That's right, I officially give you permission to go out and buy that mega-super-duper-monster-leet-epic-baby-eating computer machine you've been dreaming about… there are various reasons why now is one of the best times.

1. Economic Advantage

With the economy being shifty, hardware demand is at an all time low. The reason for this is everyone is looking for more cost effective alternatives. What this means for you is those vendors manufacturing high ticket graphics cards have to reduce prices to get inventory off of the shelves and they are required to obsolete "older products" quicker to reduce inventory on alternatives.

2. Extreme Competition

Since the release of the i-series processors from Intel, an odd fluctuation in processor prices and demand has occurred. Once upon a time individuals needed "the latest and greatest" to get great performance out of their machines, but now even the "lower end" processors and graphics cards offer the processing and graphics power necessary even for great gaming.

Since vendors have been rigorously competing with one another, technology has gotten ahead of itself, as a result, buying mid-grade hardware will still likely run your games and programs to the max!

3. Online Resource Pricing

Online Vendors such as Newegg.com and TigerDirect.com (as well as many others) sell hardware at high volumes for vendors. Since they have no marketing or storefront overhead like the "Best Buys" of the world, they can offer their hardware at almost half of the cost.

4. Struggling Big Name PC Vendors

Other big name vendors such as HP and Dell are feeling the pinch of the hardware and economic fight as well. If one prices a computer at Dell, they may be surprised to find that exact same hardware configuration can be built at almost half the price of Dell's list.

Dell makes money off of their name and marketing – avoiding huge name products will always save individuals money.

Conclusion:

Building is the only way to truly get what you want and get it at the right price. There are many excellent guides out there for learning how to build one, but if you are looking at the difference between getting a computer at $1200 or $600, don't you think it's worth the time to learn?

Heck, maybe you'll even make some money building some PCs for your friends and family…