I need to buy a gaming PC. I know plenty of places are are over-priced and building your own is far cheaper. But at this point the necessity of my job + the hours i have to work, well, fuck me on taking the time to build it but garner the money to buy one.

I'm looking for any great experiences doing the same, and trust worthy review sites of gaming rigs.

So far one that's popping up a lot but getting mixed reviews is the Cyberpower Black Pearl ($1329) Link. I'd love to hear the GB opinion.

As a non US guy can't speak of the company but once you upgrade the GPU on the thing it looks ok spec wise but ofc your spending top dollar for someone else to put it together and give you a warrenty.

That PC is running on X79, which is kind of an enthusiast platform, which entails that it is more expensive than it needs to be for day to day gaming.

Other than that the configuring options on that site looked okay.Try finding a computer based on regular ivy bridge instead ( socket 1155/Z77 chipset)

It's weird that the rig in the link has liquid cooling and yet a pretty low powered GPU.

I'm going with the following. $1,381 shipped.

1 x Case ( NZXT Phantom 410 Gaming Case - Black )

1 x Processor ( Intel® Core™ i7-3770K Processor (4x 3.50GHz/8MB L3 Cache) - Intel Core i7-3770K )

1 x Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1155] - Standard 120mm Fan )

1 x Memory ( 8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand )

1 x Video Card ( NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 Ti - 2GB )

1 x Video Card Brand ( Major Brand Powered by AMD or NVIDIA )

1 x Free Stuff ( [FREE In-Game Voucher] - $75 Value In-Game Currencies: Hawken, Planetside 2, and World of Tanks ($25 for each title) - Free with purchase of NVIDIA GeForce GTX650 or GTX650 Ti )

1 x Motherboard ( ASUS P8Z77-V LX )

1 x Power Supply ( 600 Watt - Standard )

1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

1 x Data Hard Drive ( 60 GB Intel 330 SSD - Single Drive )

1 x Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )

1 x Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )

1 x Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )

1 x Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit )

1 x Keyboard ( iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Keyboard )

1 x Mouse ( iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Mouse - Blood Red )

1 x Monitor ( 24" LED 1920x1080 -- Sceptre E246W-1080P (23.6 viewable) - Save $60! FREE Upgrade from 22" Sceptre X220T-Naga )

1 x Speaker System ( Creative Inspire T3130 2.1 Speakers System w/ stylish design and quality performance )

1 x Case Engraving Service ( Custom Message - Max 35 characters (including spaces) - [Lettuce Prey] )

1 x Warranty ( 3 Year Standard Warranty Service [3 Labor/ 1 Parts])

I bought a Dell XPS 8500 according to reviews is quite good. I know its overpriced but I can use the tax deduction and dell financing options.

If money isn't an issue check out Originpc.com. They're one of the best boutique builders out there

Top of the line gaming CPU and a bottom of the barrel gaming wise GPU, is a bit silly.

I would recommend finding a system with a better video card if you can.

This is not big enough, I have a 180gb ssd and it ticks me off that I didn't go bigger, 60gb is ridiculous, that is OS and maybe 1-2 AAA games.

I went to that web page, get one of these two options for your video card, they are both pretty good deals as far as prebuilds are concerned

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 2GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card [CyberPowerPC Moving Mega Sale - Free EVGA Superclocked upgrade from Major Brand] (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA) [+213]

AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card (Major Brand Powered by AMD) [+220]

I think the AMD 7970 is a better get, especially considering the free games(BioShock Infinite, Crysis 3) it comes with, but some people don't like AMD.

I built my PC last year with a budget of $600. Though, I did salvage my HDD, mouse, keyboard, and DVD drive from my old PC. It was the second PC I've ever built and I think I did quite well, I can play most games at 50-60fps at 1080p on high settings.

The best thing you can do is just read. What I did was lurk on places like /r/buildapc while spending about two weeks on pcpartpicker assembling different builds, I tried to get every last cent out of my budget without going over. It was actually very fun assembling so many different combinations of PC hardware, I learned a lot while doing so. I think buying a pre-made PC not only costs you a lot more, but it actually takes a lot of the joy out of owning a PC.

Not just silly. That is just a terrible purchase. I would strongly recommend that you return that PC, find a seller who doesn't force you to get an i7 and get a PC that has at least a 660Ti. I've seen people budget builds with a 660Ti and spend ~$700. I get that you pay a premium for having a PC pre-built but that price for that video card is insane to me.