well if you do go with pc, the two components you don't want to skimp on are the video card and the processor. based on what you choose for those, look for a compatible motherboard. i would recommend an 800 watt power supply. beyond that, it's fairly straight forward. i didn't mention ram because it's fairly cheap and easy to upgrade.

My computer came from NewEgg; I got it in 2008 and other than a new video card (and a bigger power supply to fuel it), I haven't needed to upgrade anything yet. Games are the most intensive thing a home computer will ever run; get one that can do that well and it should be able to handle anything else you need it to do.

As far as gauging video cards, this list assigns a number score to every GPU ever made, and full reviews of cards can be found on Tom's Hardware. For reference, I'm rocking a Radeon HD 4850 that I scored on sale for $30 after rebate, and it's still able to run Sleeping Dogs on an HD monitor with reasonably high settings. (Haven't tried anything more recent than that.) So it all depends on how badly you want to keep up with the latest games. I almost always wait for stuff to go on sale, and I still have a pretty big backlog of games I've never finished.

The only thing I'd suggest if you plan to do video editing is to get a decent sized hard drive. A real one, not those dinky SSDs that everyone will try to tell you you're a fool not to get. Video editing software likes having a lot of "scratch" space to work with. Having a generous supply of RAM (8GB at minimum; 16 isn't unreasonable) helps too.

Oh, and try to score something that still uses Windows 7 if you can.

Hmm. My second link didn't take. Here's the correct one.

OK what the hell, FA? Oh wait, I see, it's Firefox that's being an asshole and removing the "http" from all my links. Last try.

I'd be happy to help ya spec out a custom one if you're interested! Hit me up over IM or notes!

Mine's an emachine