my idea is to have 2 computers
1. editing/effects...
2. capturing
i just want to capture DV on the second computer nothing else.
what are the bare requirements w/o sacrificing resolution?
processor, ram, and video card.

my plan is to transfer via external HD/firewire.

or is this pointless and should i stick with just the one computer?

what are the bare requirements w/o sacrificing resolution?
You can capture DV at full quality without dropped frames on a celeron 800mhz. You can probably even go lower.

If you want, you could look for a hot deal on a Dell and add in your own firewire card. I would add in a gigE card in both computers and a gigE switch and transfer over a network (or work over the network).

The reason I say to go for a Dell is because it's ~$80 cheaper than building it yourself not counting your time. I could be wrong, you have to spend time pricing everything out.

dell.com --> small business --> outrageous deals is one place to look. It may not necessarily be the best deal.

or is this pointless and should i stick with just the one computer?
I would probably do this. You have to watch the footage anyways and take notes/logs. You can't log two videos at once (at least I can't).

I finally got my capture computer going :}

I just used my tech bench system, with more ram and hard disks (AND FANS). It is a Pentium 666 with around 600 meg of ram. It captures fine the only dropped frames I get is when there was a timecode problem or sloppy tapework. It's all DV25 raw output, if you work with that there is no res loss.

This machine is archiving my MiniDV's to DLT 1/2" and putting a copy on my bigger editting machine. Oh yeah, I use dvgrab for capture with Suse 9.2... I imagine a windows system and NLE will have similar performance (bigger is better, right? :}