Managed to get an HP XW4400 workstation , and modified it for DX8/9 gaming by replacing the existing GPU (seems like a 128Mb X600) with an X1900XT 512Mb, as well as add in an SB X-fi. The machine will be replacing my existing A64 X2 4400, and the comparison between them is interesting.
first off , the A64 based machine.
ASUS A8N-SLI SE
A64 X2 4400
Corsair Platimum 2GB DDR PC3200
Radeon X1900XT 512MB (using the 10.2 drivers)
SB X-fi Xtrememusic
WinXP Pro 32bit with SP3
next the XW4400
HP board of some kind (socket 775 , i975x chipset, I assume based on an Intel board)
Core2Duo E6600
2GB DDR2 PC5300 ECC RAM (might upgrade it to 4GB non ECC , but it may well be unnecessary)
Radeon X1900XT 512Mb (10.2 drivers)
SB X-fi Xtrememusic
WinXP Pro 32bit with SP3
not too shabby, the Intel board also seems to fix some issues with problematic games like MGS2 , which had graphical glitches on the AMD platform , but look and run fine on the Intel.