LOL, SO TRUE. AOL FTW! hahaha,

 

If you know your stuff and willing to do a ton of shopping online and homework you can get close to cheap building yourself but if you figure shipping/tax from buying from different online vendors, the time (=money) you spend looking for each individual part, and the biggest issue of all: support, most people who aren't savvy or enjoy building themselves I'd recommend just buying the whole thing from dell or something.

I'd probably still never buy a HP or compaq from some retail store, but dell is usually configurable enough and have enough sales to make it worthwhile. If you belong to any professional associations, check if they have partnerships with dell as well. I work for a real estate company and the National Assocation of Realtors partners with Dell to give their members discounts.

Personally I'd rather build myself, but that's cause i like doing it. It's like a hobby for me. And when something goes wrong, I have enough experience to know what component is messed up. I know how to open my box, and change parts. Also when building yourself, your individual parts all have their own seperate warranties to keep track of. When something goes wrong with say a Dell... well you call Dell. You might have a Creative card blow, a WD HD explode, etc, you call Dell. It's a convenience thing for most people.

Also, if you're worried about bloatware, try ordering from their small business section. They tend to not load all that free aol/internet, stupid freetrial photo software crap on their business models.