No, no, no onboard sound, thank you.
I'll get the best sound card Creative Labs sells, short of the musician-equipment ones. Having used an Audigy2 for the last 3 years, I'm spoiled!
And damn sure no Vista. I know MS too well to buy the first generation of any new OS like that. Cutting edge is one thing,
bleeding edge is something else.
Hell, this is going to be my first bawx with XP. I'm still running 98SE on my current rig
And definitely at least 2 gigs of RAM, possibly 3 or 4.