What new CPUs are those?
Shawn - thanks, yes i do 3drendering and media post production, which is why i was leaning toward a dually. I have the first gen Tyan K7 thunder dual AMD with 1.2 (non-MP - before they locked them out) and i use that for post right now. They have a BIOS upgrade for it now that will let me put 2.8s in, but it can only handle PC2100 ram, and has to be registered. I only have 512 MB in it now, and getting a gig and a half seems to be a bit cost-prohibitive. (stupid registered ram!) That's my production machine.
Anyway, I'm gonna go ahead with that upgrade regardless to make that machine "all that it can be". I've got a nice array in it, and i think it still has a little life left in it.
My main usage machine is the original Asus A7V with a gig of PC100 SDRAM, and a Gigahertz proc. So that machine is maxed out. It can't be much more than it is right now. I haven't really built a new machine in a while, and want to move up to the "now", so to speak.
About the BOX, i wasn't looking at cheaping out, i just liked the small footprint of it, but if it runs hot, then i'm not so sure. It's a lot nicer than having the traditional bulky tower.
tg88, you said it runs a little hot - if you push the proc to the max for a while - a few to several hours (as you would with a 3drender) - you think it would lock up? Is the chipset very good?
cysus - what's intel coming out with? and how are AMDs stacking up to Intels these days? I know that hyperthreading makes Intels show up as multiprocessors, how do they compare to the latest from AMD? Sorry, but like i said - i've kinda been outta the loop for a bit...
oh, and thanks for all the replies - i'll check all those links out...