Hardware Upgrade Questions

I eventually plan to upgrade from my current Sonar 6.2.1 Studio to that latest Sonar Producer.  My system demands for projects are modest (2 to 5 audio tracks, 5 to 8 MIDI tracks, max 2 inputs recorded at a time).  Since my current laptop does not meet the system requirements for X1, I plan to get a new laptop (probably HP Pavilion).   Questions:
Processor system requirements for Sonar X1 are “any Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.67 GHz/AMD Phenom Quad Core 9750 2.4 Ghz.”  I think those are desk top processors.  What is the equivalent for laptops? 2.       My current audio interface uses Firewire (Cakewalk “Power Studio”, made by Roland).  Unfortunately, the newer laptops I am considering do not have Firewire.  Can I use a USB port on the new laptop, then go through some kind of USB/Firewire converter, then into my audio interface, or should I just buy a new USB audio interface?  
3.       If I need a new USB audio interface, can anyone recommend a compact one under $500 that has better pre-amps compared to my Power Studio (not that I am complaining)?
4.       I was thinking of buying a separate 27-inch HD monitor to plug into the laptop.  Make sense?
 
Thanks.
 
Greg

Also considering Fast Track Ultra.

Don't go to Edirol stuff if latency is important for you.

Any ideas on acceptable processors for a laptop? Thanks.

Greg,

PassMark CPU Benchmarks has a pretty comprehensive listing of their performance testing on most CPUs. They include desktop and laptop CPUs and CPUs from Intel and AMD. It is useful for comparing the relative CPU performance of any CPUs you might be considering.

BTW, you may want to consider using an external, fast HD for your audio and samples unless your laptop uses an SSD.

Good luck.

CJaysMusic

Don't go to Edirol stuff if latency is important for you.

Mkibble, Edirol cards are great. Ive owned 2 of them in the past and I got low latency. If i remember, I got 1.9msecs.
If you didnt get low enough latency with your edirol card, it had nothing to do with the card and everything to do with your pc.
 

I'm sorry, I was talking abou the FA 66 in specific, have you tested it? Look at my topic (http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2186868). In tests in Sonar, the first CPU doesn't go beyond 40% and the others are barely used. I have an i7 with 8 GB of RAM, external 7200 RPM HD (via e-SATA). So my problem, is definitely not the computer! In fact I can get low latency with FA 66, but Sonar gets extremely unstable (dropouts, stops playing, stops echoing). Things just get stable with "normal" in the Buffer slider and I really don't know the numbers, but it's not enough to play fast arrangements.

Thanks.

I'm sorry, I was talking abou the FA 66 in specific, have you tested it

Yes I have and it worked great and it got me very low latency.