Off the shelfer worth considering?

The Gateway FX6840-03e looks quite robust and is available locally to me.  The only thing I can see having to add is a firewire card and a few hard drives.
 
I'm not a big Gateway fan, but the specs look great for the price.  And several of its reviews specifically mention how quiet it is (although that'll change once more drives are added).
 
Does anybody see any potential issues with the system?  I'm running Sonar 8.5 (+ future versions) with an Echo Audiofire, plus some soft synths (Kontakt, Superior Drummer, etc).
 
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Gateway+-+Desktop+/+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B+i7+Processor+/+8GB+Memory+/+1TB+Hard+Drive/9974337.p?skuId=9974337&id=1218204534081
 
http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668659.php

Hi Mike,
8GB DDR3 Dual-Channel 1333MHz Memory
(1333MHz is also listed as "System Bus" speed)

What do you think of the unit? Capable of top performance from Sonar?

It's only dual channel?

The big i7 is triple channel and has about twice as much bandwidth.... which is good if the 8GB is really going to dance with the CPU.

Have you priced a system built around the i7 920?

A 930 is a big step up if you really use the whole 8GB of memory on your projects.

I don't really have an opinion about HP vs Gateway.

I know that I had to remove loads and loads of HP stuff from my Father in Laws computer just so he could enjoy using it as an home office/photo machine.

With either one you'll benefit from buying a freestanding Win install disk and simply install a clean version of Windows... it's much quicker than tracking down all the brand name bloat ware.

You definitely want to turn off a bunch of services that run at start up... you can search out the list of suspects here at the forum.

Hopefully the bios will be full featured and allow you to go in and make tweaks should you discover some gotcha that makes your media streaming less than ideal.

It's unlikely anyone can tell you if a specific name brand computer will work ideally. They change components such as the motherboard inside those things all the time.

By the time you learn if it works ideally... very few people will have time to benefit from your observations... and I explain that to explain why the probability that someone can help you with a specific recommendation is low.

If you want to go with HP or Gateway you'll just have to give it a try.

best regards,
mike

Thanks for the info Mike, much appreciated.  My projects are not so memory intensive at the moment (8GB just gives me a lot of cushion for now).  If that's the major difference, I guess either option (860 or 930) would be great.