Tech help needed, Hoss! Bessie's goin' down. My desktop is dying. →[More:]

Long time coming, really, as she's been limping along for a few years and I think I've finally milked her for just about all she's worth, that is, outside angst relieving demonstrations of the effects of gravity by way of two story drops. The drives appear in reasonable enough working order that I'm confident of being able to extract [or have extracted] the material, mostly music and photo work. However I still face replacing and hopefully upgrading to something newer.

It makes sense for me to stick with a PC as my laptops are as well. I'm not at all intimidated by the selection process, having been part of the IT team at my last job in Portland, but that was a few years ago and now with these 70 - 80 hour work weeks, I just don't have the time or energy to cast my net wide and do all of the compare and contrasting that I was once able to do. I'm hoping some of you can offer pointers and advice before I shell out a couple bucks for a new Bessie.

The deets:
Would love to get back to my photography, so that would mean running some piggy programs such as Adobe, but not overly so. I'd hardly be rendering images for six to eight hours daily. I will, however, likely use it on a near daily basis for music and audio. [ I realize that there are better arrangements, but apartment life in the Mission dictates this set up.] Of course, there is the usual word processing, internet and wireless capability and a flat screen monitor: I could rent out the space to a small family that my monitor currently occupies. Seriously.

Any useful suggestions, information or advice would be greatly appreciated!