Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your comments. Unfortunately, the Dimension 8100 can only
use an obsolete type of RAM, which is quite expensive -- kinda like
trying to find a replacement 8-track tape deck for a '73 Chevy,
they're expensive because nobody makes them anymore. The cheapest
8100-compatible RAM (RDRAM?) I've been able to locate is something
like $30 for 256 MB, which seems like an obscenity when that same
amount of money would add a couple of GB onto my other computer. That
would get me up to 512 MB RAM, and the price isn't prohibitive, but I
don't want this to be one of those $50 projects that ends up costing
$500 at the end of the day. What makes my skin crawl is that
everything else I might buy to do this -- video out card, vid capture
card, sound card, cables -- could easily be transferred over to my
other PC or elsewhere, but that RAM could only be used on that PC. Oh
well, I'll spend that money if I really have to. sigh

Thanks for the concern, but the sound is the least of my worries; I'm
a long-time musician/audio geek, and have plenty of spare stuff lying
around ...

I'm leery of off-brands too (been burned a couple of times; haven't we
all?), and there's a lot of appeal in just picking a name brand (ATI/
AMD) and going with it. Based on your comments, I'm looking at the
ATI Wonder cards. You've read my situation right, I don't need any of
the tuner/FM/etc features and am just gonna turn all that stuff off
(although working with DVDs would be nice).

In particular, I'm looking at the ATI Wonder 550 and ATI Wonder 650.
Any comments on those cards? Thanks.

Danny