Help me pick a CPU/Mobo

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

I started discussing this at the last meeting.  I'm looking to migrate
most of the guts of my current server to my daughter's computer.

Right now I have a AMD Athlon XP 2400+ (with will be quite an upgrade
from my daughter's current Celeron 466 or so).  It's almost always 95%
idle or more.  But I just got MythTV up and running (next meeting,
anyone?).  I have hardware encoding so recording isn't a problem, but
when I need to transcode video with ffmpeg, it gets slammed.  And if I
try to do that while it's recording, the box sometimes locks up cold and
needs to be rebooted.

I'm not looking to go cutting edge.  In fact, I'm somewhat concerned
about power consumption, which is why I'm trying to rule the world with
one server.  But I do feel if I go dual core, ffmpeg can slam one core
and everything else can get by on the other one.  Obviously I'll be
going faster, too, and with more RAM for good measure.  I've never had a
dual core machine before.

I've also never had 64 bit before, but I'm considering that, too.  I've
heard there are certain situations where it's actually slower, and I
have an unfounded fear of not being able to find x86_64 packages.  I
know it's stupid, but remember I'm 80% Software Engineer, 20% SysAdmin.

So I'm looking for CPU/motherboard recommendations, and for someone to
tell me I'm stupid for being afraid of 64 bit.

Thanks in advance.

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