Monarch the winner IMO. Has the wider selection of quality parts and people in CNet, including a Moderator, have reported excellent results when using Monarch.
Gaming machines.....
Well, you can customize a less expensive one with them, but just comparing the three builders and you customizing a very high end gamer using the AMD Athlon 64FX-55 Processor Socket 939, and practically everything identical with like parts:
Aluminum case
Motherboard ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe nVidia nForce4 SLI Chipset
Dual Nvidia GeForce PCI-Express 6800 Ultra in SLI
Two 512MB Corsair PC3200 DDR400 Extra Low Latency RAM
Western Digital 74GB 10,000 RPM Hard Drive
Enermax 550W or 570W Power Supply
16x DVD+-RW (Pioneer or Plextor
Floppy drive combo 9-1 + Digital Media Reader/Writer
Firewire & USB 2.0
Ethernet
WinXP Home or Pro
2 Year warranty
http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=80390
Price out the three builders customized with identical parts....
The Monarch customized would be a little over $3,000. The Hypersonic and Velocity Micro would cost considerably more (like say close to $1000 more).
You would not save hardly any $$ building yourself, but just gain experience and possibly a very hard lesson $$ and time wise if you screw up on an expensive machine.
Which one of these manufacturers for a gaming PC is the best(uses retail parts and is cheap)and has great customer support, or should i build my own computer?
hypersonic
monarch
velocity micro
Roger

Chowhound
Comic Vine
GameFAQs
GameSpot
Giant Bomb
TechRepublic