Building your own PC: Why Cheaper?

[Bojo]

I dont understand how people build their own system for less cost than a good online deal or from a cheap PC maker.

I've done the math on buying the individual components and it works out to be more expensive. Obviously the PC makers get their parts much cheaper than a normal consumer so whats going on? How do you put together your own PC and save money?

 

[LXi]

Flexibility, customizabilty, upgradability, expandability, tweakability.

On top of that, you can have fun building a machine and troubleshoot yourself, you gain knowledge as you progress. Not to mention you can always put together an equally good machine(compare to OEM's offerings) at a lower price.

 

[Goi]

It usually turns up to be cheaper if you do your shopping wisely. Perhaps you're shopping at the wrong places. Besides, price isn't the only advantage in building your own system. You also get flexibility and experience.

 

[Looney]

Yeah, i would agree, it actually is cheaper if you build your own. The reason why a shop may SEEM cheaper is because they often use crappy parts. All they advertise are the MHZ, amount of ram, size of hdd, and throw in crappy peripherials like mice, keyboard, speakers, scanners, etc.

They often don't say what kind of mobo it has, what kind of ram, brand and speeds of hdd, and the keyboards and mice are normally generic ones.

Plus, it's way more fun to build your own. If you're not well verse in computers, then it would be more beneficial to buy from a reputable dealer. If you're making $30/hr, why would you waste 10+ hours learning about computers (often a lot more time), hours and hours trying to find good deals, then more hours putting it all together successful. For all that time you spent on the computer, you would have been better off just buying it from a good retailer... that is if you don't want to bother learning about computers.

 

[urbantechie]

Cheaper. You pick what you need and don't. WHen you need to upgrade or buy parts or whatever, any local computer store can heolp you out other than going to a manufactuers directed place. You don't get any cheapo/lame'o intgrated parts either.

 

[bonkers325]

building your own pc means save money and no hassle with intergrated junk

cheers,
bonkers325

 

[urbantechie]

Oh yea, you learn alot too!

 

[da loser]

check the hot deals forum

 

[ModemMix]

The stuff you find for cheep online is just that....cheap junk. Build your own and get good name brand quality componants. Then 2 years from now when its a dog, if you planned properly you can simply upgrade the individual componants to speed you along.

With most prebuilt systems you get integrated componants, so if you decided that you wanted a better video card you cant just pull it out and sell it in for sale/trade, and deduct the profit from what you bought as an upgrade. If you build your own you will have the extra flexability to make those individual upgrades as you choose and sell the older componants.

ModemMix

 

[pugh]

I choose to build my own because of the experience.I first heard of how hard it was to build a pc and how you needed to set aside a whole weekend to build one(book said this).Well I got my pc up and running in about 4hrs total!! It was my first time too..I was so happy with what I done on my own..I got no one to help me ethier.And since I have had this one built .I have had no problems with it at all.In july 98,I bought my first pc.(CTX AMD k62 300mhz 6.4hdd 4mb video card).Well as time went on I got more interested in pcs.I have learned alot since then,but still have a ways to go.But on my first pc ,I installed a video card,cdrw burner,memory.It mad me feel good to know that I did it myself instead of paying alot of money to have it done.So I think it is a good idea to build a pc if you know what you are doing.I will never buy store built again.I love the fun of going online buying my parts at unbelievable low prices and then sitting back looking at the finished product.I hope to soon be A+ certified and then go on from there..

 

[nexialist]

Those PC shops many times don't include the latest stuff, for instance they will use obsolete mobos and memory modules, and hard drives if they think you don't know what's up.

Don't trust them to make the selection for you, educate yourself first, or pay bigtime when you (try) to upgrade.

 

[fs5]

It is cheaper to buy a prebuilt system from Dell or some other quality company. Building it yourself takes time and knowledge, which some people don't have.

I, myself, like building my own system because I like quality components, but if I didn't know how to build/fix/upgrade/use a computer then I would definitley buy a pre-built system.
1) you get a warrenty and tech support
2) it's cheaper and the average user would be satisfied with lesser components
3) if it's breaks down you have someone to turn too (see #1)

 

[Bojo]

Yeah I can definitly understand that you gain very valuable knowledge and skills from building you're own.

