Hasta La Motion!

Hi,i’m not new to computer graphics,but I am fairly new to whats going on inside your computer.heh. I come from an animation/modelling background.I have recently taken an interest in particle/fluids and would like to take it more seriously.

Right now I have:

Win7-64bit (recently upgraded)
Intel Core 2 duo
6 GB Ram (recently upgraded from 2gb)
Nvidia Gforce 8600 GT graphics card
ASUS P5W Deluxe motherboard.

I was wondering if this is enough to render millions of particles for short student tests ,15secs maybe (apprentice)

If not what should I look into for the future? and with my current specs,what could I do improve performance in the meantime (until I gather money for the real deal)

I know I may need to get a whole new setup in the future,if someone can point me in the right direction that would be great.

I will be using mostly houdini (for particles)

thankyou for your time.