What you have in your laptop now? Get up Device Manager and tell anyone here what the speed of your processor is, how many cores and any of that? As to NIC I do not know what that is. USB 3.o?? Think audio will come out with that unless they need it for even more channels of audio in at the same time? Right now you can go usually high enough in numbers for that now with USB 2.0 providing you buy from a manufacturer that puts out a good driver for the unit. A video card don't have to be that fast and you can spend a $1000 for a Geforce Titan or probably $100 dollars for a couple of years old fast enough Geforce Nvidia card probably. MoBo may probably be one like an ASUS board, or something like that, but probably not an ASRock board perhaps. The rest well I am not sure and you should ask around and look around and read around to see but definitely you probably do not want an ATX motherboard as in buying a very small computer case and those can be looked at in a store, because they are mini-towers that have no room for expansion, so small-form ATX motherboards I would think are out. And I doubt if you would want an all-in-one computer the likes of too many being made nowadays where the computer is in the monitor and all you have is the monitor and keyboard (and mouse) which leaves no room for doing whatever you want like in a large-cased computer that is of the past like normal size.

My advice would be to go for the most powerful system you can afford, even if it's more than you currently need, as you'll likely grow into it soon enough. But there's no simple, single answer. A Porsche might corner and brake faster, but it can't pull stumps or haul lumber like an F150.

You don't really need a very powerful system just for tracking (recording) 16 tracks of audio. A netbook or iPad can do that. But if you want to record at high sample rates or throw any fx on the inputs while tracking or mixing, that requires more cpu power. And softsynths also use more cpu power and can benefit from more system memory for samples.

Video editing isn't necessarily demanding, and the on-core HD4000 graphics on the  latest Intel "Ivy Bridge" i5 and i7 cpu's can handle that at even high def resolutions, so you could get by with using the onboard graphics, or a lower end graphics card. Your 40" TV probably has an HDMI input, so a motherboard or graphics card with an HDMI port would be necessary (but you need to confirm what input jacks your display has, in order to know what you'll need!).

For a basic DAW, you'd probably be looking at an i5 Ivy Bridge cpu (4 cores, 2-channel memory support, no hyper-threading) with 8 GBs or more of memory. For more power you'll want an i7 Ivy Bridge cpu (4-cores with 2-channel memory support and hyper-threading) and 16 GBs or more of memory. Either of these cpu types would use a "socket 1155" motherboard with an Ivy Bridge chipset (PCH) With a "K" cpu such as i5-3570K or i7-3770K and a Z77 or Z75 motherboard you would have the ability to "overclock" the cpu for more performance.

Next step up, at quite higher cost, would be an i7 Sandy Bridge-E cpu on a socket 2011 X79 motherboard, starting with the i7-3820 (4 cores w/hyperthreading and 4-channel memory support) or i7-3930K (6 cores w/hyperthreading, 4-channel memory and overclocking support) and 16GBs or more of memory. With such a system you'd have plenty of power for most any DAW needs (could cormer fast, pull stumps and haul lumber). But you'd also need to install a separate graphics card as these cpu's do not have onboard graphics.

You can install a PCIe (PCI Express) Firewire adapter with T.I. or LSI chip, so don't worry about onboard Firewire support on a motherboard.

You'll also need storage drives for your operating system and DAW applications and audio data, samples, etc. Solid state drives (SSDs) are fastest but are lower capacity and highest cost per GB compared to hard disk drives (HDDs).

You'll also need a power supply and case, and may want or need a good quiet cpu cooler.

If you have no time or are not computer/DAW savvy, then it might be wise to consult a pro system builder who could (possibly for a fee) give detailed recommendations on a system to meet your specific requirements, and who could also build a custom system for you tailored and tuned to your specific needs and provide support down the line.

 Thanks for the detailed feedback. My current system is a Duo Core 2.5. Four GB of ram, but at 32 bit it is not seeing it all. I would definitely want quad core with some of the upgrades you mentioned. The NIC or Network Interface Card, TI chipset and video could certainly be downgraded to the motherboard and a PCI card. I plan on purchasing a Glyph external HDD for the audio files. I agree, that if I don't get the feedback from this post, that I might have to consult a professional like Rosenberry. I am hoping to get enough info here that I can save the money, but we will see.

Building your own system can be very rewarding (I just did), but it's also time consuming if you have to learn what you're doing before even starting.

