Although there are many here who will try to convince you to go with the added expense and complexity of a true server based system, for most small offices this really isn't needed. I'm running an 4 year old P4 tower that I just goosed it's RAM and we are doing fine.
So if you are like us abd the "server" in your little P2P set-up has 1 gig or less or RAM that might need a bump. But seeing that you have a newer duel core I bet you have at least 1 or 2 gigs. But if you are running Vista on the main machine, you probably need to get 3 or 4 gigs of RAM going. I've heard Vista is a Hog. I'm now running 2.5 gigs with XP Pro and it's probably overkill now, but now I can sit at the main machine and run lots of apps and still not slow down the office, which is what I wanted.
But I would think "network" or compatiblity first, like XP and Vista mixed, as many here have found out that Vista does not like to play very nice with its older brother XP. And two if your network is not running smoothly that is usually the bottleneck to speed. Heck we are running old "G" wireless and most of the time that is not slowing us down too much.
Lastly, AC is based on Access which is slower than SQL based systems, but unless you've got thousands and thousands of patients in there, it shouldn't be too bad. There is a small lag but not much. So check your network and check your RAM, before you drop big bucks on a server system. That's my two cents for what it is worth.... Good Luck
