Craig mentioned an i7 with at least 6 GB and an SSD drive.

My recommendations are similar:

- An i7 or a good i5 (but I would avoid an I3)
- Get a machine with 8 GB and make sure it can expand to 12-16
- An SSD drive. Samsung Pro has an outstanding SSD drive.

One other thing - someone recommended (might have been Craig, I'm not sure) to at least put an SSD drive in. You can try that - however, I have heard random reports (and I also experienced it) that some SSD drives don't always behave well with older quad-core/Core 2 Duo processors. The drive might work fine for a period of time, and then you get a total lockup. Then you reboot and it might work fine for another hour, and then freeze. I don't have any stats to back that it, so it's anecdotal - but just to save you some headaches by at least making you aware that it's been known to happen.

You might want to get an SSD drive and put it in your machine and give it a good ride. If it works, great. If it doesn't. or just doesn't give you good performance, you can buy a new machine with a regular drive and put the new SSD drive in there. That's what I did.