[astroglide]

there are light years of difference in equipment requirements depending on the actual usage pattern.

processor: depends on effects and encoding, downplayed if not much is done in that dept

ram: depends on app/plug-in footprint, probably less than you think

hard drive: storage is obvious, raid won't be necessary for function but might be appreciated depending on usage patterns

some people edit home movies and some people do it for a living. just about any computer can edit video, and the need to purpose-build systems for it is growing increasingly rare. if it's a fast computer it should do fine. if it won't do fine, then there should be some obvious requirement that is obviously missing (e.g. 'i need to have a terabyte of storage').

people really out-think/out-spend once any sort of 'editing' gets mentioned. it's easy to plan for the ability to add more ram or storage. get a decent cpu and it should be fine. intel traditionally does better on media encoding, but you could probably brute force past that and still keep relative cost efficiency if you get a higher-classed athlon64, so pick whatever architecture you want.