You should mine scrypt based altcoins, they are much more profitable than sha256 based ones.
Litecoin, Feathercoin, CGB....that is your choise.
You need GPU, ATI 6th or 7th series and if you like to mine some CPU coin you need powerful CPU.
I currently have the following hardware.
I7 3770k
I5 2500k
8350FX
I'm getting a 6990 tomorrow.
Perfect!
Set CPU power to primecoin solo mining, 6990 to any altcoin is profitable to mine at the moment.
But if you have intention to keep your coins and waiting best price I advice you to collect some Litecoins!