Around the same I think, theres stuff you can add yourself like the memory, xtra hard drives, disk drives to reduce the cost. But theres always the risk of human error when you get it custom and god knows where the parts came from that they put in ya pc. Not to say there aren't great guys out there, but these were some of the things that went through my mind in deciding between a dell and a custom. With the dell theres always sales and free upgrades going on, I got half a gig of memory free an extra 80 gig hard drive free, a free cd burner and an instant $300 rebate, plus the free shipping I had no second thoughts bout the dell. And even more I qualified for the Dell card so I only need to pay like $60 bucks a month, but I pay $200 to pay it off quicker so I can get a laptop later.
But on the other hand Customs are "cool" you can get neon lights and tricked out cases, prints, and even more better customer service is right roun' the block.
Anyways
Hope I Helped