Mick,

I bought a new laptop about the middle of '08. Even though I did a ton of research I found out that I did not ask the right questions. You are very wise to check with the people on this form. Let me tell you what I found out.

1. My firewire interface board was not compatible with Vista 64 so I had to purchase a separate 32 version.
2. My firewire brand that was used by my laptop was not the best to use for recording audio. (It needed to be Texas Instruments)
I even bought a firewire card to insert but it did not override what was already installed so it did not help. During recording
sessions I loose the firewire signal many times and have to reboot.
3. Even though Vista Ultimate operating system itself seems more staple than XP I had fewer issues when I used XP.

In my opinion the intel core 2 is the way to go.

I would also get a large hard drive with at least 7200 speed

Make sure you don't make the mistakes that I did. Since PC's use parts from many different companies research every possible brand that will be used in you recording process and choose the computer that has those brands in it. If you are going to build your own computer you would be able to put the components in that you wanted instead of what the manufacture wanted.

I hope this help,
Steve

Steve