Clock pulse for clock pulse Athalons are fastest, the Pentiums, then the Celeron/Durnons.

My 386 66 mhz. surfs and handles emails just fine.

Most people way over buy on the computer - if you're a gamer you'll tax your machine harder than any other home user. 3D graphics are a killer on the video card/CPU/bus etc.

Unless you're getting XP anything over 128 MB is not really very gainful and fine for people who don't routinely run 20-30 programs in their task bar. I run 384 Mb on my Athalon 800 Mhz and run Photoshop, Fusion, scanner software while surfing without issue.

Playing DVD movies without glitches is going to be a bitch as most machines out there can be made to glitch - many home DVD players too with the right bandwidth. Mostly this has to do with the quality of the DVD device drivers rather than the hardware.

You can do word processing and balance your checkbook on any computer that still runs.

Look at the Dell refurbish store on the web where you can save 20% or more on this year's models at used prices. They are checked out my technicians before selling and have some Dell warranty.

I used a Tosheba Protoge for serveral years and enjoyed the disk-less lightness of 3 pounds of computer. I have lazy thumbs so I didn't want a touch pad - I touch type and found that the IBM/Toshiba "J" mouse worked for me best.