Frank,
Thanks for the advice. To be honest I have been toying for a while with getting a seperate pc just for music. My current pc is not bad at 1.3g and 512mb ram but it does have to do everything. Surf the net, record my warbling, let me drive a ferrari like a madman and much more besides.

I can see how all this would impact on what I am expecting the pc to do musically. Now I started this conversation expecting to buy a soundcard and end up buying a PC
Do you work in sales Frank

Many thanks & best wishes
Tony W