like someone else here wrote.....get the best you can afford. Lately I've been messing around with AMD CPU's and really like it. Dual core CPU are fast and if the software is designed to take advantage of this.....they're smokin'. AMD's are more expensive than some Dual Core Intel but they have a better design and run cooler. What's important though is only to install the editing software you are going to use and some utilities....don't put to much junk on the pc. Also run run the basic Video system optimization like disabling the drive indexing, setting up the virtual memory on a separate drive (for my PC I also got a small 20G drive and have windows use that for virtual memory)....etc. Check this link...http://www.videoguys.com/WinXP2.html.....used many tweaks from there and my system works great.