| I've gotta say, ever since I found the Dell Outlet (dell.com/outlet), I've become a HUGE fan.
We've purchased... wow I dunno - 10+ PC's off of the outlet over the past 2 - 3 years. Two for me, one for my wife, her sister, friends up the street, my mom, my sister, the dude that works on my house (2), three for a friend's side biz - there may be more.
You can get a "scratch and dent" with no visible damage - or a "certified refurbished" for hundreds off - same warranty as brand spankin new. And we haven't had a problem with any of them yet.
I used to be a "I'll build it myself" type - mb, cpu, drives, case, pw supply etc - what a pain in the a$$. Now I just troll the Dell outlet for a couple of days and can always find a great system for under $400. "Great" to me is defined as (today) Intel Core2 Duo, 2+GB RAM, 500+GB HD (sata), DVD/RW (2), decent sound and video card (nVidia - but not their top end)
*note: I gave up PC gaming when Xbox Live launched, so not sure how these would fair in that realm, but for every day PC'ing (browsing, e-mail, pr0n lol) and video editing - they've been great!
Saved $1100 off the 'new' price on my XPS by going w/ the outlet! | 
