You know, I may get torn a new one for this. But I'd cruise over to
Alienware. Not to buy something necessarily , but customize a prebuilt machine you think would work well. Then, print it out, or write down the desired components.
It may start you off on the right foot armed with a bit more knowledge as to what your needs are, and what to look for.
I prefer
antec cases, I have had good luck with
MSI and the recent
Abit motherboards, I choose Intel over AMD, and I like using Nvidia versus ATI