PC Gamers I Need Help Please

stay far far far away from those rigs! insanely overprized and unbalanced

where do you live maybe someone can help pointing you in a direction of a good pre-built.

+1 ^
with the first rig, water cooling is completely over the top and often performs worse than cheap air. 16Gb is over the top, the 2TB drive is too big, and card is too small. Never mind the cost.

an 15-2500K, with a z68 board, 8GB (2x4GB), a 1TB drive, a 560ti/6870or better card is an adequate starting place.

Building yourself is easy, if you've got all of the bits. With one exception plugs will only go where they are meant to.

There are self build stickys on the forums here, have a look though them. Let us make sure you have all of the components you need.

have you looked at custom builders... often they will build a pc to your own spec and will more than likely be a little cheaper than a typical prebuilt and be of higher spec.

Hello, and welcome to PC gaming community, hopefully you'll enjoy your stay.

Best advice I can give you is, devote some time to it, read, research and learn. Trust me when you are confident to put your own computer together you will know that you've come a long way and you will feel a better sense of accomplishment when you put your rig together rather than getting one built for you.

First place to start is here:
TH Builder Marathon - will give you a nice idea of what you can get for the money
another place to take a peek TH Buyers Guide - it might be a little outdated, but is full of good info

and lastly for latest info, trends and probably best advice, head over to the following section of these boards:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum-31.html

I'd recommend you to read a few stickies in there first, then make a new topic.

Hope this will give you a good start

This is a little off topic but I think sometimes people on tech forums can forget how daunting a first build can be for someone. This isn't aimed at anybody in this thread, it's just a general observation from years of watching the common "just build your own it's easy and cheaper!" comments which, while true, often don't account for the many variables of why someone isn't comfortable with trying their first build.

I just ordered parts for my sons first rig and it's only my third build and am still nervous about doing something stupid even though my last two went perfectly fine 

With that said please consider the following:

-Ask a friend or colleague who has built their own computers if they would be willing to help you put your first one together so you can assist but have someone there to guide you. My first build cost me parts + pizza for a work friend who was more than happy to guide me through the process. People on this forum would love to spend your money for you on some nice parts!!

-If you absolutely can't find anyone to do the above there are usually a few local shops in most towns who are willing to assemble a machine for a flat rate that you provide the parts for. While you still might have to deal with RMA'ing any faulty parts and won't have any warranty from the person assembling it, you can still usually save money because you aren't pruchasing parts that are marked up and you get to support a local shop who would likely be their for local future service if ever needed.

-If you are absolutely dead-set on buying a pre-built computer from an on-line manufacturer please do yourself the favor of only purchasing from a company who will actually give you the part numbers/make/model of ALL of the parts being used in the build. This way you can post a complete list of the parts being used and many of the good folks here are usually happy to review the list to make sure you aren't getting shafted by sub-par power supplies etc. that could end up causing you many headaches.

Sorry for rambling and good luck!

I did think carefully about the 'its easy' comment, I do believe that with help from those on here it can be done, we've walking people through it before. But yes not as easy as 'its easy' makes it seem.

But with thought ahead of time its doable. There's a thread today which starts off 'after loads of trouble, i've.... finally got to the point of fiddling the registry' and its their first post, i'd be 90% certain that a lot of that trouble could have been mitigated, and certainly suggesting that fiddling with the reg is a bad idea would have been up there somewhere.

Absolutely 13thmonkey, like I said nothing I posted was aimed at anybody in this thread.

For example while you accurately state that it is easy, you also offer that it in conjuction with assistance and good advice.

That is vastly different than the common "dude wtf is wrong with you, just build your own unless you are to stupid to do something my 4 year old could" type of "it's easy" post that I think often times turns people away from trying their first build that I was alluding to in my ramblings..... 

More than happy that you weren't pointing at me, and yes it is often expressed as being too easy. I think the place to start is a few upgrades, once you've installed a few cards, and reinstalled windows on a new HDD, you are more or less there. Then comes the understanding of airflow and cooling.