I've promised to post my new system when it was finally bought or built, and wanted to do so in this section. I also wanted to start some discussion on buying versus building and your experiences. The last system was a laptop so obviously it was bought, from Dell, and I was really happy with my dealings with them. After pricing parts mostly from newegg and tigerdirect and reading alot of reviews, I finally narrowed down what I expected to buy would cost us around $900 to $1100 USD. As an afterthought I decided to check with Dell online and found they had comparable systems for the same price. I even went so far as to check the service manuals and even quizzed the poor sales lady over the phone about every detail I had already checked online, just to be sure. We ordered the Dell and we recieved the new system in a record 4 days, I didn't have to go through the hassle of building it, the system has nearly the exact specs I was looking for, and the warranty is all in one place. Ten years ago I would have honestly been embarassed to say I bought a pre-built machine, but this time it was the smart way to go. I even get to upgrade to Vista in a couple months for a $10 shipping fee.

So the machine got here and first things first, I yanked the case open fully prepared to send it back if it wasn't perfect. I almost drooled on it...

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6400 (2.13GHz,1066FSB) with 2MB cache
2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
250GB SATA II Hard Drive (7200RPM) 3gb/s
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE (PCI express x16)
16X DVD+R/RW CD-RW Combination Drive

The mobo has 4 ram slots, 6 SATA connections, & more expansion slots than I'll ever want. The cooling system is massive but quiet. The PSU is plenty, I'm thinking a 550w. I added a Serial and PS-2 PCI Adapter that wasn't standard, just in case, though it probably won't ever be needed. The OS is XP media center edition. The case is very easy to get into... I know I'm missing alot but those are the basics. We ended up paying $1005 after taxes.

So there it is! Unless I had hunted down open box specials, used spare parts, or hunted down deals for months, I really don't think I would have gotten a better deal building my own system. I've heard plenty of bad about Dell and other big box places from customers, but so far so good in my book!

You couldn't have gone for a better processor?

Nah, for what we'll be doing this will be more than enough. And for now, the price jump between this and a faster one is pretty big. In a year or two we can upgrade at a much cheaper price and we'll actually be able to use it.

Alright, as many times as I've seen on these forums, "It's so much cheaper to build rather than buy a new computer", I thought for sure I'd have at least a few people telling me I was completely nuts! Maybe I just haven't given it enough time, but could it be that those days are finally over and we don't have to do that extra work anymore?

I still wouldn't touch a HP with a 10 foot pole (except when I have to at work) or a Sony Vaio laptop (no service manuals to PAYING customers???), but I think this is a big step in the right direction. I won't even start on how big box stores stock computers with just enough RAM to run Windows, then the manufacturer tries to get you to buy RAM for hugely inflated prices... These companies can buy parts and software in bulk for massive discounts, I don't see why this shouldn't have been happening like this years ago. I guess it helps that I know what I need and what I'm getting....