Another good source for pc hardware info and reviews is
Tom's Hardware: Hardware News, Tests and Reviews. They have been focusing on efficiency recently and have an extensive archive of reviews.
Re: Solid State hard drives - according to the most recent article on TomsHardware.com not all SSHD's are more efficient than a standard HD. It might be worth waiting for a generation or two of development to drive the prices down and the efficiency and storage space up.
FWIW,
Tim