[Templar]

The desktop I built in Dec of 2012 runs all the games I play perfectly. I have no issues with it at all.

No offense, but I used to waste money on computers like you as well. I put 6 grand into a monster, top of the line Alienware desktop. I had the money, so I didn't care. It was completely badass and it lasted a while. I look back now and kick myself for wasting so much money.

A high end system now, built from all parts, with some "future proofing" might cost $2,000. I spent approximately $1,500 on my build if I remember correctly. Below I list all the parts I bought. I had two hard drives from my old PC that I used until I upgraded to 1TB drives recently. The prices are estimates since some of these items are no longer in stock.

Tower - Rosewill Blackhawk ATX mid tower ($80)
Motherboard - GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UP4 (LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0) ($100)
CPU - Intel Core i7 3770k 3.5 GHz (3.9 turbo) ($330)
CPU Fan - CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Plus CPU fan/heatsink ($35)
Graphics - EVGA GeForce GTX 680 FTW+ 4 GB GDDR5 ($600)
Hard Drive - Samsung 840 PRO series 128GB SSD ($120)
RAM - GSKILL Ripjaws 16 GB DDR3 1600 ($150)
Storage - 2x Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM 500GB HDD (parts from old PC)
Power Supply - Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 750W power supply ($150)
OS - Windows 7 Pro ($140)

You'll need to add more in for peripherals like a mouse, keyboard, monitor etc. I just use the same one's I have from before, so I didn't need to purchase anything else. When I built this, it was pretty high end (and still is). There are a few things I could probably do to upgrade, but in my gameplay and use I haven't seen the need to upgrade anything.

What games are your kids playing that they need a $6,000 desktop? My guess would be none. A little bit of education on this will save you a ton of money. Unless your kid wants to play Crysis on max settings with max FPS, that type of money is being wasted. The overwhelming majority of games do not require that much power in a desktop. We're really only talking hardcore gamers, or video editors who need massive amounts of memory, storage, and graphics power to do that kind of stuff. Every game I have played on my desktop (and I've played quite a few), plays extremely well at max settings.

The real bottom line is that MOST people don't need the top of the line everything on a computer. They may WANT it, but they don't really need it.