FWIW, I recently got a Barebones Kit from Tiger Direct 256megs of RAM, AMD 2600 processor, 120gig Seagate EIDE HD, TDK DVDRW drive, Invidia video card, floppy drive, Biostar tower, Invidia motherboard (recommended as good for audio PCs) etc. After rebates I think it only set me back about $500. I'm using CD Architect, Wavelab lite & plugins from Waves with an EMU 1212M card, Windows XP Pro. I haven't had any issues. It's working great, but I'm not doing any multitracking. I'm using an old monitor I had lying around.