Another thing is that I researched the pricing again (last time was a while ago) and it does seem to be about 20 % cheaper than an equivalent(ish) bought computer, and with some better components I think I made some big miscalculations last time...

But I dont really agree with the integrated component issue. This may sometimes be a problem but I have not noticed much of this rubbishy hardware being sold.

But I'm sure it is nice to know exactly whats going into your computer

Also the problem with support is a pretty big one, especially for beginners, but I gues for the money you save on buying the system you could easily pay a pro to put together anything you can't figure out.

Yeah I kinda like the idea of making my own PC now, especially as theres so much info available on the net.

woohooo!!! (to bad I just upgraded my existing computer and dont have any money now :disgust:

 

[Rigoletto]

I sat down to work this out once with different configurations. What I found was that I could build a PC myself for the money they were asking, or maybe 5% more (unless this is a rather uncompetitive vendor) but couldn't match the software bundle. So if you can't get cheap access to Windows, then you are better off buying a prebuilt system.

Another question is how much you can use old bits. Usually, you can, so it makes sense if you like these old bits enough to use them instead of selling them for a poor price. Of course, the corollary is that you don't want to have to sell off the bits you don't like very much on a prebuilt PC either.

I don't think that actually plugging in the parts taught me a lot about PCs, but the book I prepared myself with for it did, yeah. The great thing with home built PCs is that if a component fails, it has its own guarantee. You can maybe find a replacement while the thing is being RMAd. I don't believe a 3 year hard drive warranty applies when it has been built by an OEM- you're in their power or care instead. Frankly I fiddle far too much with my PC to suffer an upgrade-voided warranty!

BTW integrated components ARE a bit of a big deal if you are a power user or upgrader. Built in sound, VGA and to a lesser extent modems are not as good as the separate equivalents, but they do save a lot for the vendor. Make sure you know what is integrated on the mainboard The upside is that you can save super money for SOHO use. I calculated that the integrated parts on a motherboard which cost the same as non-integrated motherboards, would have cost me an extra £50 to buy separate (this mobo was £65 itself)

 

[fs5]

Yes, I forgot to mention the software bundle. For example if you don't own ANY computer software (or have a friend *cough cough*) then a prebuilt system is steal! WinME stand alone costs $169, and MS Office is like $400? One good thing you can do when you get a prebuilt pc, they often include MS Works and you can pick up a copy of MS Office upgrade and upgrade off of MS Works, saves a bundle!

 

[The Wildcard]

Yes, software bundle is the only real important thing. If you can't get access to software like Microsoft Office and Windows 9x operating system, then it's gonna be pretty expensive buying those software packages. That's where online retail computers are much cheaper.

The only other good thing about buying a premade computer is the somewhat higher assurance that the computer will run smoothly with all of its components and a warranty system.

If you build your own system however, you might run into incompatibilites between hardware ( which can be solved if you do your research right ) and if it doesn't work, you are going to ultimately need to be the one to do the fixing.

BTW, online computers factor in something called LABOR that adds quite of bit of cost which if you build it yourself, is free, lol.

 

[urbantechie]

You can buy OEM software which is alot cheaper (usually with a HDD or Mobo/CPU/RAM etc).

 

[Lord Gwynz]

It may not come out cheaper when you first build your system. But if you choose your parts wisely and plan on keeping the system for awhile, you may come out ahead in the long run since you will not have any silly proprietary designs to deal with when it comes time to upgrade the CPU or motherboard.

Some pre-builts may have a good bundle of installed software though so that might be something worth considering.

 

[superbaby]

Software? Oh wait... *cough* nevermind...

Buying a computer from a manufacturer is cheaper than building your own. Keep in mind when you buy online or anywhere else, you are paying a certain percentage that profits the dealer. When you buy from an OEM you pay a percentage of what the WHOLE SYSTEM costs, not part by part, so in the end it is cheaper.

Unless you are really damn good bargain hunter, you won't end up with a cheaper system.

However building your own computer means you get to choose which parts you want in, and as other people said, it's good experience (but nothing beats calling 24/7 helpdesk and getting a new part when your old one breaks, and you don't want to deal with it).

If you are lazy like me you'll probably want to buy it from Dell, which probably has the best tech support on the market. But I ended up reading too many Do-It-Yourself articles and wound up building it myself. Sometimes I regret that I really don't have a lot of warranties on my parts, but what can you do?

