Help me find a desktop PC on a budget

You may take a look through a few of the latest http://www.tomshardware.com/t/build-your-own/articles/. And since it's September, they should be doing new ones in the next week or two if you can hold out. They do all the work of what it is now, and you can see if things are where you'd like to be eventually.

Final update: I decided to build my own. I used PCpartpicker and the kind people on the Tom's Hardware forums to choose a newish AMD processor (according to them, faster than Intel for 3D rendering and stuff?) and compatible parts. I spent about $750 including the OS. Putting it together was for the most part pretty painless. I had one moment when I first tried to turn it on that scared me-- everything looked like it was booting fine, but nothing was showing on the display-- but once I realized the motherboard gave me error codes, I was able to fix the problem quickly. It is a little loud, which I still need to look in to, but I have never seen any computer boot as fast as this one does-- Less than 10 seconds. I haven't tried any graphics stuff yet but I'm planning on it this weekend. Internet browsing is significantly faster than my previous computer. I'd just like to say thank you to everyone for giving me both good answers as to my options if I didn't want to build my own, and for those of you who convinced me that I could do it. Not only do I have the computer I want for a price I can sort-of afford, but I have an enormous sense of accomplishment (yes, even though it was like putting legos together) and I feel like I've learned an important skill that will serve me well for years to come. Thanks AskMe :)

Take a look at http://lifehacker.com/5840963/the-best-pcs-you-can-build-for-600-and-1200.

Watching those newegg videos now-- they really are great. You guys almost have me convinced. I'm not sure I'll be saving any money (I have a bad habit of thinking, 'oh, that part is only $5-$10 more-- that makes more sense, and as a result the build I am pricing out is already at the top of my price range) but I will at least have a computer that is what I need now, will be able to be upgraded, and will have a clean copy of Windows. I will post my planned build on the Tom's Hardware forums once I have it finalized a bit more. Thanks again to everyone who answered; I'll report back with an update once I either have it built or decide to go another route.

Oh yeah, those newegg videos are the ones I used a year ago! They were perfect for a total noob like me. Definitely recommended if you end up building. I watched them through once before starting and then replayed them as I built it. I also bought most of the parts at newegg, minus a couple I found cheaper elsewhere. I found it a fun process and it's nice to know now (roughly) what all the parts in my computer are for. It was a little nerve-wracking at times because I was afraid of damaging parts or ordering defective ones, but it was all really straightforward. I didn't have any problems and I'm really glad I did it. I'm hoping to upgrade it as needed over the next few years (still running like new for now) and I think having built it myself will make it easier to do that, since I'm familiar with all the parts in there. Also, would highly recommend starting off with an SSD, unless the budget is really tight right now. The difference in startup time is insane with Windows running on the SSD (assuming you keep your startup programs trimmed). I got a 128GB one for about 100$. You can always buy hard drives for storage later, or use an external if you have one already.

Trying to buy from Dell Outlet was what pushed me over into building my own computer. The machine I bought had a video card that made an electrical buzz whenever it rendered anything in 3D (as in polygons, not glasses) and the hard drive completely failed after the first weekend. Then they tried to "replace" it with a computer that had a slower, single-core processor and half as much memory. That's a worst-case example, but still, be careful.

Timer ran out, but it appears the top three videos on NewEgg's YouTube is their tutorial on building a computer. http://www.youtube.com/user/newegg/videos?sort=p&view=0&flow=grid Still, if you don't want to build, I recommend looking for scratch & dent computers because they will be marked down a lot but work fine. (I personally wouldn't risk refurbished computers though.) And nothing really beats good old-fashioned price comparison shopping.

I've been able to get super cheap desktops by looking for scratch and dent on Dell's outlet. http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?brandid=2202&c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh The last scratch and dent desktop I bought didn't have any cosmetic issues that I could find and is going on like seven years strong. It was an excellent bargain. Building yourself is a good option. NewEgg's YouTube channel has posted some video tutorials on building your own system, which includes easy stuff like installing a video card and some of the less straight-forward things, like where you plug everything into your motherboard. I've built a couple desktops and it's surprisingly easy, actually. I did it using YouTube videos, Google searches, my motherboard's website to check compatibility for RAM, there are calculators online to estimate how powerful a power supply you should buy etc and the motherboard manual. I would recommend buying your parts from NewEgg.com -- good prices, helpful reviews and they have some custom-build hardware bundles that take away some guesswork. I was able to shop around a lot and find good prices on everything. I build a system with 8GB RAM, an i7 processor and a SSD for Windows 7. It's also kind of a fun little project to buy everything and then put it altogether.

Before I put together my own desktop a couple years ago, I was also really nervous. In the end, I watched some good YouTube videos and had a knowledgeable friend watch me while I did it. I bought him a pizza and saved probably $150 in markup. There was a similar http://ask.metafilter.com/229686/Power-computing-for-less late last year; I http://ask.metafilter.com/229686/Power-computing-for-less#3323793 a bunch of the resources I used, including some of the relevant videos, late last year. Many of them are constantly updated, so it's still worth checking them.