I had a few questions regarding a pc I'm in the process of building. I haven't purchased any materials yet so anything I post is all just thoughts for now. I originally was going to go with a P4 system but have heard better things from Athlon's AMD 64(things such as speed and a more reasonable price). Now before I go much further let me explain this is only the second PC I've built and don't have that much experience. Now I'm not sold on the P4 or the AMD 64 as of yet, from what I've done it looks like the AMD 64 system is actually going to be more costly. By the way the PC is being used to capture video, play with the video & reproduce back onto DVD.

The AMD System (excluding a few components(Major)):

PS 380W - Antec Sonata Piano Black Quiet
430W - Antec True430 430 Watt PS, Dual Fans
Asus K8V Deluxe Via K8T800/Via VT8237 or MSI K8T NEO-FIS2R K8T800
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (Retail Box-w-Fan) (I want an AMD 64 FX But rediculously high in price & not sure if I need all that)
DDR (400) 3200 - 1 GB (2 pcs 512) Kingston Ram Possibly Corsair I've heard good things about both

Just with these and not a video card & hard drive I'm still looking at a little under 1,000

The P4 System:
Intel Pentium 4/ 3.0C GHz 800MHz FSB, 512K Cache, Hyper Threading
(1)Chaintech 9CJS ZENITH i875P P4 ATX Audio/GLAN/RAID Motherboard or (2)Asus P4C800-E Deluxe 875P P4 ATX Audio/GbLAN/1394/SATA/RAID/AGP 8X/WiFi Motherboard
Kingston KVR400X64C3AK2/1G 1GB Kit DDR400 PC3200 Memory Retail (2 Pieces)
ATi All-in-Wonder Radeon *9700* 128MB DDR AGP8X (Retail) (not including price since I didn't include HD for AMD setup)
Western Digital Caviar WD1200JB WD1200BB Special Edition 120GB ATA/100 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB Buffer and Vantec Round Cable Bundle(Heard bad reviews for this HD)(not including price since I didn't include HD for AMD setup)

With the P4 setup I'm looking at under $900 excluding a few components (with I'll tack another $350 onto each)
(I'm running on a budget under $1,400 for the whole setup)

I apologize for the long post but any response would be appreciated

If you're going with the athlon 64, I would wait until Jan or Feb, when prices should drop. Amd will introduce the socket 939 fx, and prices on older models should come down. Or you can search for a newegg refurb 64 cpu and save about $100 over new. They get them in about once a week. I would go for the p4 setup if building today, except for the chaintech mobo. Go with the abit Ic7. Abit offers much better customer service and tech support, and direct rma support if your vender goes out of business or won't process your warranty claim.

Here's a suggestion (prices are from Newegg):

Pentium 4 3.0c $279
Abits IS7 $104
Corsair XMS 1GB (512x2) DDR PC3200 $252
ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 9700 $289
Western Digital 120GB SATA HDD w/ 8MB Buffer $108
Antec Sonata w/ TruePower 380w PSU $96
Plextor PX-708a $213

Total: $1341

About the CPU, if you go with Intel, you can take a slightly slower CPU and save a lot of $ (if you're into OCing, forget about the P4 3.0) think about the 2.8 or 2.6 (2.4 is usualy priced like the 2.6 so isn't worth it). If you go with AMD than another reason not to taking the FX is because it requires registered RAM which costs a lot more than non-reg.
Mobo - make sure you need all the stuff it comes with (like 1394 and RAID). You can usualy make up a list of stuff you want on-board and you'd find a mobo that has something very close it. Also, there is no longer a very large difference between the 875p and the 865pe chipsets since now most manufacturers simulate PAT and give a similar performance boost to computers equipped with their boards.
The ATI 9700 AIW is a good choice but be sure you need AIW capabilities.

Is 2^33634943-1 prime? (more than 10Mil digits @73.31) I will know in 10 days when <A HREF="http://www.mersenne.org" target="_new">Prime95</A> finishes checking!

Somethings you should consider with the AMD64:the asus k8vg deluxe is hard to work with,has hidden software costs of around $50 for your usage and has a hard time working with 512 sticks;the msi k8t neo does not have any corsair or kingston on its recommended ram list(apacer,hymix,kingmax,micron,psc,sec,crucial and siemans in 512mb sticks);if you're going for these two boards because of cool and quiet you'll have to go to amd and get the driver for it and set the power options to minimal power management.The gigabyte Ga-k8nnxp,though more expensive,has better features and does have corsair 512 sticks on the recommended ram list.Lian li also has a better "quiet case" than the sonata with front air intake(from the bottom);but if you're using any of these quiet cases remember they're not for high performance PCs.It's better to watercool if you want quiet.

i would recommend the p4 if you are going to be primarily messing with video. Although the a64 is great at gaming, beating the p4, for media pentium has always been really great, much faster than amd's chips.
ANd for the hdd, get the 1200jb. If you want really fast io, recommended if you are constantly doing a lot of moving around large video files, get 2 wd800jbs and raid 0 them. ANd i have heard the p4c800 is faster than the chaintech. ANother reason to not get a a64 3200 is because amd is discontinuing that socket soon, so you will be limited in your upgrading.

Hey man.. I am a newbie myself like you are. In fact, I just built my first system 2 weeks ago. I chose AMD64 3200+, My last system was a P3 so I don't know how it compares with P4, but I got to tell ya, this baby is blazing fast.. plus, when windows 64 version comes out next year, it's gonna be like a complete new system again. Here are some core components I am using, hope it helps

Aspire X-superalien case w/ 500 PSU
Asus K8V Deluxe
Corsair XMS TWINX PC3200 1GB
FX5900 Ultra 256MB

Asus K8V is a really good board w/ good OC capability. Its instruction is very clear, walked me through with no problem, very nice layout too, I don't know what hidden software people from previous post were talking about, I think it is just perfect, plus it has a bunch of bonus, WiFi for example, gives you a software AP so you can build a wireless network at home. I havn't tried MSI but Asus is a lot better brand and a cheaper price. Check newegg you will find out how many people choose K8V compare to K8T.

Whatever you decide to buy, do it now, don't wait, because then there are always something new come out, and then you want to wait newer things to come out for the price to drop more... It's never gonna end. Get them now, so you can start enjoying instead of doing endless homeworks and headaches, that's just my opinion....