What I need is a new tower, the one we use at the house finally died after 8 years. Not interested in video editing, hard core gaming, etc. I just need a solid workhorse that will last me a few years. hats why I was asking for the three levels of specs; to get an idea what is baseline, low end and high end.
Pretty simple then - for a new desktop it's Core i3 for lower end, Core i5 for midrange and Core i7 for the high end.
Since you don't need high-end gaming or video editing then a Core i5 is probably the best bang for the buck, while still being something that will last several years. Some of the Core i5 chips are supposed to overclock really well too.
The Core i7 has hyperthreading, the Core i5 does not. That's the main difference - but then there's the marketing bullshit - as far as I know all Core i3's are dual-core, some Core i5's are dual, some are quad. Some Core i7's are quad, some are 6-core (sex-core?).
I'd go with a quad-core i5. The 6-core AMDs are also worth considering, or even a quad-core AMD if you want to save some money.
As for the rest get an SSD for the boot drive, at least 80 gigs, then a big data drive - the 1.5 terrabyte drives are currently the best $ per gigabyte. 3 terrabyte drives should be out later this year.
Any ATI or Nvidia card will work since you're not interested in high-end games - something around $150 should last the life of the machine.
As others have said, go with Windows 7, 64 bit. Pro or Ultimate if you want XP mode, but that's probably not necisarry - Win 7 has already been out long enough so that there's a lot of software choices. Home Premium is cheaper and will work fine.
At least 4 gigs of RAM. I'd go with 8 or 12.
Optical drive of your choice - a DVD burner can be had for around $22 these days. A Blu-Ray reader will cost a bit more, a Blu-Ray burner will still run you some cash, thought they have come down a bit. I'd go with either the basic DVD burner or the Blu-Ray reader - I don't see much point in a Blu-Ray burner, the blanks are still crazy expensive and they only hold 25gigs - not really a practical backup option when you've got thousands of gigs on a single hard drive.
Other than that I'd try to find a motherboard with USB 3.0, or a USB 3.0 add-in card, and get at least a 650 watt power supply.
If you just want something pre-built I've set up several clients with these;
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883103238They're closer to the low-end than the mid-range though, but cheap and solid machines. You can even go $50 lower by dropping to a triple-core, or $50 lower than that for a dual-core.
Downsides to them - shared video memory, no SSD. Nice & compact, though not very expandable.
