I have hesitated responding as what I am about to say may not be viewed as 
positive.
Five years ago your approach made some sense; but these days, almost any 
middle or top of the line system will give what you want and need for a 
third to a half of the money you've budgeted.
Buying a pc is no longer rocket science; most adaptive equipment works 
perfectly well with most pcs out there.
And, I believe, you are more likely to run into problems with a personally 
designed system rather than a commercially sold one.
Just make certain that the system has the basic specs you want such amount 
of ram, video, size of drives, 
types of drives, number of usb ports, et al.
What it doesn't have -- or you later decide it needs to have -- can be 
then added.
and what happens when this custom system runs into a problem, you cannot 
find a driver upgrade, whatever.
If you buy from hp, Dell, Gateway, et al, you have someone to go to and 
3rd party techs know how to work with those systems.

with the custom built system, you may have a harder time later finding 
drivers, replacement components, whatever.
Thhe last desktop we bought was for around $700; and the latest notebook 
we bough was for $900.
While you may decide you need to spend more, I don't think all that much 
more.
And there are plenty of people who bought $500 pc packages for Christmas 
this year that have no complaints.
In my opinion, you are making a mountain out of a molehill and overly 
complicating the process.


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