Pretty much anything will do for hardware,even "mum's laptop" so to speak, unless we are talking 4K.
Same goes for software.
Maybe try to be a bit more specific?

Power director is cheap and basic

I'd say for comfort and not squeezing your computer to it's limits, 8GB memory and a good video card with it's own memory - not the one that comes on the mother board. Fast, high RPM, hard drive for your scratch disk. (in other words, software runs on the C drive, you work is being edited on E or some physically other drive. Just another partition is not going to do anything)

That's a good start.

http://www.microstockgroup.com/equipment-and-software/is-it-possible-to-edit-video-in-i5-processor/msg395293/#msg395293

In case the above link doesn't work, it's for this computer:


HP Pavilion 500-314 Desktop, AMD A8-7600 Quad-Core 3.1GHz, 8GB DDR3, 2TB SATA, 802.11n, Win8.1

from my experience... buying underpowered technology and marginal software always turns into regret. sure you save some money up front but then have to live with a dogged system and all the frustration of that. eventually you will want to edit a demo reel or something for family and friends... Final Cut Pro X is a powerful cost-effective program.

Couldn't agree more. I went the cheap route and had nothing but issues, crummy outputs and horrible customer support, in fact they never returned support tickets, emails, etc. That was Power Director that was mentioned in this thread....zero support.   I ended up making a big change and went from Windows to Mac and purchased Final Cut Pro. It has opened up more opportunities for me I really had no idea I could leverage.  I now have a mix and wide breadth of video content thanks to FCPX. I don't regret making the change and there is A LOT on the net to help you with FCPX.