I think my desktop upgrade that I did recently cost me under $300 ~_~;, took a few months to gather the parts but I hawked newegg constantly and waited for sales :x
New motherboard (old one had a wonky connection that caused BSODs...yay!)
New RAM - only 8GB but that's all I really need, and there's room to add more down the line.
Graphics card on discount - Radeon HD5770, was like $100 with sale + mail-in rebate (yay for sales!)
Windows 7 64bit OEM ver.... took me a long time before I willingly upgraded from xp ; ;
Spending $7k is an absolute waste, you can build a sweet unit for much much less.