(damn swae, just came in to post the same question!)

My problem is that I get my PC's from work - they're, um... 'excess property', wink wink, nudge nudge - so they are basically business PC's and they just can't handle all of my upgrades.

The current one only has a 250w power supply. Two optical drives, two hard drives, floppy drive, USB mouse, and a new video card = FAIL. So on this computer I've max the RAM, gone as far as I can got with AGP and now it's starting to show its limitations.

So, seeing how I haven't bought a computer since 1996, maybe it's time to quit using business PC's (HP workstations) and get a real computer?

So my question is what the hell is up with dual core and quad core.
I know I need at least 3ghz and 3gb of ram (I don't want to go 64bit processing yet) and PCI-express and a fat power supply but like Swae I need a recommendation on chips.

I'm currently looking at THIS Intel Pentium D Dual Core 950 3.4Ghz PC. I'm upgrading to a 650w power supply and the Nvidia Geforce 8800gts 320mb Dual Dvi-I.

Any recommendations. C'mon guys, help out or I'll raise the price of oil. Maybe unleash the De Vinci virus at work! Hack the Gibson!

-bill