Less CPU usage?

What are some graphics settings that make the graphics card take up less CPU time?

I don't play games on this computer or do anything that requires fancy graphic rendering so I can afford to make sacrifices. I'm just looking for ways of speeding up the system for my audio recording programs.

Depends a bit on your graphics card, but I suppose you could start by running at a low screen resolution (unless you have an LCD, in which case you should try to match the resolution there). You could also go with a lower refresh rate and 16-bits. Really, though, your graphics card shouldn't be demanding much from your CPU unless you are doing something graphics intensive. The savings you'd get from those things would be so little you wouldn't notice.

Your better choice, really, would be to get a sound card with a decent chip on it. A sound card of that sort (say an X-Fi XtremeGamer or upwards, for Creative cards) actually takes your sound processing off the CPU entirely. This would make that issue completely moot. If you're looking for high quality recording, you'll want to think about something like that. Lots of sound card threads have been started discussing just this thing.

If you have a recent graphics card, nothing you can do will speed up you're computer.

Recent GFX cards have a built in processor so they can render everything without straining the processor.

That is valid unless you have an ATI Rage Pro or something. :P

If you want to speed up your computer, invest in a faster harddrive (7200RPM is the norm.), or stick two in RAID 0. Or buy a new CPU (any dual core above 2.0GHz will suffice).

Clean out your registry often (especially when you uninstall stuff), and keeping your harddrive defragged is the best way to keep your PC from slowing down.