About building your own: It's actually easier than most people think if you have a basic knowledge of hardware and BIOS setup. Just check the reviews on Newegg. The people who review PC components on their really know their stuff. There's just a few things to remember:

1) You need to give up this idea of spending $2000 to "future-proof" your system. A good bunch of parts now, plus a few upgrades down the road, will run you $1200 or less and give you about the same performance as a top-specced $2000 system now.

2) DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT skimp on your power supply. That is the one single component that can completely make or break your entire system. Grab a 500-550W PSU from Corsair; it'll run you $40 or so over a similar cheap-o PSU, but it's worth it.

3) Most games these days are bottlenecked by GPUs, not CPUs. A sub-$100 AMD tri-core will let you run modern games at blazing-fast FPS, provided you have a good enough graphics card.

4) Any graphics card over the $150 mark is a waste of money. If you're running lower than 1800x1200 or whatever the exact widescreen resolution is, you can get away with a $120 card. Anything more and an extra $30 or so is all you need to spend.

That said, here's the final build for the PC that I just ordered from Newegg, FYI:

CPU: AMD Athlon X3 435
MOBO: ASUS M4A77TD
RAM: 4GB G-SKILL Ripjaws Series F3-10666CL8D-4GBRM DDR3 1333
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 5
Graphics: XFX HD-477A-YDFC Radeon HD 4770 512MB
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM
DVD: LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+/-R

That setup, plus some zip-ties, thermal paste, and an OEM copy of Windows 7 64-bit set me back about $800 shipped, and it runs Crysis on High at exceptional framerates. You'll probably want a better GPU if you're not running your video through a 720p HDTV like me, and you expressed interest in a Blu-Ray drive, so you'll probably be spending a bit more - but then, you probably don't need to buy a copy of Windows like me. :P

well woudl suggest build yoru own, cheapest. but otherwise out of those two dell is better, but personally would suggest hp over both of them

Yeah, selfbuilts are the best..... and Newegg(my fave) is the best place to shop for PC parts for selfbuit aswell.

If you're planning on keeping your system for the next 3-4 years, don't buy anything less than a Core i7/X58 based system. Particularly on a $2k budget. i7/i5/P55 1156 socket based systems would allow you to shave about $100 off the same build, but for future proofing a system, the money saved isn't real value IMO.

The X58 based build would give you the flexibility of upgrading CPUs down the line if you need to for whatever reason as the X58/1366 socket will be compatible with Intel's future 6 core CPUs (buy at minimum DDR3 1600 RAM if you plan to do this to avoid replacing RAM later).

If you do end up building your own, it will give you the added flexibility of increasing your clock speeds later rather than upgrading CPUs if you need extra processing speed down the line.

Most OEM builds have mobos that disable overclocking functions in the BIOS for warranty purposes, barring boutique and other enthusiast builds that often pre-overclock your system from the factory.

As for VGA cards, it depends entirely upon what settings and games you're planning on playing with. No point in buying a $300 VGA solution if you're only running on a 1680x1050 resolution for example (although that would guarantee smooth frame rates on HQ settings for just about any current games).

With an SLI/Crossfire based board, you always have the option of adding a second VGA card later with the added benefit of paying a lot less for the same card when you do.

I couldn't tell you off hand whether most OEM builds are SLI/Crossfire compatible; it probably depends upon the specific OEM system in question. The HP PC I use for productivity for instance, isn't.

Socket 1136 is dead, except for $1000 Extreme Edition procs like Gulftown, or Xeons. Intel's roadmap shows all sub-$1000 processors being LGA1156 for the foreseeable future, with no guarantee that 2010's processors (Sandy Bridge) will be work in the current socket. 1366 is not a good long term bet, and 1156 is only if you believe Sandy Bridge will work in it.

Socket AM3, on the other hand, is used for all market segments now and will be used for the 2010 'Thuban' products and the 2011 'Bulldozer' products (likely in the $150+ range). So you get guaranteed two and a half years of socket compatibility.

I'm not a fan of the 'buy one GPU now, add another later' thing because in about a year's time when you'd want to do that you will be able to buy a new card for around the same price as the second one that performs better than two of them and has more features and uses less power than two. Example: 8800GTX -> 9800GX2, GTX280 -> GTX295, 2900XT -> 3870 X2, 3870 -> 4870, 4870 -> 5870. SLI/CF boards also have a premium when you could just use a normal board and a dual-GPU card like the GTX295 or 5870 X2.

In games, the extra RAM channels and memory bandwidth provided by LGA1366 won't increase performance. Core ix's Hyperythreading won't either; in some cases it helps performance. The only Core ix processor that is good value is the i5 750.

Overclocking is good on all sockets and boards at present (AM3, 775, 1156, 1366). There's no need to pay a premium for 'OC feature' boards when you can just buy an AMD black edition ($110 for an unlocked dual, $120 for tri, $166 for quad) and any cheap motherboard and adjust the muliplier.

This guy, unlike many others in this thread, knows exactly what he's talking about.

Again, to reiterate: There is no way to "future-proof" your system. You'll save a ton of money at the cost of zero performance by simply buying mid-range parts now and upgrading with more mid-range parts later.

Check out cyberpowerpc.com

Awesome builds for cheap prices.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229115

I bought that at newegg for 700$

Placed in a Sapphire Radeon HD4890 2GB 256-bit (DX11 was not out at that time)

an additional 4GB of DDR3 Ram and an additional fan

---------

Monitor: Asus 23.6" HDMI

Case: Orion Azza

AMD Phenom II X4 955 (3.2GHz)

Sapphire Radeon HD 4890 2GB DDR5 256-bit Vapor X

8GB DDR3 1333

500GB HDD

Price ended up being around $1000 even

No there is no way to "future-proof" a system, however buying a product once and then replacing it a 1/2 year later when a new game comes out is something nobody wants to do.

8GB of RAM is overkill unless you're editing videos or doing 3D modelling. Have you ever seen it use more than 4GB?

And also, it's worth mentioning that if AMD sticks with their current trend, their next socket (presumably AM4?) will be backwards compatible with AM3, just like AM3 works in AM2+ and AM2 motherboards as well (but with only DDR2 compatibility in the former, and DDR2 and lower HT speeds in the latter).

Though I think I read that the Fusion parts would have their own socket type... or am I mistaken?