best place to get a pre-built machine?

[heyaz]

I'm looking to spent about $1800 on a new rig, I checked some sites like buyxg.com but seems there is a bit of markup over something like newegg.com. I'm not too comfortable with putting together a machine from scratch (mostly because I don't know what hardware works with what - not that I can't snap everything together, its like legos).

Looking for something like:

i7 2.66Ghz (or 3.0 if I can get it cheap)
12-16GB RAM - 1333 or 1666
2 or 3-way SLI motherboard
1000w PSU
Video cards up in the air - a pair of nvidia 285s, or ATI 5870s. or just one 295GTX
1.5TB whatever hard drive, don't care
64GB SSD for wow

I put together something like that on buyxg.com but it went over $2000 with Win7, and there was no option for 16GB ram (had to jump to 24GB for another grand).

I think I could put the machine together if I knew what parts to buy... can anyone list their rig specs and approx price and maybe I'll just go with that setup?

Thanks

[QuantumX]

Honestly is really really easy to put a machine together...

look at

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/

All you need to know about building a PC very helpful bunch its a UK website but i suspect that there is something similar in the US.

Putting your own PC together will mean

1. better spec for your money!!
2. everything do right
3. an achievement.

Other then that you could always go www.alienware.com

[Ualaa]

I went with an i7 920.
Asus P6T Motherboard.
12gb of Mushkin 12,800 ram (1600mhz)

Already had everything else from the last system.
The other components are below what you're looking for.

Everything was bought at www.memoryexpress.com

Silverstone 850 Watt power supply
Sapphire 4870 X2 video
WD Raptor, 150 GB
Seagate 500 GB

[thinus]

Other then that you could always go www.alienware.com

Isn't Alienware seriously overpriced?

[Ualaa]

For what you get its overpriced.

But then you could go there, to spec out a higher end machine.
And then buy the parts yourself.

One of the boxers, had a site.
For gaming computers they made.
And a couple have sites in their signatures too.

[Moorea]

gateway FX is actually good for the price - you wouldn't get an ssd but you can add just that to a nice config

[DrChaos]

I get all my computer stuff from tiger direct.com. my computer was 600. and i box 5 wows, always have some type of music on, vent and atleast 2 sites up for quick info searching. Running with xp pro 64 bit and 8 gig of mem on 3 - 1 TB hard drives. cant beat that for 600.00! i just upgraded to an sli setup with 2 nvidia cards for 200.00.