Poll: Building PCs Thoughts?

[delanofilms]

I ask this because I am often assaulted by the opinions of others proclaiming that the act of building a PC is SO much better than merely buying one. For a time, I was considering building one until I came to a harsh realization - I don't know how to. All I really want is a good PC for gaming and general college needs, and retail this was looking at costing me about 1 grand. A friend told me I should just build it, but how much less expensive could this possibly make it?
Any suggestions?

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Building your own is best, with buying a custom one from a local stores being a close second. But one should never buy a gaming PC pre-built.

 

[nelsonr100]

Well I made my gaming rig about a year ago, for £600. If I had bought it retail it would have probably been about £900 at least. If you friend can do it for you, go for it, otherwise look up a guide online or join a pc building forum for help.

 

[Corpse XxX]

These big electronic chains imo can many times offer you a great pc for about the same cost as making one yourselves.. you also get a warranty, and that you dont get if you build it yourself..

Nowadays its not saving so much money building it by yourself as it was a good couple a years ago, then there was a huge difference.. I built a couple a pc's earlier, but now i just wont bother about it anymore..

 

[chaosfenrir]

building PCs is always cheaper, and u get more options too =) If you're too lazy or u dun know how, there are stores that will build PCs to your specifications. You just need to give them a list of parts and stuff

 

[Agayek]

I ask this because I am often assaulted by the opinions of others proclaiming that the act of building a PC is SO much better than merely buying one. For a time, I was considering building one until I came to a harsh realization - I don't know how to. All I really want is a good PC for gaming and general college needs, and retail this was looking at costing me about 1 grand. A friend told me I should just build it, but how much less expensive could this possibly make it?
Any suggestions?

You can save quite a bit by building it yourself, especially if you use sites like Newegg to get your parts. As long as you are relatively confident you can do it, it's probably the best move in terms of value/computing power per dollar, plus you have significantly more freedom to customize it however you like.

That said, building your own computer requires that you know roughly what you're doing (which the internet can usually take care of just fine) and more importantly does not supply you with a warranty. If a part breaks for whatever reason on a custom built PC, you're SOL and gotta buy another. If it's from a retailer, you can almost always get a free replacement.

It's a bit of a tradeoff. I personally prefer to get my machines prebuilt, as I like to tinker and warranties are good for if/when I fuck something up, but it depends on your situation. My suggestion would be to compile a list of parts on newegg (your friend can probably help you assemble a list if you're not sure what's needed) and see how much it costs. Then hop on http://www.ibuypower.com/ or (especially if you're a Publisher's Club member here since you get free shipping and overclocking) http://www.originpc.com/ and build a PC with roughly the same specs. Check out the price differential and pick which one best suits your fiscal situation.

TLDR version: Typically you'll see prebuilt PCs with second-gen (aka, not newly released) hardware going for $300-$1000 more, based on warranty length and how new the hardware is. It also varies based on manufacturer, but not by a substantial amount.

 

[Thee Prisoner]

These big electronic chains imo can many times offer you a great pc for about the same cost as making one yourselves.. you also get a warranty, and that you dont get if you build it yourself..

Nowadays its not saving so much money building it by yourself as it was a good couple a years ago, then there was a huge difference.. I built a couple a pc's earlier, but now i just wont bother about it anymore..

The problem with most of the electronic chain store machines is the video is either integrated or the video card is poor. Plus the motherboards, power supply and some other components are below average in quality.

Warranties aren't a big deal when you build yourself because each component has it's own warranty.

If anything go to a local store and maybe have then install the motherboard and cpu in the case, then you add your video card, hard drives and etc yourself, if you don't feel comfortable building your own completely.

 

[Danzaivar]

In my experience building a PC yourself is about 40-50% cheaper than buying a pre-made one. If it's a low spec computer or a high end one, it seems to hover at about that rate.

For example, my current PC cost £550 to build and in shops would have cost about £900; way outside of my budget at the time. Shops are starting to catch up a bit now, but if you aren't knowledgeable enough to build your own then you won't notice that one detail which they're using to rip you off.

