Hi Kurt,
Here's my $.02 worth... Geek warning...
I love my digitalPersona finger print reader. I use it instead of a password. It's awesome!
If you are like me, CPU will not be your bottleneck. I have a 2.8 Ghz, hyperthreaded Intel processor and although I burst it hard at times, it is usually waiting around on IO. So for CPU I would just look for the current sweet spot for price vs. speed rather than going cutting edge.
Hyperthreaded is wonderful for CPU though. It allows much smoother multi-tasking. So, I can do other things while Photoshop is batch processing in the background. I hardly notice it running...
Photo stuff is where I bottleneck my system. Get as much RAM as possible. 2 GB at least.
Get large, fast harddrives. 10,000 RPM if you can swing them.
For safety, get RAID and mirror the drives, especially if you are storing important work on them. You could also go with mirrored and stripped for speed and safety combined.
For a dream machine, I would look at NAS instead of RAID, but $$$$.
Get a DVD burner - I have no brand preference.
Get more than one DVD reader drive (not burners so they are fast).
Get an internal digital media reader drive.
Two monitors! Get a video card that can do dual monitors. Get two monitors and set your desktop up to use them (it's not hard, especially with Windows XP). This is really helpful for workflow.
For LCD monitors, I like AOC for cost vs. image quality. I have two of them and find them highly reliable, fast enough for any games I've played, and they have great image quality.
Even though you don't want to connect the computer to the internet directly, I would still recommend a network card, perhaps even a wireless job. Network transfer is SO much faster than burning and transporting DVDs. You can always keep the network hooked up but disable the card's drivers when you are not using the connection. So much more convenient.
Also, there are times when you might connect the machine to the internet for expediency sake. Go ahead and protect it with Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware anyways.
One reason you might connect to the internet periodically is to keep the system OS up to date from online updates. Also, any software you get will most likely offer free online updates. It is much easier just to get them off the net rather than burning CD's or DVD's.
I would go with Windows XP PRO and put MS-Office on it. It is widely used and has your basic stuff. If you want to stay away from M$, you can look at OpenOffice and other things.
Get extra USB ports. I have a ton but I keep running out of them. I thought I got enough when I bulit the system, but I was wrong.
Get a computer case and powersupply that will support more harddrives than you put in originally. No matter how much space I get, I am always running out and need to squeeze in another.
Important - get a good UPS system.
Get a laser printer and a color printer. I use the laser for most stuff and leave the color printer (with it's expensive ink) for photos and ads.
Get a video card that can do video capture. I like to get family video on the computer so I don't lose it to bad tapes.
Greg
Now for a picture to cool my brain off [img]/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
