I am going to be using a custom built pc to edit on. I don't want to make the jump to Mac because you can custom build a pc with twice the specs of a mac for half the price. This leads me to my next question. I'm not sure what software to use for editing. Vegas, Pinnacle, Adobe. I am going to be getting Effects lab Pro, Composite lab Pro.
In 1980, I built my own, computer controlled light board that I drove from a Commodore VIC 20. I bought my first IBM PC in 1984. I've built more custom built computers in the past 20 years than I care to count; everything from high end servers with expensive SCSI systems to inexpensive Linux workstations, and I completely disagree that an Intel Mac is more expensive than a home built PC with "twice the specs". A $2000 Mac Pro has excellent engineering with a high quality main board that supports 16GB of ram and sports 4 processing cores and a high quality video card. So, you're going to tell me you can build a computer with 8 cores, 32GB max RAM, and 8 hard drive bays for $2000?
As a professional editor who writes computer software for a living and knows more about computers than any 10 computer techs put together, my advice is to buy the hardware that lets you run the best software, because hardware is cheap and easy to upgrade, but substandard software will leave you frustrated and waste your time. Also, your investment in software will probably exceed the cost of the hardware by a large margin.
Finally, I've written over a million lines of production code, and more than half of that was written for or ported to Windows. I have enough experience with Windows internals to give me nightmares. Although I'll develop and test Windows software, I wouldn't actually use Windows the OS on my workstation unless I was stuck with DOS v6 and someone handed me a Windows CD as my only upgrade option. This choice is not out of ignorance. I could easily right a book on the Windows programming API and I'm a more savvy Windows user (and maintainer) than most of the Windows lovers out there. The truth is that I can get more work done on a Mac or Linux machine than I could ever get done using the Windows OS.
I'd love to see the Bill of materials for your cheap custom PC. You may have something there, and I'd be happy to offer insights on motherboards, bus technologies, video drivers, etc. I don't keep up with component prices, so you may be able to save a few hundred bucks. You do pay a price for that warranty, but since I rely on my machines every day, all day, the warranty does have value and I'm willing to pay money to save myself time.
I probably sound heavy handed. In another life, I'd apologize, but my job is to fix problems and build solutions on a wide range of systems. I don't know how many times someone has started out with a plan to save a few hundred dollars on the initial purchase price and they've paid for it several times over in the first year. If you factor in lost productivity, the cost can be huge. It sounds like you know something about PC hardware, so my advice is to proceed with caution and question your assumptions.