I gotta say I agree with Roderic (aside from being more of a low-end-oriented buyer), although I respect that there are a LOT of bad options out there. It all comes down to simplicity and confidence, in my opinion. In another forum there was a guy who came on asking for PC advice and of course he immediately got a half-dozen different replies, almost all of them flat out wrong and several dubious. Not one of them contained any scientific methodology for ascertaining the best return/$ chips or SKUs or practical assembly advice, and as it turned out, by the time some of us did pipe up with rational advice he was the kind of person who is so flustered by choice that he really, really, really should have bought an Apple. Some people are just like that, there's no shame in that, they have other skills they're working on, they get hosed pricewise, but hey, that's where I used to make my money, so who am I to complain? Anyway, I do vehemently disagree with the suggestion that consoles offer you more for the money, especially looking at the crappy lockin-oriented "features" of the upcoming console generation. But, to each their own. Honestly, though, having been here for so long now, I wouldn't hestitate in the slightest to say, if you're looking to buy a gaming PC, and you are an upstanding b3d member, you're doing yourself a disservice not to rely on the forum's knowledge (as I do regularly, when my knowledge is out of date) in advance. You can dodge a lot of bullets that way, and, in the long run, wind up far, far ahead of anything that a warranty might save you.
Hope this doesn't sound critical of the OP; that is not my intention -- I'm coming in late, mostly to thank the smart fellas here and suggest that we have all seen a lesson clearly illustrated here, and thanks to the OP for being big enough to share that with us; I know I often like to hide from my mistakes, lol (buries northbridge chip snapped from use of AS epoxy further)!
