I agree that you'll be happy to work with dual proc. I've got a dual Athlon MP 1800 on an Asus A7M266 and it works fine. If this dual proc works right with a Windows 2000 Pro, I suggest you to look at a Windows XP Pro for having less troubles with softwares and hardware. For the RAM question, I agree that DDR is much better than SDRAM. I have 1Go DDR and it's a real pleasure... For the IDE or SCSI question, I agree with spnnrmm for saying that it's harder to setup. I had a CDRom drive and a CD Burner, both SCSI. It was OK for overall stability and speed, but sometimes, my SCSI card was having troubles and then I had no access to both of them until I reboot my system. And for the speed, as far as I know, a good 7200rpm IDE drive is as good as a SCSI one. One of the major thing I suggest you to consider is the graphic card. Not that it will change a lot in rendering time, but it could really helps in the working on your scene. I suggest you an ATI8500 (the one I got) or a GeForce 4. (Warning : as they're famous about that, if you're planning to buy an ATI9000/9700, consider that you'll probably don't have fully fonctionnal drivers until they release new patch. They have great products, but good drivers comes always later...) A last thing : don't forget that a dual 1Go proc don't go twice faster than a single 1Go, as a 2Go proc don't go twice faster than a 1Go one... Woops, a very last thing : for the discussion Intel vs. AMD, I suggest you AMD ! Hope it can helps... Argentium Thri'ile