If I build myself, where do I get lifetime U.S.-based technical support and three years of parts and labor warranty? If something happens, I want the people who made my PC - the experts - to fix it.

The way I look at it, I could save money by buying used cars but I don't do it. I always buy less car than I can afford but I refuse to go cheap. I want my new PC to show up at my door, without me lifting a finger, all shiny and new-smelling, perfect and ready to go. I want to unbox it like a kid at Christmas.

I've been very happy with the eight PCs I've purchased from companies that specialize in building them. I'm just tired of using the same company with their bland cases. This time, I want a little pizzazz, so I'm looking for the best boutique PC maker. The best for the dollar and quality combo, but I'm willing to pay a couple of hundred dollars more for some pizzazz.

1) I said it in the past: When you guys are configuring systems online, please cut away the clutter from the Specs so the people trying to help you can respond quickly and efficiently to the core components (PSU, Mobo, CPU, GFX). Or at least BOLD the important parts.

2) Now for actually being helpful: That is way too expensive a price for the components.

For my system with an i5 750, 4 Gigs DDR, a high quality PSU and a high quality intel board, on a 4890 GFX card AND with an SSD drive AND with Win7 Ultimate AND with three years warranty I'm paying about 1600EUR which comes to about 2380USD. If I'd just reduce the price of the SSD and Win7 Ultimate over Home Premium I'd already be much under your cost (at around 2000USD). But given that for most computer parts, EUR prices are usually higher than the normal conversion from USD, your system just comes out quite a bit more expensive than necessary, I'd say at least 200 or 300USD too high, on my feeling and experience.

I know the overclocked i7 is more value than my i5 and the GTX285 is slightly faster than my 4890, but this can't compensate for the SSD and Ultimate and additional 1GB RAM and the generally higher EUR prices I'm paying.

From a price/performance point of view, you'd be better off with an ATI 5850 or 5870, unless the GTX285 has dropped considerable in price (it should be priced under or at least close to the current HD5850 price, if it isn't you're paying too much.)

From a pure performance POV that WD 500GB drive will be your bottleneck in the system, I would seriously consider getting a Raptor.

"From a pure performance POV that WD 500GB drive will be your bottleneck in the system, I would seriously consider getting a Raptor."

Wait a minute. I don't see how a 10K vs. 7.5K HD can make a difference in a game in which you're already getting 75 fps? At a certain point well below 75 fps, the human eye cannot detect the difference. I don't disagree that a Raptor is faster than a Western Digital drive. What I'm saying is, with a super fast, over-clocked processor, and a top notch video card, in a 10 year old Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon game, how I would benefit at all from paying extra dough for a Raptor? Most of my games and sims already scream on my ancient Pentium 4, single core with 2 GB RAM, a 7200 rpm Western Digital HD, and a Geforce 8800 GTS 640MB machine.

The software that taxes my system - FSX, DCS: Black Shark - can be easily remedied without spending a dime on a Raptor. Other games that might demand a Raptor, if there are any, fortunately don't interest me. Again, for games in which I'm already getting 100 FPS with my ancient P4, certainly a new i7 system with a GTX 285 will send those games into the stratosphere even with a Western Digital 7200 rpm hard drive.

Besides, I was told HD speed (like SSD) affects the speed at which programs LOAD or boot up. That it makes no discernable difference in a flight sim, for example, while playing it. Where it really makes a difference is in graphics and media applications, and I never do any of that stuff. A aales rep at one of the boutique companies I've been talking to told me that, even though by telling me it meant I would probably order the slower, less expensive HD. I would think they'd want me to spend as much money as possible.

LATE NOTE: I did a reconfig and managed to come up with a Digital Storm system with all of the above components but with 6GB of 1600 MHz Mushkin RAM for under $2,000. It came out to $1928. No taxes. Free shipping. Whaddya think? Should I go for it?

