I put this in the shoutbox to try and get some short term answers as well, but I figured I might as well throw it up in here as well.  So, I'm getting a new PC on my birthday on the 25th and I need a few suggestions.  I have found a few good ones, but the one that looks the best is

http://computers.toptenreviews.com/gaming/cyberpower/cyperpower-pc-black-pearl-review.html

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1D7HR2

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=306251&CatId=1886

Now, what I am asking is this:  What are the downsides of this PC, is there any sort of trick to it, and is there something better for the same price range or less.  Basically, I am a bit computer retarded and so I feel that getting a gaming PC of this caliber for 1300 dollars seems a little bit cheap.  Maybe I am missing something and it is actually not that great, or it is missing a monitor/keyboard/mouse/whatever.  Feel free to make fun/give advice/throw in your opinion.  All the help you can give is appreciated.

*Edit*  Got some advice from CaptainWTF about a gaming PC, so I have added the URL for it as well.

*2nd Edit*  Got more advice form Squishy and have changed it a bit accordingly.  The price is a bit high, though, so maybe a little help on trimming that? 

*3rd Edit*  Even more advice from people in mumble and have added a third comp for consideration.

My personal thoughts:

I'm with cody on the RAM.  They're going to use name brand stuff, not cheap stuff, so getting the Dominator series memory is not a must.  All you're going to get with that is cute blinky led's on your ram.  If you don't care about not having those, then save yourself $50.

I don't have any experience with noise reduction in a computer, so take this advice for what it's worth.  You're already using a water cooling solution (which is dubbed as "silent") plus a PSU which is also dubbed as "quiet".  These upgrades should help keep your case from being obnoxiously loud.  I'd personally drop all of the noise reduction / vibration reduction stuff.  They're going to load you down with enough 120mm fans that cooling shouldn't be an issue, especially since your cpu heat is being piped immediately out of the case through the water cooler.  Once again, i've never used any of this type of stuff in my builds and have still achieved a relatively quiet build...so I don't see the point in it, but someone else might be able to shed more light on that.  Save yourself another $43.

I would take the $$ from these 2 areas and throw it at a SSD.  You can pick up a 40GB SSD for about this much.  If you don't mind throwing a little more at it, you can grab an 80GB SSD.  This is where I think you'll notice the most significant performance boost.  They will load windows on the SSD, and you can put a few games on there too and see the boost from your SSD (just watch out how many games you throw on there...you won't have a lot of space).  If you're talking about speed differences that you can feel, an SSD is gonna deliver something noticable to your experience that some of this other stuff doesn't.

Last thing is the "Pro Overclocking".  All they're doing is changing some settings in your bios and charging you for it.  If you want to get into overclocking, then you wouldn't pay for this stuff...and if you don't ever want to worry about overclocking, then how will you ever know if this $$$ spent is actually translating into anything noticeable?  Moreover, my motherboard has a "smart overclocking" or something feature where by clicking 1 setting in the bios, it will overclock your system by 10%...which is what you're paying for.  Personally, I put overclocking into those 2 categories:  people who jump into it fully and people who don't care anything about it.  This looks like they're trying to charge you $20 to create a 3rd category that doesn't really exist.  You're getting a hyper-threaded dual core clocked at 3.3 Ghz from the factory.  It will be years before you could logistically justify a 10% overclock.

just my $.02

Blinking LEDs on your RAM is 100% necessary. But if you want to save some cash, well... D:

SSDs... I'm still not sold. They certainly have some boost in areas, but I've got four 500gb 7200rpm Seagate HDDs in a RAID0 and believe me, the money I spent on my rig, if I thought it would have made it worth it, I would have gone with SSDs. I'm not a big fan of load times, but with my setup, it's really not that bad.


TBH, have you considered actually building your own PC? It is kinda rewarding, and truthfully, it's not that hard. Hell, you could set up a little webcam and we could video skype you through the build.

Ended up going with the third choice.  The first wasn't very good, the second site had bad customer service.  All in all, i have heard good things about Tiger Direct and it was prebuilt, which is a plus for me.  I honestly didn't want to build my own because of a lack of interest in building a gaming rig.  I don't understand the differences between all of the parts when I am ordering and I had a nasty feeling that I would royally F something up when I tried to put it together.  I will give a full report once i receive and hook up the darned thing.  It should arrive in about 3-5 days they say.

I've never had a problem with TD either. They're my #1 for ordering electronics online. Bought my 65" DLP from them, my current gaming rig, OCZ laptop... quite a bit TBH.

I've also got a corporate account with them for when I order stuff at work, and they're excellent with their service.

The easiest thing to do when buying parts is to look at a site like Tom's Hardware and look at the hierarchy charts and see what cards rank highest, and then look at each one budget wise. It's not as bad as it seems, and neither is building them. Couple of screws here and there, and there's a total of like 10 parts you're actually assembling. Certain things only go in certain places, so you really can't go too wrong.

Just as long as you've got the power supply bolted in, and the power cord hooked to the wall, as long as you're touching the metal case, you're not going to static fry anything. Or if you're extra nerdy, you can wear a static band.

TD > Newegg because NJ doesn't have to pay tax. Yay!

Newegg all the way for me.
Xoxide/frozen CPU for mod stuff.

no Newegg tax in TX...no clue on TD.  I've ordered from both...i buy from whoever has the best deal.  Usually that's newegg...but not all the time.

yeah I got a logitech 2.1 USB speaker dock with usb hub (normally 80.00) for 26 off of TD super kick ass deal. used for laptops its supposed to be but I use it on the desktop cause my 5.1 set is fucked. the box leaks air out the RCA's n the control plate on the back so its fucking useless and its got a short or something or dirty contacts on the switch to adjust the sub level blah blah. yeah.

I use Newegg, Tiger Direct, FrozenCPU, Xoxide, Frys, and Amazon for tech stuff. primarily Newegg.