Thanks for the info, Al. There's a lot of look into there. Do you have many programs nowadays that only run on XP?
I still contend that the VM-based system is much more flexible. It's what I do in my closet-based server, so that I can simply spawn up a new Virtual Machine in whatever OS I need to run some latest and greatest software only available on that platform. (Realistically, though, I can run everything I want/need on Linux, but I have the ability to deploy Windows VM's as needed.) And all without reconfiguring hardware, etc.
But back to the OP's question: Video editing and concern for collateral damage to the audio quality with a poor choice in processors. My answer would be: That's not a concern. Just choose an audio encoding format that has good sound quality. It might help if you could list the software you plan on using for your video editing. That will dictate the OS's that it runs on, how multi-core compatible it is, etc. And do you plan on doing a lot of 3D editing and playback, or only 2D? (It makes the difference between suggesting a $300 video card or an $80 video card, unless you do a lot of gaming on the machine as well, in which case you should get the more powerful video card.)
Michael
I still contend that the VM-based system is much more flexible. It's what I do in my closet-based server, so that I can simply spawn up a new Virtual Machine in whatever OS I need to run some latest and greatest software only available on that platform. (Realistically, though, I can run everything I want/need on Linux, but I have the ability to deploy Windows VM's as needed.) And all without reconfiguring hardware, etc.
But back to the OP's question: Video editing and concern for collateral damage to the audio quality with a poor choice in processors. My answer would be: That's not a concern. Just choose an audio encoding format that has good sound quality. It might help if you could list the software you plan on using for your video editing. That will dictate the OS's that it runs on, how multi-core compatible it is, etc. And do you plan on doing a lot of 3D editing and playback, or only 2D? (It makes the difference between suggesting a $300 video card or an $80 video card, unless you do a lot of gaming on the machine as well, in which case you should get the more powerful video card.)
Michael