Hi folks I am new to Mouthshut, but not new to technology. As I have headed all India TESTLABS for One of the leading magazines in Hardware and Software for more than 3 years
and have been writing on technologies for past 8 years
MY RECOMMENDATION WOULD BE AS FOLLOWS
4 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS WHEN BUYING ASSEMBLED COMPUTERS
1) GOOD CABINET WITH POWER SUPPLY
Always try to go for ATX cabinet with at least 300 watts Power Supply, Try to Buy SPL(from RANK DATA) cabinets or VIP Branded Cabinets(KUNHAR PERIPHERALS) where there is never cheating in wattage of power Supply(the Price diff between the ordinary and Good Brand will not be more Than Rs 250/-)
2) GOOD QUALITY MOTHERBOARD
As a thumb rule try to go for some proper Brand Motherboard
LIKE ASUS or SUPERMICRO(if Money is not the criteria)
else go for DFI/GIGABYTE/SOLTEK(the price diff will be approx Rs 1000 to 2000/-) but performance of Machine will be more than 50 to 60% compared to MERCURY/HIS Etc(as this boards that MERCURY/HIS are of normally substandard quality from China and Sold in INDIA)
3) GOOD QUALITY SD/DDR RAMS
Try to ask your assembler to give you GOOD A Grade Quality Rams either from Transcend/Simmtronics/Kingston(the price difference will not be more than Rs 300/- per 128MB) but they can give u performance boost of atleast 30% compared to what normally comes in 99% machines(HYNIX/HYUNDAI)
4) GO FOR 7200 RPM HARD DISK
If you buy 7200 RPM hard disk either of MAXTOR/SEAGATE
compared to what is normally sold by all assemblers(standard Hard Drives are 5400 RPMs) the performance of these hard drives will nearly make the machine boot faster and also perform better in all conditions(the price Diff will normally be 1000/-) compared to 5400 RPM
If all these four Things are taken care the overall price diff would be approx Rs 2500/- per machine
which on average would be 5 to 7% higher than any ordinary assembled machines But performance of the machine would beat even the world best brands