I'd like to buy a new PC asap, I'm familiar with the technical aspects of PCs but would rather not build myself. I imagine a lot of you guys have ordered PCs through cyberpower/ alienware type companies, whats the latest in terms of reputation/ quality of these companies? I've tried reseller ratings but it seems unreliable due to the amount of obviously fake reviews on just about all the companies.

My current PC is a falcon-nw though theyre prices are insane now, I'd like something similar to an alienware though without the heavy price-tag for the brand name. Budget is about $2k for everything including the monitor, so $1600 for everything within the tower. Also not planning on running SLI/ crossfire, though I do plan on an SSD and 8gb of the fastest ram and whatever AMDs latest CPU is. Any suggestions would be much appreciated, Thanks.

i've used http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/ for 2 builds and have no complaints...tbh i have no idea how their prices stack up compared to others but they certainly didn't seem outrageous

Why wouldn't you do something that takes an hour tops and saves you tons of money?

I also suggest going for Intel's latest Sandy Bridge type CPUs. They eat AMD alive ( at least until AMD goes out with the Bulldozer architechture ).

There you go, 1500$ for the finest stuff:

Motherboard MSI P67A-GD65 (B3): LGA 1155, Intel P67 Express
Graphics MSI R6970-2PM2D2GD5: Radeon HD 6970 2 GB
Processor Intel Core i7-2600K: 3.4 GHz-3.8 GHz, 8 MB Shared L3 Cache
Memory G.Skill F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM: DDR3-1600 C8, 4 GB x 2 (8 GB)
System Drive 2x A-Data S599 64 GB, SATA 3Gb/s SSD
Storage Drive Samsung F3 HD103SJ 1 TB, 7200 RPM HDD
Power Seasonic SS-850HT: 850 W, ATX12V v2.31, 80 PLUS Silver
+ 30$ for a DVD burner, 50$ for a top-notch CPU cooler, 80$ for a good case.

With this build you'll be able to run Crysis 2 twice. At the same time. While playing Starcraft 2.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...g-pc,2904.html

I agree, you can build a monster system yourself for that budget if you don't mind a little assembly. These days, you're basically playing legos with 5 hardware components and Windows (or OS of choice) does the rest automagically. And there's lots of support on forums if you get stuck.

In addition to Tom's Hardware, you can check out Tech Report's system building guides which are very useful:
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20722

nice link

btw, I read the 1500$ system and it's pretty much the same as the previously posted one. Shows that there are currently clear cut favorites in most components.

Component Item Price
Processor Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz $314.99
Motherboard Asus P8P67 PRO $189.99
Memory Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 $103.99
Graphics XFX Radeon HD 6950 1GB $244.99
Storage Intel 320 Series 120GB $239.99
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB $59.99
LG WH10LS30 Blu-ray burner $89.99
Audio Asus Xonar DG $29.99
Enclosure Corsair Graphite Series 600T $159.99
Power supply Corsair TX750W $109.99
Total $1,543.90

Thanks guys I'll take a look into building on myself again. Its been a long time and I hate dealing with compatibility issues guess I'm being lazy but I had figured competition was so strong/ saturated by now that they barely charge over the material cost with the builders by now.

Assembling a PC yourself still saves you a ton of money, and compatibility is no problem if you just follow the advice of some guides like those pasted in here. Just read the socket label for the CPU and the Mobo and you'll be more than fine.

Most of the time, it's even stiöö worth it to buy the components yourself and then give them to someone techy and let them assemlbe everything for a fee ( if you think you can't do it yourself ).

On a side note, the link checkraise posted isn't bad at all, if you really want someone to build it for you. Still more expensive than building for youself, but apparently you US dudes have it better than us Euros with the pricing

ya his link was awesome, definitely going the hands on approach now. Thanks a lot guys

I built my pc from watching a series of youtube vids, no prior experience and it took 2 hours or so and I'm basically an idiot. It's run perfectly well for over a year, if I can do it anyone can.

I was afraid to build my own computer, but I'm very happy that I did. Once you buy a gaming computer, you will almost for sure end up swapping parts in the future. If you have no clue what the inside of you computer even looks like - you are going to have a difficult time.

I pretty much just followed the instructions and while it was a bit frustrating at times, it took me less than 2 hours. Now I have the knowledge to troubleshoot and change basic things in my PC, which is very helpful.

yeah after i posted that link itt i decided it was time for a new PC and put it together myself...ran into a minor snag when it wouldn't power on after i put it together and i thought i ****ed something up but the power supply i bought was just bad, swapped it with a replacement and it started right up and haven't had any issues in the ~15 months since

Bah, I didn't even read the original date. Good to see you built your own. I couldn't get mine to start because I missed a plug going to my MOBO and it took me about 15 minutes to realize it after finding myself in a cold sweat thinking that I did something wrong along the way. I remember closing the clamp on the processor scared the crap out of me. I swore it was going to snap in half.

Im on my 4th self built pc and i still **** myself every time i have to push the cpu clamps in.

I don't know where the OP is at but when I got mine I just found a supplier that would build the rig to my specs for like $50, sure you can do it yourself but in terms of hourly cost it's not a big outlay and where I got it they also tested it for a while so I didn't get any DOA parts