Well, whether or not its a "good deal" depends on how much you value the OEMs efforts to select, test, assemble, and support the parts. I say this as some one who has been building computers for myself and others since I was like 17, and working on them longer- and I have charged a fair amount of money for these services. I think what I charged was fair, too.

there is a difference between a "gourmet" service and mass assembled PCs for sure. We now focus on scoring the run of the mill computers sold by big e-tailers.