For some games like ArmedAssaut2 and Stalker, which stream environment and constantly swap textures, a fast HDD will improve the smoothness of gameplay, doing away with stutter or micro-freezes.

But that's not the point, really.

The point is that in everyday usage of a computer, the biggest pauses in normal applications are today from the HDD. Know the feeling in XP while you wait for all the tray icons to load so the system becomes responsive? That's the HDD.

Or the way Outlook2003 almost freezes until it has it's mails downloaded? That's the HDD, too.

Or when a mni-splash screen goes all white and leaves white small window on your desktop while the app loads - and the task manager has the process "not responding" - that is often the HDD.

Any system bought today - especially with W7 - will be very fast, but the average mechanical HDD will still give these unnecessary "doubleclick and then wait for stuff to happen" pauses. I hate them, when I want to do something, I want to do it that moment, not wait.

Besides, be a little less agressive in your retorts. If you already have your opinions, there's no point in giving you advise. We just saved you money by giving you a reason to reconfigure the system towards a more realistic price, and I see my estimate of 200 to 300USD less was very accurate. I didn't expect a "thank you", but if you doupt my suggestions why did you reconfig the hardware?

I apologize if I sounded aggressive. That was certainly not my intention. But my head is spinning from all the possibilities and choices in a new PC. I'm getting frustrated, I guess.

Anyway, here is what I found from an article in Tom's Hardware. Basically, it says that this particular 7200 RPM HDD, the Seagate Barracuda 1.5 Terrabyte, is faster than a 10,000 RPM Raptor drive:

"The new 1.5 TB Barracuda 7200.11 is quicker than many other drives, offering the fastest transfer rates ever seen on a 7,200 RPM drive. We measured up to 127 MB/s—more than a WD VelociRaptor running at 10,000 RPM. Access time and I/O performance are clearly dominated by the WD Caviar Black 1 TB and the new WD RE2 drive, but the Barracudas are at least second-place."

Finally, I don't use my home PCs for Outlook. I only use Outlook on my work laptop. I work for a 30 Billion dollar + corporation and our high-priced tech support keeps my laptop humming for whatever I need.

At home, I'm keeping my Pentium 4, XP3 machine for legacy games that may not run on Win 7, and for MS Office Suite 2003. My new Win 7 monster PC, the one I'm trying to configure to get the best price and quality components (I do have a budget limit), will be for more advanced sims like FSX and DCS: Black Shark (and the rest of the DCS series to come), rFactor 2, etc. I've never really had any "apps."

I do appreciate the advice, though. Where I live and work, I don't know anyone interested or engaged in PC gaming. They just play golf. This is the only place I know to go to seek advice from real humans who aren't trying to sell me a product.

No offense taken, it's always a problem with the written word.

If you are happy with the load times and occasional "does not respond" app, then stay with the Seagate. For me, it's my personal pet peeve having to wait for the sandclock - and it's usually caused by the HD.

What about Graphics Cards? Nvidia has CUDA and PhysX, but ATI has Direct X 11. I have no idea which is the best thing to get? With the ATI 5870 you get DX11 but have to buy an extra card to get PhysX. My head is about to explode!!!

well ATI supports Havok; basically the competition to Physx. But in all reality, there's very few games that support either; and probably just as few down the road (at least that I've heard of).
I wouldn't base your buy off of physics support...there's a 90% chance you won't even use it

What price is the GTX285? Unless Nvidia really dropped their price marks, the card is likely too expensive on a performance/cost base compared with the ATI 5870.

PhysX - I've yet to see a game that really needs it. Until someone builds a flightsim with a better flight model using CUDA, no point for me (nicely animated paper blown by the wind in Batman doesn't count...)

Google for a list of Physx games and see if there's stuff you want it for.

There is a massive shortage of the 58XX's in the UK and no one will have any until next year apparently! I cannot wait for a PC that long so I am going to get a 5770 but I have read that it is not as fast as a 4890 but it does have DX11...