24- 96. Realistic On A Budget? Options

[Foxyphil]

For the forseeable future, my main puter is an emac G4 at 720 hz(?) running os x 10.39. Im in the (painful) process of getting to grips with Focusrite Saffire with bundled cubase l.e.

Without claiming to be a "golden eared" audio afficianado, I strongly believe that the audio I hear at 96hz has an edge on 48 or 44. I really want to try and work at this resolution if I can. However, it does seem to max out my computer. A friend has suggested that 96 isnt worth the aggravation and cost and always works at 44hz. His final recordings do sound impressive to me, but Im hell-bent on going for 96 if I can. If I were to get an external hard drive (Carrilion maybe), plus double the ram to 1056, is 96 resolution feasible. Im prepared to render midi tracks to audio one at a time if necessary. I may be using a maximum of -say- 12 midi tracks and 8 audio ones. Any suggestions would be really welcome.

Many thanks Phil