It depends on what offers are going on and what you'd put in your homebrew, I'd advise against Dell though. I'm a hater, and I laugh every time I hear of one of their laptops blowing up on the news, or every time I get a call from a neighbor saying that their Dell wipes any USB-device they plug into it. Yeah, they have "support", but it usually turns out to be the same support as BestBuy in some areas: "We don't do house calls under your protection plan, so you can either drop it off at one of our retailers and wait a couple months to get it back, or pay $50 an hour for a technician to come and try to fix it", in many cases they'll try to talk you into buying excrement that you don't need. Pre-made PCs also come crammed with plenty of apps that you won't be touching. If you do end up getting a pre-made box, wipe it and install your OS fresh.