After a few months of checking the weekly offers from Dell, reading input from this topic, this topic as well as this topic, we have finally purchased our new desktop system. Here are the technical specifications on it:

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8200 2.66 GHz
Hard Drive: 500 GB
Memory: 4 GB
Windows Vista Home Premium
TV Tuner (works really well!)
128 MB ATI Graphics Card
22" Widescreen monitor
3-Year Warranty

and all of the regular stuff (DVD burner, mouse, keyboard, etc, etc)

I also included in my accessories a Wireless-N router, and the total price before taxes was $1088. I thought that was very reasonable.
So any thoughts on it? It seems to work really well right now, and I love Windows Speech Recognition.

unless your running Vist x64 your wasting a gig of RAM, the gfx card is ok, but 256MB would seem a bit better especially if your running a TV tuner as well, but other then that you have good system.

That's true, I have Windows Vista x64 and glad I do since I need to have those 4GB in my system, Vista is not optimal for games unless I have 4GB ... I would've suggested you to get a quad core with a little more money.

xboxrulz

The quad-cores were cheaper, and from what I read in the Intel Processers post, I thought that people recommended that I get a dual-core processor. The speed was faster and the FSB was also faster so I thought Core 2 Duo was faster.

It was? Alright, typically quad cores are better if you need to handle more threads. So for gaming, heavy multimedia editing or using virtual machines; a quad core is recommended. Else, I guess a dual core is good for your needs.

I'm not sure what you're using your computer for.

xboxrulz