really helps a person buy a system. As for what I look for, it depends on what I need the system for. As a home user, generally the system will support moderate gaming and multi-media. I have 3 desktops and 1 laptop. All have discrete video (gaming quality), have 4 GB of RAM, plenty of hard disc space, and moderate dual core CPUs. The desktops are all Lenovo systems with AMD 3800+ X2 CPUs, 4 GB of RAM, NVIDIA 8600 GT video. The storage varies a bit from 400 GB to 1.25 TB on them. The laptop is a dual core Intel CPU (forget the model), NVIDIA 9700M GT, 4 GB of RAM, and 250 GB of storage. I'm looking to upgrade the video on all desktops since the three MSI cards had fan issues, with one pretty much dead. The OS is Vista 32 on the desktops and Vista 64 on the laptop (why vendors put a 32 bit OS out still is beyond me...I've been working with 64 bit UNIX systems since the mid-90s). For work, the systems vary greatly since I have different applications and OS requirements. Many of my customers are moving to Linux servers (virtualized) but still have Windows (XP) on the desktop. Based on project requirements, what I look for just needs to match the requirements and I'll look accordingly. Buy the cheapest or near cheapest computer you can find BUT it should have the best warranty - the latter point is important as