If you are not going to install a non-beginner system like Arch or Gentoo then you should try a virtual machine first. Otherwise, it may come in handy if you want to choose a system with a desktop environment that suits you, because changing after installing a system for a novice user can be hard without avoiding problems.

In fact, on a virtual machine like Virtual Box you won’t experience the problems you will encounter on real hardware (driver problem, etc.). It’s better to test liveiso with Ventoy instead.

Certainly the best choice for processor and graphics card will be AMD. I would certainly advise you to avoid Nvidia, as it is very poorly supported on Linux, and it is even worth paying extra for AMD if you use a system other than Windows.