While, as previously noted, there are more Macs than I expected, it sounds like Dells are very popular.

Most of my computers have been "Frankensteins"; companies like Noah's Computers (built as a side business by a fellow who's son was named Noah) or Digirex: you pick components from a list of options, and they assemble them. I don't recall that big name-brand computer companies used to have competitive prices on good consumer systems -- they seemed to focus on basic business models which lacked many features I wanted, or like AlienWare, on bleeding-edge high-end game systems that cost at least $1000 more than I was willing to pay. Dell appears to have been quite successful at moving into the middle-tier consumer home computer market.

My gaming niche used to be real-time strategy, with an occasional turn-based strategy game, or single-player FPS (mainly the Delta Force series). For the most part, I think PC games have gone the route of MMORPGs and fast-paced multi-player FPSs, which don't appeal to me, so I no longer need high-end sound or graphics cards. My new computer cost about half what I spent for the basic computer I'm using (I've performed a few upgrades on it). However, USB was still fairly new when I bought it and even after adding an internal SIIG 5-port (USB 2.0) hub, it remains somewhat unreliable -- I'd probably have to replace the motherboard to address USB issues. I'm also running out of disk space and could use more memory, but at some point, its just makes more sense to start over rather than band-aiding an obsolete computer.