I can never justify branded PC myself.
I would say dont even go for assembled, build it yourelf.
yeah its scary for first time. But once you do it then its just piece of cake.
You have freedom to choose what you want. So you can have exactly what you want.
If you need help, find a friend who can help you with this. Or tell the dealer i wana see how you build it. thats what i did in 1999. WHen i went to buy new P3 machine, i asked the dealer to assemble it in front of me so that i can learn. Since then no man other than me has touched my pc

I have to date built 25-30 PCs since then for my friends, family and for myself.
Its great fun
Also these branded PCs never disclose the critical information like how many memory slots are there, how many empty PCI slots. Many branded PCs use older cheaper components to make things cheaper.
I laugh when people fall for branded Dell and HP which has Intel 845 motherboard and advertise it as cutting edge performance PC.