Hey all .. thanx a heap for the recommendations. I really appreciate your help.
Am actually leaning towards the Soyo solutions for a variety of reasons:
It is amazingly well featured solution; I'd used the Soyo earlier for cheap system, so this was an eye openner.
It comes with the add-on bay that gives 2-USB 2.0; as well as a combination smart flash/ smart media reader/writer
http://www.soyousa.com/products/proddesc.php?id=114
not to mention close to everything I wanted but the firewire.
Here's what I have so far:
1) SY-P4S dragon Ultra OR SY-KT333 dragon ultra
2) Intel P4-2.5Ghz OR Athlon XP-2200
3) Crucial 256MB PC2700 (will wait till the end of the year for 512MB to get available so add more RAM, else I max out the ram)
4) VideoCard - ATI 8500DV
5) HDD - 2 x Maxtor 60GB/ATA133
6) SB Audigy .. hey do u think a soundcard is even necessary .. how good is the soundcard onboard? I see its a 6 channel.
How am I doing so far?