If you're not really doing any audio work, then I'd cut out the X-Fi, since it's just a waste of money then. I would try to get as much RAM as possible, to reduce your reliance on the page file, maybe even take out the page file altogether. Install all of your processor-intensive programs on the Raptors, and put all of your movies/data files on the slower hard drive. If you need absolute performance for your applications, then you should consider getting two cheap Conroes and a server motherboard that supports dual processors (not dual core), instead of one powerful Conroe. Forgot where I saw this, but with the Opterons, the speed boost is amazing.