I need advice on buying a new computer and monitor.

Without going into huge detail, I am ready to buy a new desktop for my photography hobby.  I am still running
CS3 (hoping that will work with Windows 7?), Corel Paint Shop Pro X (yeah, I know I have really old software, but I
don't feel the need to upgrade just yet), Picasa, and all the software that comes with my Canon 40D.  I take all my pics in
.raw and then edit/convert.  I have a 1 terabyte eternal drive where I store my photos, but editing from that source is S-L-O-W.
Someone mentioned on another site something about aneSata drive.  Need more info. (I want an easy way to backup my
photos monthly, because I have a fear of someone breaking in my home, stealing my pc and then all my photos are gone.
With the external drive, I can put it in my safe deposit box.)
I want a monitor (preferably not widescreen) that will be accurate with color and not have a glare, maybe 20" or so.  I print photos at home on my HP Photosmart printer, but I also have some printed professionally.  I would like recommendations on monitor calibration gadgets/software
so that what I see is very close to what will print.
This computer will have MSOffice 2010 on it. Will have quite a few other softwares on it that are currently on my old pc.
We don't watch movies on the PC or do any gaming so the video card will mainly be used for photography and some light video use.  We do skype.
Would like to stay in the range of $1500-2000 if possible.  I've basically purchased Dell's in the past due to the ease of designing my system,
but I have had two lemons and am certainly not tied to Dell.
I know I want a wireless mouse/keyboard.  Currently have Dell Speakers 5/1, which are decent enough for my use, as long as I can connect them to my
new PC.
Thanks for good advice!!  (And I want this PC to last me about 5 years so I would guess I need at least 8 g ram, 3.5 GHz processor, preferably Intel.
Also want 4 or more USB ports on the front or side, as my PC location is not suitable to use the back ports easily.)   Thank you!

picture-me wrote:
Would like to stay in the range of $1500-2000 if possible.
I've taken quite a "non-standard" approach to this...  a little while back I purchased a powerful Dell Precision T5400 workstation that's come off lease from eBay, then populated it with good hardware.  Result?  Dual quad core Xeon 3.16 GHz 16 GB system with 3 TB of internal RAID disk storage and a good modern video card for about $1500.  This is a system that would have sold new for probably $6,000 just a few years ago.
I didn't have to buy any of the external stuff (monitor, backup drives, keyboard/mouse, etc.) because I upgraded from an existing workstation and was able to re-use all that stuff, plus one 1 TB drive from the old system - which I then sold for $700 to recoup some of the cost (total outlay was then only $800).
I describe the system and how I put it together in some detail here:
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/827500
This is a far more powerful system than anything I could get new for the same price.
Just a quick glance at eBay and I see that some T5500 workstations are becoming available for reasonable prices now.  I see, for example, a dual quad system with 12 GB of RAM for a Buy It Now price of a hair over $1000.
-Noel

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