I am starting new series about building PC that you can use (tablet related one will come slightly later), and for first part we'll look at the retail PCs and see that is wrong with them. I mostly focus on principles, so you won't see many names, brands, models, MHz, etc.

Most retail PC configurations sucks.

I am serious. Look only on top of the range, as below you can find such strange things like top CPU, little memory, horrible or even lack of GPU all of this paired with small slow HDD, all in blinking red-blue case. Such monsters come to life due to simple fact - it is also business. Every company is interested to throw maximum of junk and sell it for highest price possible.

Common things that sucks the most in every retail PC

General parts:

• Keyboard. Keyboards on all retail PCs are just horrible, usually it is $5-10 crap with modern design. 98% of them use cheap membrane approach, 2% left use scissors like on good notes. Both you do not want. Check part about input devices to get an idea that is made for real work.
• Mouse. Same shit. Not so bad as with keyboard, but it is usually cheap small wired or wireless mouse. Mouse is one of three main things (other being keyboard and monitor), so do not save on it. Good mouse for you must be good for your palm size, must be made by reputable firm, and must be produced for quote long time to see the issues. Usually none of this is true for cheap mice.
• Case. Exceptions happen here, but they are all in red book. Companies throw plastics rich "games" cases or ultra thin, bad steel cases. You do not need it, it is DOA products. They look cool and works only for people with severe brain damage and heavy drug use. Bad case won't allow you to install top GPU, will be noisy and will eat dust by kilos. It also usually hard to add things and have limits on HDDs you can install (preferably with good cooling).
• Fans. Usually it is two extremes - one fan in more entry models, and up to 8 in the "gamers" editions. All of them are pure junk usually, even one that with work more or less tolerable noise will start to die in a year or two.
• CPU Cooler. Around 90-95% of retail PCs use bad coolers (or stock ones), they are fine if PC is under no or light load, but as soon as you start heavy editing, grading, encoding, it'll be real mess. Some top configurations can use good ones, but it is rare thing and you usually pay big premium for this.

Power stuff:

• Power supply. Most retail PCs come with default supply that came with case they use. Usually it is real shit. Inefficient, with inflated power ratings. Few manufacturers make quote good cheap PSUs, but it usually do not come together with low noise and efficiency. To be short - you'll get underspecced, noisy and inefficient PSU.

Storage

• SSD. While they dropped significantly, that are still too costly for mainstream retail PCs. And you really need at least one SSD as disk for your OS.
• HDD. Most common size in retail PC is 500GB, all else usually go with 1TB. It is just waste of your money. As you need lot of space. For backup and general storage it is good idea to use slightly below the top sizes (now it is 2-3-4TB) as they are economically more interesting. We'll go in details in corresponding part.

Now we go to the PC components itself:

• Motherboard. Many retail companies not only install cheapest MBs that manufacturers have in their line, they can even order special custom versions with reduced price (and some removed ports, PCI or PCI-E slots). Only in top gamers PCs you can usually see more or less good motherboards. Manufacturer can also use MB without slot for second or third video cards (yes, they are useful for grading).
  Remember - with motherboard now also comes sound part and network chip. Cheap MBs like to cut on this.
• Memory. Memory are usually not extra important if you are not doing heavy rendering or encoding all day. But companies try to save here also. You can find cheapest DIMMS, with worst parameters, with no memory heatsinks.
• Graphics card - GPU. It is not so bad now, as middle to top class GPUs can be seen in retail PCs (most are still sold with entry GPUs somehow claiming that it is "for games"). But no one will select for you card with best cooling system and with better clocks. If you are not gaming usually you do not need top GPU, just middle NVidia one (AMD support is growing also) with lot of memory (DaVinci likes GPU memory and more GPUs).
• CPU. Just ignore anything except top of the i5 and i7 lines for mainstream (now it is 1150 socket) and enthusiasts (2011 socket), including all AMD chips (they are cheaper, but you later pay it out in electricity bills :-) ). Usually it is models with K in the end (overclocking ready). Retail companies like to use one year old CPUs, and all the range, starting from Celerons (so consultants can push something with people with any amount of money).

Next part will be about places for getting stuff.

Provide you input, if you agree/ do not agree with something.