I update my PC recommendations for video editing. This year the clear choice is a computer with the Intel Core 2 Duo Processor. There are few different flavors of this processor available. The good news is that even the lowest processor in this line, the E6300, blazes.

The sweet spot for pricing is the E6300 or E6400. Both of the have 2MB of L2 cache while the higher level chips have 4MB of L2 cache.

I was able to price together a rather nice Dell PC with an E6300 for about $850 with a 19″ monitor.