Here's my 2cents:(posted 7707 days ago)Have Avid Xpress DV 3 and Premiere 6.5 on a Compaq Presario - Athlon XP1500 - 512DDR ram - 30Gig drive - XP Home - built-in Firewire - Camera is the JVC GRDV3000u.
Capture cleanly to C: drive with no dropped frames. And as for rendering, depends on your processor. I lean towards PC but that's a preference. I hear all the banter about external second drives, but it works for me with a single and keeps it truly mobile. Not so mobile when you have to carry 10 extra peripherals.
Cheers,
melo