You can get a nice Windows box (i7 3770, H77 Chipset, 8 Gigs of ram, a few bells and whistles) that 8 will run well on (about $1300 if you buy name-brand, or $800 to do it yourself) but you really need a touchscreen to enjoy 8 - and I have yet to find one on sale in H-town (without a PC built into the back of it, or it being a laptop lid..)
I have installed and used windows 8 on a variety of locally sourced hardware - I have not yet found it fussy about components, nor have i seen it go-slow on lesser systems. But damn I miss that start button. Guess i'm getting old. Will have to wait for 8.1!