Hi!
Any standard graphic card that desktop PCs come stock with these days will do (unless you also count modern video games among your passions).
Do you want an internal sound card or a USB/Firewire audio interface?
If the latter is the case the following (USB) interfaces in the 200-300 $ range do the trick fairly well:
M-AUDIO Fast Track Ultra, Roland UA-55 Quad-Capture, Focusrite Saffire 6 USB.
I have the M-AUDIO Fast Track Ultra.
When using 128 samples buffer size the latency at 44kHz/24-bit is 2,9 msec., which is pretty low. Naturally I do have to increase buffer size when exceeding like 20 tracks with VST plugins, though, at least for fluid playback.
My computer is a 64-bit machine with an "Intel CORE i7 860" CPU (Quad-Core) that I purchased two years ago. These models have become rather affordable by now since there's already i9 6-Core CPUs and what have you on the market.
I have 6 GBs of RAM. I'm working on a project in SONAR right now that has 34 tracks (of which 24 have
multiple VST plugins applied). CPU usage is only around 30-35% at 128 samples buffer size.
Still, RAM is not as expensive as a couple years ago, so I recommend you to go with at least 8 GBs.
Also, you wanna make sure that you don't install your DAWs, Virtual Instruments, Libraries etc. on the standard C: drive (just mentioning, in case you're a newcomer to home recording).
'Cause that's where all the operating system's files are on. Partition your hard drive.
post edited by Ace.trouble - 2012/05/11 16:20:28