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I'm looking at getting a MicroATX form factor case and motherboard to meet the space requirements more easily.
Check Intel Q35.
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I'm looking at an ATI Radeon HD 4850 for my graphics card. I would like to be able to CrossfireX multiple of them, but won't cry about it if I can't. If there's a reason I should look into a different card (other than general performance), please speak up.
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This one will work only at Linux and Windows, no drivers for Solaris nor FreeBSD. If you want working binary blobs for all OSes you mentione, then you need nVidia card.
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I'll be wanting a dual or quad-core processor.
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Dual core is more then enought, get some Intel E8xxx series.
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I plan on having at three SATA hard disks: Two for the various systems and data, and one Solid State Drive for virtual memory.
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Better get VelociRaptor SATA2 10.000RPM + 1TB for storage.
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To avoid too many messy wires, I'll probably be looking into a good wlan card and a wireless keyboard and mouse.
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You can (and prolably will) have problems with these at FreeBSD and Solaris, propably also at Linux.
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A friend of mine recommended the "Creative Labs X-FI Xtreme Gamer Fatality" Sound Card for gaming and listening to music, but I have no idea whether or not there is even any GNU/Linux support for it.
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Onboard Intel HDA is more then enought.
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I'll be wanting at least 2GB of DDR2 memory to run Vista smoothly.
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Get 800MHz 4-4-4-12 for best results.
I understand that MATX is pretty limiting, so if I can't have *everything* I won't freak.
Intel Q35 will fir there without any problem.