DS4H = 138.99
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Total: 288.99

Of course, you can always downgrade your CPU another notch or so by going with Phenom X4 9750, or even Phenom X3s. The reason why I tried to stick with quad core as much as possible is because you're likely to do some rendering or decoding, which is something quad core CPUs excels at. You'll see significant performance gains by having the two extra cores in applications you're going to run.

Good luck with the build.