Building your own PC vs buying one pre-built

A

AlimNassor

Banned
I'm debating on buying one pre-built, or having one built for me. I know the whole "it's so easy" but, that's coming from PC gamers with experience. I've built a PC before in school and managed to brick the entire thing (and fail the class) it's not that easy. Besides I don't have anywhere to build it. How expensive is it to get a tech-business to build one for you?

Is it possible to buy a pre-built PC?
 
You can do both. If you buy all your parts from one shop, they will usually assemble it for you for a small fee.

For example my local shop will build your PC for $50, and for another $50 they'll load the OS for you.
 
AlimNassor said:
I know the whole "it's so easy" but, that's coming from PC gamers with experience. I've built a PC before in school and managed to brick the entire thing (and fail the class) it's not that easy.
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Dunno, I built mine with zero experience and it wasn't that big of a deal.
 
What am I missing...? Of course you can buy pre-built PCs.

As for the price, honestly, and I hate to be "that guy", but you can easily google that and find prices. We don't have any secret knowledge here.
 
Most sites build a PC from a list of parts for like 30-50$
Buying pre-built (without choosing the parts) is never a good idea unless you're THAT lazy
 
AlimNassor said:
I'm debating on buying one pre-built, or having one built for me. I know the whole "it's so easy" but, that's coming from PC gamers with experience. I've built a PC before in school and managed to brick the entire thing (and fail the class) it's not that easy. Besides I don't have anywhere to build it. How expensive is it to get a tech-business to build one for you?

Is it possible to buy a pre-built PC?
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Buy the parts yourself, pay someone to build it for you, like a small computer shop or someone. I've seen sites selling pre builts for prices up to $800 more than the components together cost.

Also building is insanely easy if you can ready.
 
AlimNassor said:
A gaming one that isn't complete garbage.
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You'll pay a few hundred dollars in premium but it's still an option.

If you work a bit at it a little bit extra you can save that few hundred dollars that could go into better components though.

So it's a trade-off, but building it yourself you will get a better sense of satisfaction when you succeed and will save money/get better performance or both.

Only if you're really scared of building should you buy pre-built.
 
I think a lot of places will be willing to assemble one for you for like $50 or something if you were to buy all the components from a known build from the "I need a new PC" thread or whatever and bring them there.
 
It is easy. Not as easy as people make it out to be, but it is easy.

There are websites where you can purchase the parts and have them build it before shipping to you. I believe they offer better value than the mainstream pre-builts you would find in stores.
 
commish said:
What am I missing...? Of course you can buy pre-built PCs.

As for the price, honestly, and I hate to be "that guy", but you can easily google that and find prices. We don't have any secret knowledge here.
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I meant gaming, and a general am i going to be paying hundreds of dollars to get someone to build one for me?
 
You can do both, it's completely up to you.
The only downer with prebuilt is they often come with bloatware from the building team and they're obviously going to cost more. Just depends on your budget though so w/e.

Walking through building your own PC is legit like not a big deal in the slightest, but I can understand people not wanting to bother. I think it's a heck of a lot of fun building new PCs though, but that's me. I'd shop around, there are a million specialty shops online instead of just picking up a stock prebuilt from Alienware or something that was a huge markup.
 
AlimNassor said:
A gaming one that isn't complete garbage.
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There are services that you specify the parts and pay a fee and they build it for you. You will be a bit more limited and typically you're buying from a single retailer, meaning on top of the fee, you will pay more on parts as well but in the end you get a custom PC with quality parts.

Non-custom in some cases can be pretty decent but you almost always pay more and sacrifice quality especially on MB and power supply.
 
I built mine by following YouTube videos and it still runs like a champ 16 months later. I say try to build it yourself - it's not that hard.
 
AlimNassor said:
I meant gaming, and a general am i going to be paying hundreds of dollars to get someone to build one for me?
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If you walk into a computer shop it could be anywhere from 75-150 or something. You could find someone cheaper on craigslist or something probably.
 
AlimNassor said:
A gaming one that isn't complete garbage.
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i got an Alienware Alpha a month ago.
I've got over 200 Steam games and I haven't tried one that won't run at 1080p 60 fps with AA (MK X runs weird, but I read it was just a bad PC port?)
Project Cars, Alien Isolation, Portal 2, Resident Evil 5 off the top of my head
 
I just used cyber power PC to build my PC. You pick all the parts, they make it and ship it to and it has a warranty so you aren't on your own. It's arriving soon for me.

Building it myself was just too much, I know nothing about it, I wanted a warranty.
 
I bought a pre-built from eCollegePC. Had it for almost 4 years now and still running strong (although I've since upgraded the graphics card and SSD).
 
Check the PC thread, some of those websites can prebuild it for you if you buy all the parts from them. That is what I am doing the next time I get the PC, it's only a $35-50 charge for them to build it plus whatever expenses you incur by not buying each part from the cheapest source. If you want to do that (buy parts piecemeal), you will have to find someone local to build and it will probably be more expensive, but maybe you can work the math to something advantageous.
 
