I may not need it, but I'd rather spend a bit extra rather than find out 1-2 years from now that for some reason I DO need it. That's how I ended up needing to buy a new computer every year in law school. I want to buy a computer that I won't have to touch (probably) for 5-7 years.

So, what am I doing on my computer? Well, obviously the base wordprocessing, but this shitty Dell works for that. I also scan and modify pictures, copy DVDs, scan documents, convert PDF to Word and vice versa, and sometimes need to do several of those things at once under time pressure. I also enjoy playing the occasional Total War series of games, particularly when the enemy army is breaking and my cavalry can run them down and slaughter them. But I digress.

This is another option:

Your HPE490t series
Operating system Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-980X six-core Extreme Edition [3.33GHz, 1.5MB L2 + 12MB shared L3 cache]
Memory 16GB DDR3-1066MHz SDRAM [4 DIMMs]
Hard drive 160GB solid state drive
Secondary Hard Drive 1TB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive
Office software Microsoft Office Starter 2010
Security software Norton Internet Security(TM) 2010 - 15 month
Graphics card 2GB ATI Radeon HD 5570 [DVI,HDMI, DP, VGA adapter]
Speakers No speakers
Primary optical drive Blu-ray player & Lightscribe SuperMulti DVD burner
Networking Premium Wireless-N LAN card and Bluetooth(R )
Front Productivity Ports 15-in-1 memory card reader, 1 USB, 1394, audio
TV & entertainment experience No TV Tuner
Sound Card Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio
Keyboard and Mouse HP deluxe wireless keyboard & wireless mouse