I improved the post intro, it did get posted to lifehacker, and it was even introduced very well with "Joe Golton set out with $600-$700 to see if an ordinary p

I improved the post intro, it did get posted to lifehacker, and it was even introduced very well with "Joe Golton set out with $600-$700 to see if an ordinary person with no technical know-how can buy an off-the-shelf system that's also very quiet. Here's what he learned." And yet dozens of people still felt compelled to point out how it is possible to do better with custom builds. I'm astonished at how out of touch the typical geek is with: 1) what a mainstream person is willing to do to purchase a PC. 2)There's a cost to all this geekery. You can buy a Lenovo e420s or a Mac Mini in a couple of minutes. Or you can spend a number of hours (5? 10? 20?) educating yourself on everything you need to know to build the absolute perfect custom PC for you.