I would agree with Bob that building your own to save money is a loosing proposition. Buy a Dell (or other) and save yourself the time and agravation (I've never had one go together with zero glitches) of putting it together and save a few bucks to boot. Don't forget to include the time you are not spending on billable work in your cost calculation.

The reasons I build my own are:

1 - I want to understand hardware well enough to diagnose clients' problems as well as my own. This is the most important reason by far.

2 - I want to configure my system using component combinations that are not readily available on the market.

3 - I recycle components and spread out cost by doing rolling upgrades of components between system rebuilds. I.e. I replace the CD drive with a DVD/CD-RW. Another time might I upgrade my sound card, I upgrade my HD to a larger unit and may replace the SCSI card to match new HD's capabilities. Eventually I upgrade the motherboard, CPU and RAM. Then I replace the video card to match the performance of the new motherboard and I am off again. This both extends the life of my components and enhances my understanding of hardware. It also comes with a cost in time spent picking components, ordering them and installing the hardware and drivers.

One advantage to buying from a manufacturer that was not mentioned is compagability of components. This is your responsibility when you roll your own. If you buy a video adapter that has problems working with your motherboard, it is your resposibility to figure that out and deal with it.

Another advantage to major manufacturers is warranty work. When I diagnose a problem with a client's Dell that is under warranty, I call Dell, explain the problem to a tech, they overnight a part to a local repair rep and the rep replace the part the next day. I've never had a hassle with them and my client's downtime and cost is minimized.

So unless you want to spend time learning to be a hardware jockey, go with Bob's suggestion and buy a pre-built unit.

...Jim