yep, it all comes down to what you are going to use the computer for. my guess is that since you are not computer savvy, you are not out for the fastest and most powerful system.
for just average everyday use, a system with a 200gb or better harddrive and 2 gb of RAM and a dual core 1.6ghz processor will do most of what you want. probably a video card with 128k of shared memory will be sufficient.
IF you are doing a lot of video editing, you want a lot more harddrive storage (>1 tb) and minimum of 3gb of RAM, (make sure you have a 64bit version of Vista to handle more than 3gb of RAM). you will also want a stand alone video card with its own memory >256mb.
IF it is used for a gaming rig, get a quad core processor of at least 2.6ghz and a video card with 512mb of memory. 3gb of RAM minimum (again use a 64 bit version of Vista to take advantage of anything beyond 3gb of RAM) and a 500 gb harddrive or better.
Also, in the gaming rig setup, your memory speed and processor front side bus speed and video card processor speed and video RAM speed will be a factor on how it plays the games. you can spend anywhere from 700 bucks for a low end system (if you build it yourself) to several thousand dollars.
To give you an example of what 750 bucks gets you (at least back in Feb of 2009) here is my computer that I built:
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P motherboard which supports 1600mhz, 1333mhz, 1066mhz, 800mhz frontside bus quad core processors,
supports 4 DDR2 dimm memory modules up to 16gb, memory speed supported: 1366, 1066, 800, 667 mhz
On board audio: Realtek ALC889A w/ 2/4/5.1 and 7.1 channel support
two 10/100/1000 Mbit onboard ethernet jacks
expansion:
1 pci express x16 running at x16
1 pci express x16 running at x8
3 pci express x1 slots
2 pci slots
up to 3 IEEE 1394a ports (2 on the back side, one internal)
up to 12 USB 2.0 (8 on the back panel, 4 internal)
Support for 6 SATA drives
Processor: Intel Quad Core q9550 yorkfield 2.83ghz with 1333 mhz front side bus
RAM: 4 gb (2 x 2GB) dual channel from G.Skill (1066mhz speed)
Harddrive: 640gb Western Digital Caviar SATA (7200rpm and 3gb/s seek time)
Video Card: GeForce 9800GT 512mb w/ DDR3 memory PCI express x16 v. 2.0
500 watt power supply to run it all.
For this build I saved some money by reusing the case from the old system and the DVD ROM and the lightscribe DVD burner, the keyboard, mouse, 19in CRT monitor and Altec Lansing 2 channel w/ sub speakers.
Need to replace the CRT monitor with something a bit more up to date...
AJ
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