Dell Inspiron 530, Dual Core 233 Ghz, 2 Gb RAM,
Vista
NVidia GEForce 8600 GT w/ 256mb mem
Running Ghost Recon Adv Warfighter
(ignore the sig at the end, I need to update my profile)

I have a BRAND NEW PC. As a matter of fact,I bought the game months ago and it wouldn't run on my old one...so.
I am in the mission to destroy the 2 bunkers. I upgraded with the patch and now when I get to the 1st bunker and set the C4, the game crashes. I had NO problems whatsoever before the patch.
BTW, when I say new PC, I mean I got it a week ago so all drivers should be up to date

well....
Dell= not so good to keep it polite.
There's always somnething outdated on those computers and they are hard to upgrade because the motherboards have their own set-up often (made for/by dell itself)
I don't know what kidn of processor you have as the speed says nothing to me I haven't seen a 233 GHZ computer yet, you should be glad with 3ghz
For a proper gaming platform it is better to have one built either by yourself, or by a local PC shop. Mostly they know better what to stick in a machine than the big companies that have to get rid of old stock first. I for sure wouldn't get a geforce 8600 GT because it has a weak core compared to the 8800 GT which is hardly more expensive... (256 MB on a 8600 GT is not enough....sorry)
When I buy a new PC I always do my research on internet first, and I have my system built for me by a local dealer. Maybe it is not as cheap as you get on the internet, but with customer-care and replacement they make up that gap by far.
For GRAW/GRAW2 to run properly read the tweak-guides on the GRAW-pc forum, with some minor tweaks you can gain a lot of speed.