i'd say any of the new athlon 64 bit dual core cpu's (THERE GREAT)
i have one in my new asus notebook and it kicks ass.
also the 7000 series gfx cards a nice also
but a 6800 (or even a 6600 which i have) would do very well.
at least 1 gig ram
other then that there isn't really anything else to worry about, unless you want to talk about hdd's ....
in my opinion sata to pata makes no real visible difference unless your dealing with photo and video editing (or 3d modeling) alot)
OH and obviously the sound card issue
but you can find good quality sound inbuilt to most mb's these days
(unless you really want to spend several hundred $$$ on a pci or pci-x sound card)
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