Sonar xl 2.0 or pro tools digi 002 (for a pc)

I am considering investing in a project studio.

Reasons I like pro tools digi series

A lot of people use it.
Can load up on a bigger system.
Nice audio editing.
A load of plug ins.

Reasons I like Sonar

Good midi sequencer
Supposed to be able to be loaded up into pro tools (???)
A load of plug ins.
Very flexible for people using PC's
good midi/soft synth implementation

What I don't like about pro tools digi series

More flexible for people with Macs. (I have a pc and like using pc's)
Takes a lot of time to get system up and running properly.
Very inflexible requirements. (Only work on some pc's with certain chipsets)
Midi implementation not as good as Sonar's.

What I don't like about Sonar.

I am not sure because I don't know anyone who use it, but I am not sure on how it performs compared to digi 001. I have a dell 2.0 ghz with 256megs of ram. If I get a 20 gig drive should I be able to record at least 24 tracks proffesionally (using no plug ins)? (The website say unlimited audio tracks, but that is impossible on today's computers.)

I don't own Sonar, but a friend of mine uses Sonar for all his mixing and mastering. He master's a lot of people music (Hip Hop orientated). The $#!+ sounds good. He will be mastering my stuff as well. I think that the 002 is pretty damn expensive and the Pro Tools plug-ins aren't cheap either. One problem that I'm noticing with Pro Tools is no matter if you have a Mac or PC, Pro Tools would run better with a extra DSP processor dedicated to handle Pro Tools commands & plug-ins. Pro Tools HD systems come with a DSP processor to install. Just a little food for thought.

Go for Sonar on the PC, the Digidesign forums are full of PC/ProTools horror stories...but I can say this, not using a Mac and the Digi 002, you are missing out. If it was up to me, I'd say slang your PC and get a Mac/Digi 001. And PT6 is running on OSX now....the MIDI is supposed to be up to speed with Logic, no more problems there, and it took me about 10 minutes to get my setup running.

As far as the dedicated DSP chip is concerned, im running a Digi 001 setup with the Waves plugs always running on 5 to 6 tracks, on a G4 with 768ram and a seperate hard drive for audio, shit runs like butter. No complaints.

If you go the Digi route your stepping up to the big leagues....

Yo KoolSha178, so you think that a Mac can handle Pro Tools LE much more efficiently. Let's say you got 20 audio tracks most of them with 4-Band EQ, 5 Aux input tracks with plug-ins & and a master fader track with more plug-ins. Could your Mac handle this no problem. If so then that's dope. At times I get errors saying to close some plug-ins because my CPU can't handle it. I'm running Pro Tools LE on a PC, Intel Chipset, P4 1.6Mhz, 512 DDR Ram. I'd appreciate yours or anybody else's input.

I got those errors alot when running all my audio files from the boot up hard drive....it makes a big difference using a external hard drive, i use a Lacie fire wire drive. That solved most of my problems.

Should work on a PC as well....