Inexpensive CS5 PC

Sorry to have derailed your topic so much, but my personal advice would be to spend as much as you can currently, aka the under $2k computer, assuming it has room for expansion. Example: If it can support 24 gigs of memory, just buy 6 for now. That's what I've always done. Buy the computer with expansion in mind. As long as you can run CS5 well enough to do work, you can upgrade a bit after every project you get paid for.

Basically, spend what you can, and make sure to leave room to upgrade later.

I hope that was helpful. I'm slightly buzzed, so this may be useless.
 
Their are a lot of companies that will build it for you. In my case, I recently had Micro Center built it. I went in, picked out the parts that I wanted and they gave it to me entirely built within days. They will also recommend parts to finish off the computer if can't think of everything that you need.

Including the computer, an extended warranty, taxes, the cost of the built and the installing of Windows 7 64 bit, it ends up being $2,300. I'll save at least $50 when I turn in the rebates for a couple of items which brings it down to around $2,250.

CoolerMaster Case
950 i7 processor
12 gigs of fast RAM
170GB Corsair Solid State Drive
2x 1TB SATA hard drives to store the media and project files
Blu-Ray burner
GTX 470 card
Wireless Logitech keyboard and mouse
700 Watt Power supply
And other goodies.

Some parts such as the i7 processor and the Corsair SSD was already cheaper than the competition and other parts such as the GTX 470 card and the motherboard got priced matched with either NewEgg or TigerDirect. I'm going to spend one day with the receipt to see what else they can price match.

The computer basically makes my 2 year old 2.4Ghz Core2Duo laptop perform like a netbook. It boots up and closes very fast with that solid state drive and clicking on Premiere CS5 is also very fast. Some of you wouldn't believe the speed difference. As far as the case is concerned, it cools up like it's an AC. I didn't know the fans were that good! On top of all that, because it was a computer specially built for me, I don't get the bloat ware that companies will usually put inside which makes the computer run ever better.

Sorry that I can't help bragging like this!

Anyway, you can definetly get a decent system built much cheaper than mine by using a SATA hard drive as the C Drive, 8 gigs or RAM and a lower spec'd graphic card although you'll have to hack it. You can also save money if your in a state with no taxes. For safety reasons, it might be best to have an extended warranty for some of the major parts.

One more point I like to make is that Micro Center is very close to where I live. That's another big plus. When your having a place build you a computer, I think it can definitely be a good idea. If something goes wrong, you don't have to mail it back to the place.
 
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Here's an alternative configuration I just built that will perform significantly better for about the same price (if you take away the savings\rebates).

CPU - AMD Phenom II X6 3.2 GHz : $229 - $15 rebate card = $214
MOBO - ASUS M489GTD PRO/USB3 890GX : $149 - $25 instant = $124
GPU - ASUS GTX 470 1280MB GDDR5 : $269 - $40 instant - $20 rebate = $209
BOOT HDD - OCZ Vertex2 90GB SSD (Sandforce) : $189 - $20 instant - $20 rebate = $149
RAID HDD - Seagate Barracuda 1.5TB 7200rpm : $59 x 4 total = $236
RAM - G.Skill Ripjaw 16GB (2 sets of 2x4GB pairs) DDR3-1600 : $258 - $60 instant = $198
PSU - Cooler Master Silent Pro 80 PLUS GOLD RS800 : $154 - $40 instant - $15 rebate = $99
CASE - Cooler Master HAF 932 Full Tower : $129 - $20 instant - $20 rebate = $89
DISC - LG 10X Blu-Ray burner DVD+-RW : $79

GRAND TOTAL = $1397
 
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