the most expensive has to be falcon northwest.. i once tried with a friend who could built the most expensive computer.. we got a 12k for a laptop and a 23 k for a dekstop pc

Im considering the perspective that you wish to do free-lance work on your computer as well as gaming. So taking that into consideration you may be better suited to a home-built machine than a pre-built one as your needs may differ from those of the high end computer gamers who buy machines in your price range.

One professional looking computer case which is quiet, solidly built and comes with a locking mechanism for the front drive bays which will keep your most important asset, your I.P safer from being spirited away. It also helps you with presentation if you intend to bring clients into your home to show off the work.

Important consideration, time = money:

Raid and the humble solid state drive may very well be some of your better companions. Data security (Again its the I.P principle), performance and simplicity are perhaps some of the orders of the day here.

With a Raid 1 array of 2 * 1 TB drives you can be sure that if one of your HDDs go down you will not lose hours, days or even a weeks worth of data. Furthermore since you seem to be working with some large files the higher read speed coupled with the extremely high RAM quantities you demand will keep the pipes better fed.

With a SSD you get all the benifits of a Raid 0 array for your primary system drive with far better reliability and ease of setup and maintenence. Obviously some are designed as system drives and some are not, however since you'll be looking at the middle of the range options it won't be a problem.

Congrats. I would have chosen the latter though. PC building is just cool and cheaper which = all around fatter wallet.

Welp, first thing I would do with that pre-fab system is ditch the stock i7 cooler. By most accounts it only barely does what it should. Also, check your fan config in the case. It looks like it is only a mid tower so you need to make sure that thing is moving some air. Same with cables. Make sure they are streamlined and not blocking anything.

Both the i7 and the GTX card create a lot of heat. You don't want any unfortunate meltdowns during a rousing game of Crysis. 

Overheating is never a problem as long as you don't over-clock. Unless a fan breaks of course, but that can happen to any fan.

I always like the way you think (and the fact that you do).

 I'm not  too concerned about physical security or impressing visitors. I am concerned about data security from loss however and I strongly agree about RAID. If  I do build or customize my own I will opt for a 500G drive just for programs and everything else on a networked RAID 0 drive which will cover all the computers in the house. Right now they are very inexpensive. Any particular reason why you prefer RAID 1?

Falcon Northwest  has an enviable reputation for quality componenets and assembly so I don't have any problem with the Talon which is close to the Alienware and cheaper than the Dell. I would have a hard time justifying upgrading to the Mach V however, because as far as I can tell it uses identical components other than the case. $1,300 seems a mite high for a case.

The storage subsystem on your personal computer is the weakest link. For that reason it should be given some special attention IMO to alleviate potential bottlenecks. For example if you use an SSD you could probably do away with the idea of Raid on your system drive.

 That G.Skill is $140 on Newegg right now but unfortunately I had to do some digging and its not the longer life single level cell. One of these could easily replace a Raid 0 array and do it much more reliably at that.

I like the Raid 1 type arrays for system data because the drives are huge and its a total PITA to reload that information if one drive fails. Its very cheap to install a pair of 1TB drives and you generally get better performance than smaller drives. Furthermore you generally read data far more than you write it so the read speeds are IMO more critical in day to day use and in that respect Raid 0 has little advantage over Raid 1.

Gateway has had better products for good prices as of the past couple of years, I mean when I bought my laptop back in 2006 I got one with the same specs as a couple of my friends, one paid 2500 for his the other paid 2000, I paid 900 for a gateway, and it's lasted me till now, still a nice work laptop but no longer good for those low end spec games I used to buy.

@ Squilliam , SlimeBeast, FastFord58 and terislb

Some great ideas. You sent me back to the drawing boards one last time. Instead of matching the Gateway I went for improving on it, at least for my own purposes. And while I was at it, to compare custom built vs. scratch built. In selecting components, I used NewEgg feedback and prices to select individual parts.  FastFord 58, I picked a case with six 120mm fans, and a high rated CPU cooler. No heat problems for me. Number in ( ) is the NewEgg part price followed by the user rating (***** is tops).

I think this is shaping up into a hell of a system, thanks to all the help.

CASE: Sigma Gaming Windstorm Mid-Tower  Case (Blue Color with Side-Window)  w/ 6 x120mm fans (80)*****

POWER SUPPLY 635 Watts Power Supplies Sigma Shark SP-635W PSU - SLI Ready) (80)*****

CPU: Intel® Core^TM i7-920 2.66 GHz 8M L3 Cache LGA1366 (290)*****

COOLING FAN : Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX Gaming CPU Cooling Fan (Excellent Overclocking + Silent Proof 16dBA) (55) ****

MOTHERBOARD: (3-Way SLI Support) GigaByte GA-EX58-UD4P Intel X58 Chipset SLI/CrossFireX Ultra Durable^TM3 Mainboard Triple-Channel DDR3/1600 SATA RAID w/ eSATA, Dual GbLAN, USB2.0, IEEE1394a, & 7.1Audio (259) ****

MEMORY: 12GB CORSAIR XMS3 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel  (328)*****

VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GeForce GTX285 1GB 16X PCIe Video Card EVGA 01G-P3-1287-AR GeForce GTX 285 SSC Edition 1GB 512-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card (410)*****

HARD DRIVE: Single Hard Drive Western Digital Caviar 500GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 16MB Cache 7200RPM HDD (65) ****  

Optical Drive: Sony Sony Optiarc 22X DVD±R DVD Burner Black SATA Model (23)*****

Optical Drive 2: Sony Optiarc Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO (17) ***

SPEAKERS: 600Watts PMPO Subwoofer Stereo Speakers  (49) ****

NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100/1000 NETWORK CARD

MODEM: NONE

KEYBOARD: Logitech Deluxe 250 USB Keyboard (Black Color)(9) *****

MOUSE: XtremeGear Optical USB 3 Buttons Gaming Mouse (9) ****

Flash Media Reader/Writer: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer (BLACK COLOR) (21) ****

Cable Wiring: Professional Wiring for All WIRINGs Inside The System Chasis with High Performance Thermal Compound on CPU (20) NA

Rounded Cable: Round Cable Upgrade for Optical Drive (30) NA

IEEE CARD: Built in

USB PORT:  * Built-in USB 2.0 Ports

OS: NONE - FORMAT HARD DRIVE ONLY

Cyberpower PC - $1625 
Build from Scratch - $1455 (save $170)

Compared to the Gateway, this would have twice the RAM and a better GPU although a smaller HD (plan to have networked RAID). 

What does everyone think?