 

[Rigoletto]

I should add that Microsoft student license software is an alternative which makes building your own first system more appealing in price. But OEM software has potential for much greater price cuts because manufacturing costs of the software is almost zero.
I don't like the fact I'm not supposed to fiddle with a prebuilt system when it's going wrong. If you've had to wait two weeks for a tech support guy because there is a flu epidemic you'll know just what I mean. Anyway, what power PC user can resist adding something in a whole year?!

 

[Mikewarrior2]

Even if it weren't cheaper, i would still build my own computer.

You get the parts you want, and no junk that you don't want. You don't pay for software you might not use. And chances are, if you look in the right places, you could even build a comparable computer to an OEM(both spec and component wise) for less than you will for a prebuilt one.


Mike

 

[davidkay]

I am going to build an Athlon 1GHz based system. I worked out the total cost of builiding and it works out the same as a Dell 1GHz system, exept my Mobo is better, i have more ram, bigger and faster harddrive, better graphics card and a better monitor. OK i am getting most parts trade price, as i have various contacts, but i would still be getting a better pc even if i bought each part at normal cost.

 

[RossMAN]

Goi nailed it perfectly. For me it took 6 months (ugh) to build my AMD Athlon 650 system because I only purchased parts if I found a deal.

As da loser suggests check out the anandtech hot deals forum there's always tons of hot deals on RAM, HD's, cases, motherboards, mice, keyboards, etc.

Here's how much my system costs me:
$54.90 Antec KS282
$136.00 AMD Athlon 650 MHz CPU
$95.00 Asus K7V motherboard
$79.00 VooDoo3000 AGP
$9.00 Memorex 48x CD-ROM
$109.00 Maxtor Diamond Max Plus 30GB (7200 RPM) hard drive
$81.00 128MB PC100 Kingston ValueRAM
$9.00 Logitech Internet keyboard
$5.00 Logitech wheelmouse man
$17.00 SONY 3.5" Floppy drive
$159.00 17" ViewSonic E771 flat CRT monitor
$193.50 Plextor 12x/10x/32x
-------------------------------------------------
$947.40

Currently you can buy 128MB PC100 or PC133 Kingston ValueRAM for only $49.95 after rebate with free shipping.

There also a possibility of getting a Maxtor 40GB 7200 RPM hard drive for $119

Of course I turned around and sold this PC to my roomate for $947.40 (the price I paid) and bought a loaded Dell Dimension 4100 for $2,000 with 19" FD Trinitron monitor.

I decided to buy the Dell because I didn't want to take the time again to "wait" for deals to build a faster system plus I got this monitor, and lots of freebies with my Dell system. Right now you can get 20% off any Dell system with free shipping. Awesome deal!

 

[farmercal]

It's not a matter of price when you build your own system as it is getting components of your choice and having something that can be upgraded. The systems stores sell, have sound built into the motherboard, sometimes share RAM between system and video and use a lot of generic parts, because it's more inexpensive to build that way. If you build your own system, you have the case, motherboard, video card, etc. of your own choosing. I bought a system I thought was a good one, (and it was upgradable, to a point), I found out later that the RAM was upgradable by only 16 more MEG(to upgrad, I was supposed to pull out a perfectly good 16 MEG stick and replace it with a 32 MEG stick, what a waste), part of the RAM was soldered into the motherboard, the processor could be upgraded by only 100 MHz. The limitations of store bought are too great for this old boy to try again. I would much rather buy a new chip and pop it in, than to have to buy a complete new system because the one I bought had the chip soldered in by the cheap manufacturer. Just my opinion.

 

[pen^2]

my roomate's p3e 800 dell came with a m64! sure it looks nice on the paper for computer illeterates... 32megs of agp 3d power!
then that mobo doesnt even give you an option for cas latency setting or Fast writes or anything like that... tweakbios tells me most everything is set to the worst and slowest settings by default(like cas 3-3-3). ever wonder why those things are so damn slow? :disgust:

a big concern is if you play games or do other higher requirement stuff... if the only thing you do is web surfing and office apps then obviously there is no need for all those tweaks. then again, if thats all that you ever needed, why get a p3e in the first place? a c450 with sufficient ram and fast enuff hard drive handles all that kinda stuff just fine...