That system should do fine. (especially with the dual 8600's)
It doesn't say what the ram is expandable to. (2 gigs isn't enough for me)
I think you could get a quadcore for that price.
I did, but it didn't have dual 8600gt's it had a single 8500gt, which I plan to upgrade to an 8800gt. (when the 8800gt comes out - its the new single slot 8800)
It did have a widescreen LCD with it too, but this has none and that is a drawback for me.
Take your time to shop around and remember that christmas sales are around the corner.
It may pay off big to demonstrate a little patience.
Here is an HP quad core for about the same price at
Best Buy.
It has 3 gigs of Ram and a bigger hard drive.
It has a single 8400gs, but you want to upgrade to the 8800 anyway for FPSC X10.
The new single slot 8800gt will be coming out soon, very soon, and they are supposed to be cheaper than the old double slot 8800's.
Here is
a quad core like mine... (It's less than a thousand bucks but this deal doesn't have a monitor either.)
Q6600 Quad Core (each core at 2.4ghz)
500 gb hdd
3gb ram
8500gt
I'll let you know how it handles FPSC X10 as soon as they release it.
I plan on testing FPSC X10 with the 8500gt before I swap it out for the 8800gt.