HP Pavilion 500 AMD8 vs Lenovo H520 i5

[SamD123]

I am thinking about buying either a HP Pavilion 500 with an AMD8 processor or a Lenovo H520 with an Intel CORE i5 processor. I have two questions:

1. Which machine will be better for a home office?

2. Do I have to but a special type of monitor for Windows 8?

 

[C12Friedman]

links to the specific units would be awesome here for comparison purposes since the models have sub-models within that vary a lot
A special monitor is not needed for win 8 although it does like touch screens but they aren't a necessity