4 ms·

It probably never makes sense to build a computer. It’s normally more expensive and if something stops working, it can be hard to isolate the part at fault and

by snazz 8y ago

It probably never makes sense to build a computer. It’s normally more expensive and if something stops working, it can be hard to isolate the part at fault and RMA it. Buying a prebuilt PC with parts you know are compatible with your OS generally gives you a warranty so that you can simply bring it back instead of wasting more time and money fixing the issue yourself. <edit> I’m surprised to learn how differing others’ experiences are, especially on the price of the overall system. When I bought my most recent desktop, I typed in the make and model of every part into PCPartPicker and learned that I would be saving over $100 by going pre-built. There were some fair points made down thread about the PSU and mobo, which I hadn’t really considered. My RMA experiences with a few hard drives versus the exchange process at my local Micro Center (they swapped the whole thing out even though I was well past the return period) were night and day, and many of you must have had the opposite experience to take the stance that you did. Regardless, I find it interesting how polarizing this issue is and I probably shouldn’t have written my original comment in such a provocative way (although it didn’t seem that way at the time). </edit>

TheCapn 8y ago
Wut? Maybe for general purpose computers doing nothing special but its generally more cost effective to select and build your own PC for things like gaming. Beyond that, computers are pretty robust. Its pretty hard to select parts that are incompatible assuming you get a CPU that fits the socket on the motherboard you buy and you don't go cheap on your PSU. Lots of tools (and communities) exist to make sure you're selecting parts properly (not overdoing it on the CPU when you're getting a low tier GPU for instance). I'm not sure what your OS comment implies because virtually everything will work on most widely adopted OSes (and if you're running a pretty obscure linux distro I'd assume you're familiar with driver woes). I'm more than happy to be corrected, but if you're buying prebuilt you're likely paying for the parts and the labour involved. Unless the company is getting steep discounts on volume purchases (which they are only getting for bottom tier parts) you're not saving money by having them put it together for you.
- sixothree 8y ago
  My experience suggests otherwise. System Integrators use the same parts I like but often get them for a discount. I build my own systems because I like the constant incremental upgrade model. But when I recently had to help someone purchase a system I found it was hard to beat si prices with equally spaced hardware.
  - zargon 8y ago
    Could you name some of these companies with prices competitive with building yourself? I'm in the market for a new PC when Zen 2 comes out. I would prefer to buy the computer instead of assemble it myself, but I've never found the prices to be competitive.
    - lightedman 8y ago
      Go look at portatech.
    - sixothree 8y ago
      I worked with a friend who purchased from iBuyPower (shudder). But the experience turned out fairly well. But Corsair, Falcon NW, and CyberPower are others.
  - smittywerben 8y ago
    I recently dismantled 3 generations of pre-built PC's to remove the hard drives. One computer needed a 90-degree angled Phillips head to release the removable tray... ended up using a hammer to smack it out... I built my current computer and don't need a screwdriver to open the case, or to replace the SSD, HDDs, GPU, or RAM. They all just pop out now! First computer I've upgraded too.
secabeen 8y ago
That's true, if you have a complete failure. If you have a partial failure, self-build can be better, because you can pull the failed part and run with a degraded system while the RMA processes, then install the RMA. With pre-build, you're sending the whole system back and are without a computer for 5-10 days.
j-c-hewitt 8y ago
This is not really true. On both of the computers I built recently, every component was warrantied and in some instances I have even warranty-returned a product of theirs in the past which was one of the reasons why I selected parts from those manufacturers over others. If you know how to troubleshoot effectively, many issues are not that hard to isolate. There are some that are very time consuming to isolate but those issues tend to be pretty rare (troubleshooting memory etc.). The nice thing about building a computer is just to be able to configure it exactly to what you want. In some cases some retailers do screwy things and/or send customers the wrong parts although there are some top flight retailers who don't do that and charge a premium for it. It's not necessarily more price competitive for some things but there are certain key components that retail PC companies tend to cheap out on unnecessarily like the PSU and the motherboard. Cheaping out on the PSU can give the retailer a lot of extra margin but a good PSU is so cheap that it does not make that much of a difference in final price to the user. If you learn a bit more about things like case airflow or are planning to overclock a lot of things that retail PC sellers do will drive you nuts so once you are at a certain knowledge level it is just better to build your own despite all the many petty aggravations and frustrations that can occur with it. All the annoyances tend to be temporary whereas the benefits last for years.
NikolaNovak 8y ago
It seems experiences vary wildly, and I'd assume that's based on differing criteria. For a general purpose / MS Office / browsing desktop, going pre-built may be viable. For any more specific / demanding usage, building a computer yourself will allow you to get the performance you need for the price you want. I'm decade or more past the point of enjoying building a new PC, but a pre-built machine never seemed to make financial or use-case sense for me. YMMV :)
lightedman 8y ago
Normally more expensive? I can build a high end gaming rig for the same damn cost as a gaming console, and have 4x the horsepower.
magicalhippo 8y ago
When you build your own PC, you can decide which parts to spend more money on, and on which to skimp. With pre-built you often have little choice, or the choices are very limited or very expensive. Typical example is memory, where the pre-built usually come with very little memory, and increasing memory costs much more compared to the retail prices of memory modules.

