what is the recommended system to play EB on?

I got 3.0 ghz P4, 2 gigs of ram, 7600gt. playing on 1000 res in 16 bit color like the faq stated. got everything on low except unit detail which is set to high. I get random slow downs :( either scrolling the campaign map or during battle. by random I mean, it comes and goes at will, some play sessions would be 100% free of it. it is confusing.

what could be the cause? I play m2tw fine along with the mods that are release, the setting for the game is even higher then the above. I know my comp is old, like 3.5 years old now. it plays all my games decently besides crysis, yea, I thought too highly of my comp when I bought that game.

any help would be nice, I did a search of the forum and scanned the faq, didn't see any system requirement question or threads.