I've been debating my hardware situation a lot lately. I'm thinking I want to streamline my life a little bit by unloading my two current workstations (one tower and one laptop) and buying one new workstation (laptop). Currently I'm running AMC v3.1.1 but would upgrade to v3.5. I was hoping to bounce my ideas off of you guys.

1. What do you guys think of the Quad Extreme version of this one (HP EliteBook 8730w) with Win Vista 64 below?

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/en/sm/notebooks/8730w.html

I imagine Avid can't take advantage of 4 cores . . . yet. But I want to give myself a nice future with this machine while using it to the fullest. I figure I can connect an external monitor, keyboard, mouse and eSATA video RAID to use it just like practically any high-end workstation. I'm also thinking about spec'ing it out with an nVidia Quadro FX 3700M and 8GB RAM. With 8GB RAM, it says it is only availabe with VST Bus 64 - not sure what that means? And would I be better off buying the RAM from some place other than HP? I do mostly P2 editing, but I also have an original Mojo I would connect for the occasional legacy jobs.

2. That all being said, I'd like to sell my current workstations. Can you guys give me any idea of what the current value might be in the used marketplace?

I probably have some other questions, but that's all I can think of right now. Thanks! :)

I've been thinking and rethinking my situation. I might forgo a new latop (for now). And I'm wondering if I should just get a new mobo with a newer Quadro FX card. Again, I'd like to get something really beefy. Anybody have any mobo/CPU/Quadro combos to recommend?

Check this, if going for a homemade twin processor search the forum for Tyan and/or 5400; I'd stay away from Quadro 3700; regarding laptops the MacBookPro is unbeatable.