AlimNassor said:
I meant gaming, and a general am i going to be paying hundreds of dollars to get someone to build one for me?
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How long ago was this class you failed? It's almost impossible to 'brick' an entire machine. (unless you dropped the entire thing in water).

If you do not want to build it yourself go somewhere like MicroCenter if you have one nearby and they will build it for you. If you have any local computer shops or repair guys call them up and see what they will charge just for assembly.


If you buy a prebuilt from say Dell or iBuyPower etc you are going to be paying hundreds extra (how many hundreds extra depends on the company and what you are getting).
 
Build it yourself man. I built one last October for pretty cheap and was so much fun to do. Didn't break it and managed to put some nice LEDs in it. I did loads of reading about what I wanted and what was best for the money etc and then I compared prices nearly everyday to see what was the cheapest.
Really enjoyed building mine from the ground up. Feel like i understand PCs a bit more now too. There are so many tutorials and the pieces fit together like Lego!
 
I built mine recently and it is not hard at all. There are plenty of info on gaf's pc thread. I just asked a friend to overclock it as I had no idea what to do and did not want to damage my pc
 
Digital Storm has their Vanquish series which are pretty well priced for what they build you and warranty wise, etc. if you want to go that route.

They have other crazy high end models too, but take a look at those.
 
Pick out the parts you want, and have the store build it for you. That's what I did.
I know how to put together a PC, but I suck at cable managment, so this was way more convenient.
 
I'd appreciate input from Gaffers on the best prebuilt company to go with. My prior PC was from Alienware, and I payed way too much for what I got. Have been looking at Orgin and iBuyPower. I know there are other websites as well.

P.s. I understand you get a better bang for your buck to just do it yourself. I just like the simplicity. I also like the look of some of the custom cases.
 
If you really don't think you can build it yourself pick the parts and let the shop do it.
Also what did you do wrong that bricked the entire thing?
 
CollectedDust said:
I'd appreciate input from Gaffers on the best prebuilt company to go with. My prior PC was from Alienware, and I payed way too much for what I got. Have been looking at Orgin and iBuyPower. I know there are other websites as well.

P.s. I understand you get a better bang for your buck to just do it yourself. I just like the simplicity. I also like the look of some of the custom cases.
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Yea just don't go Alienware again.

Pre-built is still valid, but again it just depends on what kind of legwork you want to do (or not do).

It's not hard though, and you could save a lot of $$$. But still at the end of the day you know what you want more than any of us do :)
 
MiamiWesker said:
I just used cyber power PC to build my PC. You pick all the parts, they make it and ship it to and it has a warranty so you aren't on your own. It's arriving soon for me.

Building it myself was just too much, I know nothing about it, I wanted a warranty.
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You will get individual warranties on the parts. Think my graphics card has a 5 year warranty. The rest have 2-5 years. (I already went over the time limit since my pc is already over 5 years old.). Never been a problem warrantying anything out also.
 
cyress8 said:
You will get individual warranties on the parts. Think my graphics card has a 5 year warranty. The rest have 2-5 years. (I already went over the time limit since my pc is already over 5 years old.). Never been a problem warrantying anything out also.
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It always helps to look up warranties on parts before purchase. Some GPUs have incredibly different warranties depending on the brand for the same model. Things like EVGA's step up program are fucking nice too.
 
potatohead said:
Yea just don't go Alienware again.

Pre-built is still valid, but again it just depends on what kind of legwork you want to do (or not do).

It's not hard though, and you could save a lot of $$$. But still at the end of the day you know what you want more than any of us do :)
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Yeah I know it's cheaper, but I'm willing to pay extra to be lazy :). How does reliability compare between companies? Is it really about the components and not the pc builder? Or do some have better reputations than others?

Side note: I plan to wait for the new cards to drop, but will probably pull the trigger shortly after they become available. My 560ti just doesn't cut it these days, and my i7 surface book is really only good for Indy stuff and streaming from my X1.
 
It's easy to build one honestly, but if you don't want to most of the sites that now do custom builds are priced almost the same as building one yourself since they can buy in bulk and you can't.

I built my most recent PC but the one before that the individual parts were £20 more expensive than just having it built by pcspecialist.co.uk
 
Building is not the hard part, the hard part is figuring out which components are compatible with each other. When you have something that can be assembled together, it's just a matter of looking at the instructions.
 
there are online shops that let you pick all the parts and then they will assemble it for you, the fee is relatively low too.
 
I've always found the replies on these topics by americans to be amusing. In the UK there are several online stores that sell pre-built gaming PCs, top specs, overclocked, cooling, neon lights, whatever you want on them.

And after buying 4 or 5 rigs, and always doing the maths about the cost of all the parts separately and buying pre-built, and the difference was only if some site had a certain part discounted and the "overclocking fee", which in total it was always a £50 difference at most.
 
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