Slippery Jim
Striker
Very true. You'd be mad to build a general purpose machine for basic home use like internet and streaming as the big companies like Del can knock them out so much cheaper than it would cost you to buy the bits yourself.Building a gaming PC hasn't been about the price for years though, its about customising and using better components.
Building a PC for non-gaming is madness, though.
As you say, gaming rigs are different: I built mine a year ago and if I'd gone to somewhere like Alienware it would have cost at least £500 more than I paid for the components.