Mac Quad And The Right Sound Card?, I need some expert advice... Options

[TonyMusic]

Okay, so I'm buying a mac Quad, and need some advice on how some things work...
I'm getting a Logic Pro also, and obviously need a sound card or maybe two?

What I need from the computer is to be able to playback at least 100 tracks of 24bit/96kHz at the same time...I don't need that many of in/outs...the hole music making process is going to happen mainly with soft synths, plugins and so on. No need to record a symphony orchestra.

The price range isn't that much of a problem, though I don't have money for Pro tools yet.

So my question is, what kind of sound card/s do I need. What would be the best solution...Or is pro tools HD3 the only one that can do this?

[mortalengines]

Basically you can use as many tracks as your CPU can handle & this is where it gets interesting- your computer will usually stream your tracks directly off of your hard drive so that by itself doesn't require THAT much CPU - soft synths & plugs (effects) are the real culprits here - Logic probably has a way to "freeze" these tracks as a way to preserve CPU (also you can buy DSP cards like Universal Audios UAD-1 that will relieve the strain from your CPU). 100 tracks is still gonna be tough, I imagine, on a G5 & you will have to go through a little trial & error to figure out what it can & can't handle. The cool thing about the current batch of G5s & logic is their networking ablility.... you can spread the load over several different computers (even PCs) if you can't quite handle what you need to do with the G5. I hope this answers your question. As for multiple outputs - the two that you are using to monitor with will serve just fine (you can produce high quality mixes inside the computer with Logic).