Optimal hardware configuration MySQL 5+ MyISAM huge db
I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but there doesn't seem to be a hardware forum. In general it is difficult to find information about hardware specs as most techie sites are aimed at gamers (OC talk and all that).
My problem is to get a hardware configuration together for an optimal MySQL performance. I don't care if it's Intel or AMD. I'll be running MySQL 5+, using MyISAM tables, and the database sizes range from anything between a few MB to 60 GB. The data is mostly quantitive (integers, floats, decimals), but I'll also be doing a lot of text searching (e.g. patent data).
The system can be a "server", though there won't be any client. In other words, stand-alone and dedicated. I'm the only user (for various reasons). I'll mostly be executing queries. In fact, insert happens only when importing the data. There might be updates and deletes when cleaning the data, but nothing serious. So it's 99% queries and building indexes.
I am not sure about RAID support, so let's say it should be there. Also I won't be using a 64bit system yet, but it should be possible to switch without having to buy a new system. At home I'm running Windows XP with Apache, but I don't mind switching to *Nix (even though I have limited experience with it).
I found an article about Opteron vs Xeon (and the Opteron won), but I would have preferred for the MySQL guys to just put a few recommended systems on the website.
One other thing is that the system should be green and quiet. In light of that I've already selected two HDDs, namely the Barracuda® ES2 drive and the Seagate FreeAgent™ XTreme 1tb (an external HDD, so I'll need ESATA).
With so many types of CPUs, motherboards and memory, it really is difficult to make an informed choice. I'm hoping you'll be able to point me in the right direction, or perhaps you can recommend a system from your own experience? Would be one headache less.