So a couple of days ago I went to Fry's to grab a video card as my old one was sluggish. It turned out that it used an old slot and I knew I was in need of an upgrade. I originally built my computer, but hadn't upgraded it in about four years. Ended up buying a new motherboard, CPU, hard drive, video card, RAM and Windows 7. Looking at it now, I'm curious if it would have been better to just buy a new computer. I always thought building it yourself was the cheaper, albeit trickier, route to take. I'd like to get some of your thoughts on it. Here are the specs. Athlon AMD X3 CPU 3.2Ghz 1GB Radeon HD5450 Video Card 500GB Hard Drive 4GB DDR3 RAM Windows 7 I ended up paying about $650 for everything and am slowly getting my programs reinstalled. Hopefully this can last me a couple of years.
Can't say I'm a fan of the video card, hope you're not into play any upcoming games at higher settings (Fable 3, Dragon Age 2, etc)
I like building my own. I don't know that it is necessarily cheaper, as I tend to buy the high end compnents that you won't find on a typical pre-built computer (unless you go with a custom builder like Falcon or something). One thing I have found is that most mass-market pre-built computers, regardless of listed specs, cheaped out somewhere as there isn't much profit margin to be had on them. Areas that I've found they'll skimp on are the power supply and RAM quality. And they usually use cheaper generic main boards.
I still think it's much cheaper if you buy the stuff from online instead of a store like Fry's. I use newegg because I've have GREAT experience with them and is willing to pay a little more to buy from them, but pricewatch.com will have even cheaper parts. That said, I priced your hardware at $300 and also went for brands I liked a little more (Gigabyte board, WD HD, OCZ RAM). http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227540 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136497 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102877 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128454 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103872
Not true at all. On the efficiency spectrum, you are probably 1000 time less efficient than computer manufacturers. Just buy it.
Thats about what I got. I forgot to mention I also bought a new power supply (550 watts). Also Windows 7 added $130 to that.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139001 I'd pay $100 for a decent power supply but you can also go the cheapo route, but you can use a good one with it over and over again. That's still about $530 with Windows 7 and like Sacudido said, you're also sure you're not skimping on the parts. For example, with the modular power supply, you can minimize the number of wires in your rig while not limiting future options.
Build- experience, fun, possibly better individual components. Buy- overall system is cheaper due to manufacturer's buying power, warranty. I used to love building systems when I was learning the IT ropes. These days there's no fun in it for me, so I just buy.
I still prefer building, even though I don't necessarily think it is cheaper these days. I enjoy the process of researching the various components and putting it together myself.
If you build the system, you know what's going into it. You can get the best video card, processor, etc. that you can afford. Usually when you get up into those higher-end parts in a pre-built system, they're marking up components right and left and that adds up. If you start upgrading your components using configurator tools like Dell or HP have, you're definitely getting reamed the more things you change. In your case, what hard drive model is it? What RPM? You say you have a 550w power supply. What model/who makes it? I can get a cheap 500-800w PSU, but I prefer to pay more for a Seasonic or one of their rebadged versions like some Corsairs. They're quiet, true to their ratings, and probably will last a lot longer than crappy knock-off versions. BTW, the Corsair 520HX that wizkid83 posted is the exact power supply that's in my current machine. It's a great PSU. For your memory, what're the timings on the memory? What speed? The average consumer doesn't care about this, but this is exactly how they get the prices lower - all 4GB of RAM aren't the same, all 500GB hard drives aren't the same, and all PSU's definitely aren't the same, but going the cheaper or unknown route, you can definitely save a few bucks.
the 5450 is fine. i seriously doubt it would have any problems running newer games. perhaps not at 1920x1200 max settings and AA/AF cranked up, but honestly...you're not going to get that kind of system for 650$.
Couldn't be more wrong. You will always have better components at the same overall price tag if you build it yourself. And all the individual parts all have their own warranties anyway. But I guess the important thing here is that if you're not into building a "gaming rig", then buying from a big brand is probably less stressful route to take. Short on time? Newegg isn't the end all destination for all PC purchases. Looking around, you should be able to save more money finding other bargains and bundles. You'll still get the majority of your parts from Newegg probably, but finding a good deal can save you some extras for other stuff. What gibberish is this?
Last time I looked into building a PC for my parents, a cheap PC was cheaper to buy as windows is a significant part of the price for a cheap computer (600 dollars or less). On the gibberish, I think he is saying Dell can put a computer faster then most people, but you know it is hard to understand gibberish sometimes. I don't think this is too big a point for people that have built PCs before.
Oh for sure, a OEM Win7 will run you...100 dollars last I checked? But the thing with OS is that you do have the benefit of just using whatever you already have. Yea I had a suspicion it was something like that but it's so pointless I thought that nobody would actually bother to bring it up. Putting together the parts to a compute r is like what, an hour? Hardest part being making sure the wires aren't all cramped...
I guess it's true when they say when a person is young, they have more time than money and as as they grow older, it reverses. I'm not young anymore but I could always use the money and actually just finished building a new PC this past week. Some of the reasons I like to go this route rather than buying, most people have already mentioned. I hadn't built one in about 10 years so for me, part of the fun was doing the literature review by reading up on the latest and greatest (they don't use ISA slots anymore ) for all the major components (PSU, chipset, motherboard, CPU, memory, etc.). Then, it was off to newegg, Fry's and pricewatch for some added cost savings, along with keeping daily tabs on a couple of online forums where hot deals gets posted. Part of the fun now is waiting for rebates to come in! I'm pretty sure I ended up saving a couple hundred dollars plus I have the added benefit of splurging in some areas while being more conservative in other when it comes to the parts. Dell and Best Buy can't match that. The only minor downside I can think of is when something breaks, I am the one who has to troubleshoot it and followup with the warranty returns/RMAs. But aside from that, I would always look to build from parts rather than buy.
really, how often does hardware fail? if it runs when first hooking it up and you keep the dust out of it. should run for a long long time. of course this doesnt include harddrive crashes.
