Reply #11: It's not a 1:1 comparison ...

[RoyGBiv]

Most people who home build don't use the same kinds of parts that mass-producers use. With the last system I built for myself, I wanted high-end graphics and sound without any major bottlenecks, which means I did a lot of research and put together high-quality parts that worked well together. Yes, I spent a little more than a comparably advertised system built by some company like Dell, but I didn't have a great graphics card that was slowed down by cheap, slow memory, or a hard drive with no buffer, or a power supply that wasn't enough to support overclocking or the fans I wanted, etc.

I could build the same system Dell puts together for a similar price, and I'd do what they do -- some part of it, perhaps several parts of it, would be cheap, as in not just inexpensive.

That said, there is one major issue with putting together your own system these days that can bump it over the price of a store-bought system even if you save money on cheaper parts -- the operating system. A retail copy of Windoze XP (NOT the upgrade, but the full system you can use to install from scratch) is nearly $200 at most places, which is more than any single piece of equipment in my system. There are places that will sell you the new install version for around $100, if you buy parts -- usually a motherboard or processor or both -- from them also. System builders like Dell get a break on the OS, so they can offer some systems you build yourself for less overall.

And all that said, I will never purchase a pre-built system again unless it is from a small, local dealer who, as is mentioned in the poll, essentially home builds. The only way I'd do that is if I got a very basic system, then added my own upgrades, and I'd do it just for the price break on the OS.