"have built one now to see how it would work but it is an old PII and is slow..."
I think we may be missing a point to consider and that is he may have equiptment that could be used again.
This could mean buying separate components can save him money if he reuses everything within reason. Sure the $1600 may be well spent to some, but he could be paying for a lot of functions and software he may not ever use.
I'm not trying to convince him to go seperates, if he has the $1600, I think it's a pretty good buy.