youo want the Athalon 64bit processor and as much ram as you can stuff into the case. The 64 bit version of XP is NOT worth the price so save your money on that, just get a good 32 bit OS. AMD has the processor tricked out to act as two 32 bit processors (IE Pentium 4!) and they scream! DDR RAM is pretty much standard. Again, Mo Ram = Mo Betta! Windows XP is really odd when you try and use multiple hard drives regardless of thier size. the executeable files MUST reside on the boot drive (you can name the drive to any letter you want with XP). I personally really like ATI video cards, but others will argue with me on that. Last I went shopping, you could up to 128Megs onboard the video card. I've heard that you can get more now, that's a very good thing! :) hope that helps some. Or if you really wanna go nuts.... go get a customer true dual processor machine with two 4.8Ghz Pentium4 processors, about a Gig and a half of RAM, go with a full RAID setup and mirrored VINCA back up (an identical machine of course), and a plasma 43 inch widescreen for your monitor. If that dont put a dent in yer budget.... D@MN!