I don't like dell at all unless you are talking about their high-end business models. The consumer stuff is very iffy. They cut corners everywhere and you are left with an unstable machine.
Your best bet, if you already have things like your CD drives, hard drive, etc... is to do one of the following depending upon your skill level:
1) Buy a Case/motherboard/ram/processor combo system from an online store. They have very good deals and usually advertise "just add drives". The motherboards are usually decent but not the best, certainly better than a Dell motherboard though.
2) Buy everything seperately and put it together yourself. Most people that can hook up a VCR can put a computer together...the Motherboard you buy will have instructions...the only hard part is mounting the processor because you need to put on thermal paste...but even that is just a matter of reading the instructions. The price of doing this may be a little higher, but your computer will run much faster and smoother...and you get to pick the case (my favorite part)!!!
