Once piece of advice... don't get a Mac.
They are really good in the studio,
if you can get them properly configured. We had quite a few problems getting ours in the studio up and running with everything. Managed to in the end, but generally what happens is you get the apple guy out to install and setup everything and then DONT touch the settings... now if you're anything like me you'd rather stuff around and tweak things. Apples seem to be a little more sensistive to this. Dunno why.
I'm not real current on the current hardware solutions, but can offer some advice from when I was running the recording studio at the station
DIY Radio.
Are you planning on setting your PC up in a recording booth or somehow isolated from the recording source? If not, it is imperative you build a good QUIET PC. this can be achieved more easily than many would think. You won't need any hardcore graphics cards to record audio so as far as power supplies are concerned you could consider the
Antec 350w Phantom fanless. Or if you need more juice, you can look at one of the
SilenX Luxrae PSU's that range from 340w ($200USD) to 460w ($280USD).
Don't forget a HDD Silencer.
SilenX make a good one. Be careful that you don't overheat the drive, maybe consider the reviews at siletpcreview on the right type of HDDs to get.
Recommended HDDHope that gets you off to a good start. Post some of the processor stats you want / if you've seen any mobo's your interested in and more details on your recording environment and I'll see what I can do to help out.
cheers.
:mcelb1200: