[LAU] New Hardware

Okay, so I did all the software experiments for the past couple years and have been running just fine using Planet CCRMA's packages in Fedora on an old piece of crap computer. I've gotten fairly good at what I do for what I have, and I am to the point where I believe that my performance and quality issues are due to the hardware restrictions of my current machine, mostly due to the fact that my motherboard has an integrated soundcard which I've been using to control my mic and MIDI, ugh. I'm ready to go out and plunk down a large amount of cash on a new system. Here's my problem, I have no idea what to get. I love things like JACK, Zyn, Seq24, Hydrogen, and Ardour, but not sure how new hardware would affect the operations of such programs. I have determined so far that I would like to have a Hammerfall HDSP card, but not sure whether I want to go for a 64 bit processor yet. My current mic is a cheap $30 Radio Shack mic and I'm not sure whether my sound card or my mic is the reason why the pick-up on it is so low and infested with noise. My USB MIDI cable is about the only piece of hardware that I'm actually happy with, I even want to get a new keyboard that has a pitch bender on the side. All this time I have been learning the Linux audio apps and stuff I have never bothered to even question what type of hardware I SHOULD be running. So I guess my question is this: Any suggestions? What works, what doesn't? Chip VanDan http://airlynx.sitesled.com -- -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK----- Version: 3.12 GCA/FA/S/O d+(--) s+: a-- C+++ L++ P E-- W++ N- o K? w O-- M- V- PS+ PE- Y+ PGP t- 5-- X R- !tv b++ DI++ D+ G+ e+/++ h--- r--/+++ z+++(*) ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------