Originally Posted by thumbuilderic

I am a MacBook Pro user, but if I were in your position, I'd look at an off-lease Windows 7 business unit from TigerDirect. You can avoid a lot of the nonsense/adware bullshit that comes preinstalled on most new systems. And between the 500-1000$ range you can get them with 8-16 GB RAM and SSD hard drives.

*Edit* - a lot of these systems will have warranties too.

As far as Windows 8 goes, I have heard too much (very lucid) negative feedback from experienced users. I don't like the idea of downloading a third-party program to modify the GUI either, that seems like it could pose for issues down the road.