Well I have decided to keep my Dell XPS 8300 for now.

I put in 16GB RAM and a Quadro 2000 video card plus Windows 7 professional. It seems to be working and rendering the scenes from "Getting Started".

I will get a 1TB second hard drive next week.

Wow, there sure is a lot to learn. I just got through the MEL section. That is hard when you have not programmed before!