I am curious, is your computer going to be for buisness, coding, or gaming, or just all around. Also what is your budget? Because if you would like i could build you a computer post the specs and price. Right now i am running off of a Dell XPS gen 5. I believe it is an amazing gaming computer and i love it.
Buying a custom pc, picking out the parts and putting it together yourself you will end up saving yourself anywhere from $300+ dollars could be up to $600 even more.. You will also get all high quality parts with the custom pc you pick out and still save money. Dell is an "Okay" pc for a business user or someone that doesnt know much about computers and wants a known manufacturer to put it together for them. At dell they make you think you will be getting a good deal but guess what???? You are not.. Yes I am serious, I have built and or configured faster and more powerful computers with all high quality parts and it still comes out to be cheaper than a dell would be. "This is 100% positive every time if you pick out the parts yourself and put it together yourself" You save all the installation fees, profit and what not... You cant comare an entry level XPS gaming computer they call it to the pc that atg wants configured because the entry is what it says. You only get 512mb ram,x300se video card which is crap by the way and really slow, 80gb harddrive, etc there is plenty more also..
Dell also uses really cheap motherboards and i am not exaggerating on it they cost like $40 for them to make or buy lol..
Now, the Dell XPS 600 series is the only good series. They have 2 xps 600's. The Hard Core Gaming and the
Extreme Gaming. The hard core gaming starts at 1,799 you get a monitor but the memory is still only 1gb for an $1800 machine with the regular 6800 nvidia video card... That is a rip off. Ya you can choose a faster video card but if you go up to the 7800gtx, the price then goes up to $2079. That is a rip off for what you are getting from dell...
The Extreme Gaming starts at $4,329. It has dual video cards and 2gb of ram but I can build a pc faster than it for $2900-$3000 with a monitor... all high top quality parts... 2 7800gtx's ....xfi sound card... Might be able to build it a hundred dollars or more less also that what I posted.
Im just giving you an example. Dont buy a Dell unless you dont know how to build a pc or dont know of anyone to put it together for you at a decent price.