Street Walker's machine: approaching consensus? :)
Now that I have a better sense of your needs and your experiences, Street Walker, I am tending to agree with Zeuspaul's recommendation here.
98 vs. NT
As much as I like NT, it seems clear that 98 is doing what you want, and that you know and are comfortable with 95. Esp given possible multimonitor configurations, 98 seems like the right place to start. You can always install NT later--even on the same hard drive in a dual-boot setup--with minimal problems. I agree that waiting until June 25 is a good idea.
MB/CPU/RAM choice
If you want to go Intel, I agree with Zeuspaul right down the line. (As suggested earlier, I'd give a serious look to AMD/Epox alternative if cost is a significant issue and you don't care about going Intel. With the $ you'd save, you could buy a new BX board with all PCI/AGP slots when they come out late this year.)
Other thoughts
I'm still not sure whether/why it's essential that you run all your monitors on one system. There are several advantages I can see to having a second or even third system up and running a couple of monitors-redundancy in case of crashes, alternative backup strategies, reduced load on CPU, ease of experimentation, etc. A perfectly respectable 2d system can be made for _well_ < $1K. If this interests you, we can elaborate--otherwise, I'll leave it at that.
My exchange with Sean, as well as ZP's contributions, give plenty of (not always clear) food for thought on backup solutions. You may be comfortable with the strategy you have now. If not, clarify what you need to backup and what you're familiar with, and we'll elaborate. |
