Mbarlam,
We bought a quad 700 MHz Pentium III with 2 GB RAM. It is a beefy machine but we will have 2000 nodes to manage and are trying to keep our CAP on the site server (so far, so good). We also have our SQL Server installation on the same server.
I will be using Access for reporting. I wouldn't think you would need a separate server for Crystal Reports. To write reports in either, you will need a basic understanding of relational databases and Structured Query Language. If you have that knowledge, you should be OK. Microsoft has a white paper on Advanced SMS 2.0 Reporting that discusses the SMS database structure and several other useful things. Contact me at wardenlc@corning.com if you can't find it on their site.
Good luck,
wardenlc