New HW Choices?

So I am assembling my own system and I have to make some choices as the budget is not unlimited. What I want to do is to create the fastest and best LIVE softsynth. By that I want to be able to take my softsynths on the road and play them live. With 0 (or at least the best) latency. And maybe add CuBase in there to do some backing tracks of other midi sounds and samples.

Having said all that, what is most critical -
Speed of Cpu? looking at P4's 1.8 to 2.4 mhz
Front Side Bus speed? 400 or get into new 533
RamBus or DDR memory? any opinions?
256k, 512k, or 1gb for memory size?
Disk Drives? Chosing either Raid 0 and IDE or SCSI. It will be multiple drives regardless.

I can get great drives but then I gotta give up some CPU, or I can really get CPU but forgo the drives and go easy on memory. etc.

Thanks for any and all opionions!

 

New HW choices

Checkout TomsHardware.com and RME's website. I know there is a "rollyourown" Website as well (focused on computers for audio), but I am not on my computer right now, so I don't have that URL.
A fair number of people seem to be recommending the most recent Athlon over the P4, however the tide is turning again. If you go with a P4, make sure that it is a Northwood chip. Study the effects of the type of RAM on overall system performance too. Notice that the Athlon systems (That are for the most part being recommended over the P4 systems) are using DDR RAM. You also see that the chipset is very critical. From what I have read using a Raid controller is not good for audio. Hardrives are cheap these days. You can get a pair of 7200 RPM drives easily. Think of the future too. A few motherboards are available with USB 2.0 ports. Although there aren't any USB 2.0 audio devices just yet, there will be. There are some heavy duty Rackmount computer cases available from Baber.com, and they are only 17" deep.
You can also go with a Laptop. RME's website has some good Laptop advice.
Marc