Custom-built by mail order

[Wyrm]

There's always the prebuilt stuff from online parts retailers that's usually quality without the proprietary crap you get put through with companies like Dell, Sony, et al.

I hate buying a complete computer from a namebrand retailer, they always load it with junk you don't need and they have their own splash screen at startup. Call me old fashioned, but I want to see the memory count and BIOS startup (the thing that tells you what IRQs are in use, what's on your primary and secondary IDE ports, etc.).