 

[Sebenko]

£700. Boom. I built mine for about that price in 2007, and it's still going strong.

It's like Lego, except the parts only go one way.

Remember, the sockets and the like were designed for assembly in factories, so they're simple enough for a line worker to understand. That might be a lie. But if they can manage it, so can you.

 

[delanofilms]

In my experience building a PC yourself is about 40-50% cheaper than buying a pre-made one. If it's a low spec computer or a high end one, it seems to hover at about that rate.

For example, my current PC cost £550 to build and in shops would have cost about £900; way outside of my budget at the time. Shops are starting to catch up a bit now, but if you aren't knowledgeable enough to build your own then you won't notice that one detail which they're using to rip you off.

What about iBuyPower.com
They seem to be pretty good as far as I can tell.
You can customize pretty much everything that goes into the PC, and I just toyed around with it and came up with what at least appeared to be a REALLY nice PC for about $750 USD

 

[Aur0ra145]

Go for it. You'd be surprised how easy it is to build a PC

 

[Corpse XxX]

These big electronic chains imo can many times offer you a great pc for about the same cost as making one yourselves.. you also get a warranty, and that you dont get if you build it yourself..

Nowadays its not saving so much money building it by yourself as it was a good couple a years ago, then there was a huge difference.. I built a couple a pc's earlier, but now i just wont bother about it anymore..

The problem with most of the electronic chain store machines is the video is either integrated or the video card is poor. Plus the motherboards, power supply and some other components are below average in quality.

Warranties aren't a big deal when you build yourself because each component has it's own warranty.

If anything go to a local store and maybe have then install the motherboard and cpu in the case, then you add your video card, hard drives and etc yourself, if you don't feel comfortable building your own completely.

You must be looking at the wrong chains then. Cause i got a very good machine at very low cost last time.. And it got full score in windows machine test, and can run all games to date on full no problem.. Bought it about 1,5-2 years ago.. Core i7, 6 giga ram, 64 bit windows, 1,5 TB HDD, cant remember what screen card, but its not integrated, got HDMI and everything.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

It's not difficult, but any problems are yours to deal with.

On the upside, though, NO PRELOADED CRAPWARE.

 

[TheComedown]

These big electronic chains imo can many times offer you a great pc for about the same cost as making one yourselves.. you also get a warranty, and that you dont get if you build it yourself..

Nowadays its not saving so much money building it by yourself as it was a good couple a years ago, then there was a huge difference.. I built a couple a pc's earlier, but now i just wont bother about it anymore..

If you say spend $1000 on 2 different PCs one custom built, one store bought, you can bet on the custom PC will 99% of the time be WAY more powerful then the store bought one.

It depends where you get you're parts from, I get all my parts with warranties. You must not be looking in the right places.

 

[hyperhammy]

I didn't build my own pc... mostly because I don't feel like gathering all the parts.
I got a fairly modest pc for around 500 bucks. All I had to do was get a new hd 5770. It can run almost everything on high settings.

 

[mParadox]

Building a PC is always better.

Example:
final fantasy 14 will also be on the PC so square enix has published the perfect computer for the job. Price? +3500$

OR u can make custom PC costing less than 600$ which can easily all current generation games without giving out.

 

[ethaninja]

Knowing what you have inside your computer, is really helpful. It goes against everything I believe to get a pre-built one. If you're too lazy, or have no experience in putting a computer together (it's not that hard, you could probably find a YouTube video) then get a pre-built one.

 

[Jazoni89]

I was gonna get a desktop PC pre-built these are the specs

Windows 7 premium
4 gigs of RAM
2.8 ghz Quad core Processor
512mb Geforce graphics card
500gb Hard drive

Its for 600 quid and it could proberly run near enough anything game wise.

I might have to change the graphics card to a 2 gb though.

 

[delanofilms]

Knowing what you have inside your computer, is really helpful. It goes against everything I believe to get a pre-built one. If you're too lazy, or have no experience in putting a computer together (it's not that hard, you could probably find a YouTube video) then get a pre-built one.

I'll prob. get a pre-built one. Is IBuyPower.com any good?