After more than 5 years, I have finally decided to upgrade my entire computer system (have been replacing old & adding new hardware up to now). I'm creating more DVD's (Studio software) and find that my current hardware configuration is not keeping up (RAM, Video/Audio cards, etc.). I also use Photoshop imaging software quite a bit and have the same issue. I've used this forum for getting so many answers to my Studio issues, I thought I'd try and get some suggestions on new systems. As I have only minimal experience opening and installing hardware into my own computer, I would like to purchase an integrated system (I customized, then purchased my Dell on-line). I don't want to "skimp" on price, but I also don't want to go overboard (up to $3K probably). Any and all suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 

 

While I build my own (see my profile), get Maximum PC magazine. They have a lot of advertisements for custom built computers. You decide on what you want. $3k is a little overkill right now. You can get a very nice quad core with plenty of ram, fast video card and big hard drive for less than 1/2 that price. AMD will be a "cheaper" system build. Intel i7's will cost you the most (DDR3 ram is expensive along with the chip and motherboard, but you will have the fastest on the block). Right now, AMD has come out with the Phenom II CPU and Dragon build system (all AMD... chipset on motherboard, video card and cpu).

There are a lot of options out there.

I went through this same exercise a few months ago.  What I did was to go through all the suggestions and discussions in these forums and then I wrote a detailed spec of which hardware and which brands I wanted.  I priced out the spec using one of the cheapest online supply houses (as if I would put the parts together myself).  I then used that spec to get prices from local computer stores, mainly the small specialized ones.  I calculated that I paid about 10% more, but whenever I have a problem, it's only a phone call away from a solution and if I have to bring it in, it's a short drive (about 6 blocks).  Tha customer service is well worth the bit of extra money for a complete system, including a parts and labour warranty as compared to a rock bottom price from a big box store whose sales staff only know how to sell extended warranties (better commissions for them).