by snazz 8y ago

TheCapn 8y ago

Wut? Maybe for general purpose computers doing nothing special but its generally more cost effective to select and build your own PC for things like gaming. Beyond that, computers are pretty robust. Its pretty hard to select parts that are incompatible assuming you get a CPU that fits the socket on the motherboard you buy and you don't go cheap on your PSU. Lots of tools (and communities) exist to make sure you're selecting parts properly (not overdoing it on the CPU when you're getting a low tier GPU for instance). I'm not sure what your OS comment implies because virtually everything will work on most widely adopted OSes (and if you're running a pretty obscure linux distro I'd assume you're familiar with driver woes). I'm more than happy to be corrected, but if you're buying prebuilt you're likely paying for the parts and the labour involved. Unless the company is getting steep discounts on volume purchases (which they are only getting for bottom tier parts) you're not saving money by having them put it together for you.

sixothree 8y ago
My experience suggests otherwise. System Integrators use the same parts I like but often get them for a discount. I build my own systems because I like the constant incremental upgrade model. But when I recently had to help someone purchase a system I found it was hard to beat si prices with equally spaced hardware.
- zargon 8y ago
  Could you name some of these companies with prices competitive with building yourself? I'm in the market for a new PC when Zen 2 comes out. I would prefer to buy the computer instead of assemble it myself, but I've never found the prices to be competitive.
  - lightedman 8y ago
    Go look at portatech.
  - sixothree 8y ago
    I worked with a friend who purchased from iBuyPower (shudder). But the experience turned out fairly well. But Corsair, Falcon NW, and CyberPower are others.
- smittywerben 8y ago
  I recently dismantled 3 generations of pre-built PC's to remove the hard drives. One computer needed a 90-degree angled Phillips head to release the removable tray... ended up using a hammer to smack it out... I built my current computer and don't need a screwdriver to open the case, or to replace the SSD, HDDs, GPU, or RAM. They all just pop out now! First computer I've upgraded too.

secabeen 8y ago

That's true, if you have a complete failure. If you have a partial failure, self-build can be better, because you can pull the failed part and run with a degraded system while the RMA processes, then install the RMA. With pre-build, you're sending the whole system back and are without a computer for 5-10 days.

j-c-hewitt 8y ago

This is not really true. On both of the computers I built recently, every component was warrantied and in some instances I have even warranty-returned a product of theirs in the past which was one of the reasons why I selected parts from those manufacturers over others. If you know how to troubleshoot effectively, many issues are not that hard to isolate. There are some that are very time consuming to isolate but those issues tend to be pretty rare (troubleshooting memory etc.). The nice thing about building a computer is just to be able to configure it exactly to what you want. In some cases some retailers do screwy things and/or send customers the wrong parts although there are some top flight retailers who don't do that and charge a premium for it. It's not necessarily more price competitive for some things but there are certain key components that retail PC companies tend to cheap out on unnecessarily like the PSU and the motherboard. Cheaping out on the PSU can give the retailer a lot of extra margin but a good PSU is so cheap that it does not make that much of a difference in final price to the user. If you learn a bit more about things like case airflow or are planning to overclock a lot of things that retail PC sellers do will drive you nuts so once you are at a certain knowledge level it is just better to build your own despite all the many petty aggravations and frustrations that can occur with it. All the annoyances tend to be temporary whereas the benefits last for years.

NikolaNovak 8y ago

It seems experiences vary wildly, and I'd assume that's based on differing criteria. For a general purpose / MS Office / browsing desktop, going pre-built may be viable. For any more specific / demanding usage, building a computer yourself will allow you to get the performance you need for the price you want. I'm decade or more past the point of enjoying building a new PC, but a pre-built machine never seemed to make financial or use-case sense for me. YMMV :)

lightedman 8y ago

Normally more expensive? I can build a high end gaming rig for the same damn cost as a gaming console, and have 4x the horsepower.

magicalhippo 8y ago

When you build your own PC, you can decide which parts to spend more money on, and on which to skimp. With pre-built you often have little choice, or the choices are very limited or very expensive. Typical example is memory, where the pre-built usually come with very little memory, and increasing memory costs much more compared to the retail prices of memory modules.