Gateway with an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 processor, 4 gigs of DDR2 Ram, 2 320 Gig drives.
Windows Vista 64 bit on one drive, two distributions of Linux on the other.
Doing OK now. Have not had a lot of computer time today to play with it.
As far as cost, plan on buying a new desktop sometime after the first of the year.
Think that I read somewhere that if you buy a new computer after June?, you can get a free upgrade to Windows 7.