I don't look at it as saving money, but as getting higher quality parts for the same money and being able to get exactly the parts you need.

You should hang out a bit on forums like tomshardware.com to get a feel for what's involved. It's not just a simple matter of throwing a few parts together as many will have you believe (they've done it countless times and it's easy for them).

Start by buying an anti-static wrist strap and figure out a way to keep it grounded.

 
plan your build ahead of time because you cant just go buying parts and mixing and matching.
not every CPU will work with any motherboard, nor will any ram type work with any mobo/cpu.
 
there are also many steps involved and one wrong step could possibly fry your system if not put together / connected properly.
 
I would talk to Jim, he is a nice guy, a great builder and they build professional systems that work great with sonar.

If you have the option, use a PCIe FW card for your new system, not PCI. If using a PCI card, you will be limited to using either an Intel B75 or Q77 motherboard (which don't support overclocking) or else using an expensive X79 board and cpu, or an AMD board and cpu, because other recent Intel motherboard chipsets do not support  "native" PCI interface and this can mean problems with many PCI cards. 

All motherboards have at least one onboard Gigabit NIC these days, so that's not a problem.

Note that the system benchmark info found on most hardware sites is not necessarily applicable to DAWs. For some benchmark info on relative DAW-type performance between various current and recent vintage cpu's, see Scott's 2nd and 3rd charts here:
http://www.adkproaudio.com/benchmarks.cfm

and also here for Scott's testing of recent AMD FX Vishera cpu:

http://www.gearslutz.com/...y-have-eat-my-hat.html

For additional explanation of the benchmarks used for above-linked info see Vin/TAFKAT's site:

http://dawbench.com/benchmarks.htm

For various info on other people's recent DAW builds, see these forum threads:

http://www.soundonsound.c...365&fpart=1#932136

http://www.gearslutz.com/...-studio-pc-thread.html

If you are interested in overclocking in order to get more performance, there is a lot of info to be found on the gaming-centric hardware sites. You may need to use better spec memory and you will also need a good cpu cooler setup for overclocking.

There is also info to be found on how to tweak your system BIOS and Windows and Sonar settings for better DAW performance and the tools available for monitoring your system's performance, if you search for it.  But beware, not all of it is necessarily reliable or applicable or up-to-date, so take care. 

People using other DAW software than Sonar also face many of the same challenges when building their DAW systems, so you might find useful info in other DAW software users forums also. And some audio interface manufacturers' sites have system tweak recommendations as well as user forums where info can be found. 

Edit: Scott has just posted some benchmark test results over at GS on the shortly  forthcoming new Intel "Haswell" i7-4770K cpu, which exhibits significantly higher performance compared to i7-3770K and close to i7-3930K even at stock speed (without overclocking), so it might be worthwhile waiting a bit longer until this new cpu hits the market. 

http://www.gearslutz.com/...-benchmarks.html 

  So here is a question regarding where to put the money for increased performance. When I have my 8 audio track project open and I am bouncing all 8 tracks to one stereo track I get this weird interruption or delay in audio output when I use the compressor/limiter LP64. Let me explain. I am new to this and am trying out different things and one of them was a suggestion someone made to bounce all tracks to stereo track and use a limiter/compressor. That's fine, I like to play around. When I do this I use the LP64 where there is alot of control. But, when the project is playing back and I am trying to apply some changes it delays audio output. In other words I select a frequency and move it around to here the difference it makes in my recording project. When I drag these EQ parameters up/down or left/right I don't get any audio output until I release the EQ parameter, so it acts as if it is starved for CPU or Ram Memory. The same thing happens if I adjust the value in the value box by stepping it up or down. So my question is what is it starved for? Does throwing more ram at this solve this problem or does throwing a quad core cpu in place of a duo core solve this. I guess what I mean is, if I am building a new machine where is the money better spent? I don't want any delay, glitch, freeze, even if temporary from my new machine when I play back 16 audio tracks and 12 soft synth tracks and then start playing with plugins. I want it seamless and smooth and immediate with feed back for eq, etc and not delay the audio output, although I should be happy that my duo core, 32 bit, 4GB of ram laptop isn't freezing up and crashing at this point. But, is it better to have a quad core with HIGH speed and 8 GB or ram or is it better to have a quad core with normal speed and 16 GB of ram? Thanks guys.