Building your own PC is EASY. It really is. I built the machine in my sig in an evening after work and didn't take too many major precautions as far as static, etc. And I had never built a PC before. As long as you touch the case, power supply, etc. every few minutes or so, you'll be fine. You really can get a lot more bang for your buck and can get exactly what you need/want if you build your own. There are numerous resources available on the internet that can help you out. I highly recommend building your own PC.

 

PS...I work for one of the top PC makers in the world and would never recommend (to a gamer) buying a prebuilt machine. As has been mentioned before, you get TONS of bloatware. That's how they (we) make their money. And as for anti-virus, I have always been an AVG user (recommended to me by my closest friend, an IT security professional) and have never had virus problems (knocking on wood...). Of course, viruses only happen if you are stupid with what you expose your machine to (it's a lot like STD's really...if you don't know it, don't mess with it...).

Ok guys, I appreciate the help and comments. I have come up with a Cyberpower PC of equivalent price, $1100 with shipping and Home and Student 13'. What do we think now?

 

• BASE_PRICE: [+1150]
• CAS: Corsair Carbide Series 200R Mid-Tower Gaming Case w/ USB 3.0 [-1]
• CASUPGRADE: None
• CD: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive [-34] (BLACK COLOR)
• CD2: None
• COOLANT: Standard Coolant
• CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-4670K 3.40 GHz 6MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1150 (All Venom OC Certified) [-104]
• CS_FAN: Default case fans
• ENGRAVING: None
• FA_HDD: None
• FAN: * CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo Gaming Cooling Fan [+4]
• GLASSES: None
• HDD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [-23] (Single Drive)
• MEMORY: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory [-59] (Corsair or Major Brand)
• MOTHERBOARD: [CrossFireX] MSI Z87-G41 PC Mate Intel Z87 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ Military Class 4, OC Genie II, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, HDMI, 2 Gen3 PCIe x16, 2x PCI-e & 2 PCI (Pro OC Certified)
• NETWORK: Onboard Gigabit LAN Network
• OS: Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium [+0] (64-bit Edition)
• OVERCLOCK: Pro OC (Performance Overclock 10% or more) [+19]
• POWERSUPPLY: 500 Watts - Corsair CX500 V2 80 Plus Certified Power Supply [+10]
• RUSH: NO; READY TO SHIP IN 5~10 BUSINESS DAYS
• SERVICE: STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT
• SOFT1: Microsoft® Office® 2013 Home and Student (Word, Excel, PowerPoint + OneNote) [+119]
• SOUND: HIGH DEFINITION ON-BOARD 7.1 AUDIO
• VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 2GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card [+40] (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

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That's better yeah.

Honestly though - your fears about building one are really overblown I think. There's hardly any real danger of doing all those things you're worried about with it. I've actually shocked components with static electricity before and had no ill effects - it's very hard for that to actually get into the circuits on modern hardware - there's all kinds of shielding and extra stuff that surrounds the critical parts of a GPU or a motherboard.  If it worries you that much, just wear rubber soled shoes and order a wrist strap or an anti-static mat with the parts. Seriously though - they've made building a PC nearly fool proof now.

I have no doubt I could do it. I really do not have the time this time of year, and I would still rather have the pros handle it. And this place has all the benefits of building it without me actually building it. It also allows me to upgrade it myself in the future and gives me the ability to run windows 7.

Glad you changed your CPU option.

 

Regarding your first option....

 

3rd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3770 quad-core processor [3.4GHz, 8MB Shared Cache]

 

This is NOT a K series CPU, so if you decide some time in the future to overclock... you can't.

 

Thought I'd mention that, just in case you change your mind again, and forget the relevance of the "K".

Glad to see you came here and got some good advice before investing in that first HP. You will undoubtedly be much happier. Not to say HP is a bad machine, just not the best option for FSX.