for the first time in 10 years i am purchasing a prebuilt PC

[idea]

my first computer (1996) was a Packard Bell but after i performed surgery on that box for the 50th time i felt confident enough that my next system was going to be hand built by me, and it was. i haven't stopped since. until now.

there were a few reasons why i decided to build it myself back then. lets see the pros/cons list.

Pros of building yourself back then

A) its fun!
--> after spending countless hours tinkering with PC parts this one has lost all its sparkle

B) higher quality parts (overclocking, extra features, etc)
--> who cares, overclocking is for nerds and every PC comes with all the bells and whistles now

C) cheaper cost
--> yeah, whatever! go check out the Hot Deals forums. Core Duo systems for $500 or less.

with that said, the parts from my workstation are being donated to upgrade my aging linux fileserver, and i'm cruising over to the Hot Deals forum to pick me up a full Dell for ~$500 with a 19" LCD and a 1 year warranty. Newegg shopping carts can't beat that!

 

[Special K]

My most recent PC was purchased from the Dell Outlet. Like you said, there was no way to beat the price by buying the components individually.

 

[Sphexi]

Link to said hot deal? o.o

 

[RossMAN]

Not to mention most Dell desktops are near silent, include a legal copy of Windows XP and full 1 year warranty.

 

[imported_LoKe]

I intend to buy a Dell as my next computer purchase. You just can't beat Dell prices and reliability.

 

[ForumMaster]

Originally posted by: idea
my first computer (1996) was a Packard Bell but after i performed surgery on that box for the 50th time i felt confident enough that my next system was going to be hand built by me, and it was. i haven't stopped since. until now.

there were a few reasons why i decided to build it myself back then. lets see the pros/cons list.

Pros of building yourself back then

A) its fun!
--> after spending countless hours tinkering with PC parts this one has lost all its sparkle

B) higher quality parts (overclocking, extra features, etc)
--> who cares, overclocking is for nerds and every PC comes with all the bells and whistles now

C) cheaper cost
--> yeah, whatever! go check out the Hot Deals forums. Core Duo systems for $500 or less.

with that said, the parts from my workstation are being donated to upgrade my aging linux fileserver, and i'm cruising over to the Hot Deals forum to pick me up a full Dell for ~$500 with a 19" LCD and a 1 year warranty. Newegg shopping carts can't beat that!

i accept your decison. i was just surprised by the reasons. i can sort of understand the first. in all the years, that part never get's old for me.

but your second reason is stupid. buying individual parts does get you higher quality parts. you know every spec of your system and if something goes wrong, you can usually fix it pretty quickly. and why is OC'ing for nerds? is improving cars also for nerds? OC'ing just let's you get more performance out of a said part. i don't see what wrong with that.

and for your third reason, yeah a Dell might indeed be cheaper. but that's cause they usually skimp on a lot of things. but buying a dell does give you a legal copy of windows which is good.

 

[mrSHEiK124]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster

Originally posted by: idea
my first computer (1996) was a Packard Bell but after i performed surgery on that box for the 50th time i felt confident enough that my next system was going to be hand built by me, and it was. i haven't stopped since. until now.

there were a few reasons why i decided to build it myself back then. lets see the pros/cons list.

Pros of building yourself back then

A) its fun!
--> after spending countless hours tinkering with PC parts this one has lost all its sparkle

B) higher quality parts (overclocking, extra features, etc)
--> who cares, overclocking is for nerds and every PC comes with all the bells and whistles now

C) cheaper cost
--> yeah, whatever! go check out the Hot Deals forums. Core Duo systems for $500 or less.

with that said, the parts from my workstation are being donated to upgrade my aging linux fileserver, and i'm cruising over to the Hot Deals forum to pick me up a full Dell for ~$500 with a 19" LCD and a 1 year warranty. Newegg shopping carts can't beat that!

i accept your decison. i was just surprised by the reasons. i can sort of understand the first. in all the years, that part never get's old for me.

but your second reason is stupid. buying individual parts does get you higher quality parts. you know every spec of your system and if something goes wrong, you can usually fix it pretty quickly. and why is OC'ing for nerds? is improving cars also for nerds? OC'ing just let's you get more performance out of a said part. i don't see what wrong with that.

and for your third reason, yeah a Dell might indeed be cheaper. but that's cause they usually skimp on a lot of things. but buying a dell does give you a legal copy of windows which is good.

*COUGH* POWER SUPPLY *COUGH*

Handmade for me, kthxbye.

 

[waggy]

I agree. Dell are getting cheap enough i might just buy one myself.

 

[Baked]

I might get one if it comes w/ a 2407FPW for under $1K.

 

[GeekDrew]

I recommend Dell or IBM to anyone that asks me what kind of computer they should buy, but I'm still home-building my own. Dell's are just a little too customized for me. (read: power support, custom restore solution instead of CDs, etc)

 

[waggy]

only concern i have is getting one that does not suck for gameing and all the extra software they shove on it.

 

[imported_LoKe]

Originally posted by: waggy
only concern i have is getting one that does not suck for gameing and all the extra software they shove on it.

Buying a Dell for hard core gaming is generally a bad idea. For the prices of their better systems, you would be better off building your own. It's the home and small office ones that are great value for what you get, but mind you, they can hold their own in a lot of games.

 

[RossMAN]

Originally posted by: waggy
only concern i have is getting one that does not suck for gameing and all the extra software they shove on it.

Reformat, clean OS re-install and upgrade to a better video card.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: RossMAN

Originally posted by: waggy
only concern i have is getting one that does not suck for gameing and all the extra software they shove on it.

Reformat, clean OS re-install and upgrade to a better video card.

yeah thats what i was thinking. the computer i got now is 3 years old =(

 

[BigJ]

Originally posted by: mrSHEiK124

Originally posted by: ForumMaster

Originally posted by: idea
my first computer (1996) was a Packard Bell but after i performed surgery on that box for the 50th time i felt confident enough that my next system was going to be hand built by me, and it was. i haven't stopped since. until now.

there were a few reasons why i decided to build it myself back then. lets see the pros/cons list.

Pros of building yourself back then

A) its fun!
--> after spending countless hours tinkering with PC parts this one has lost all its sparkle

B) higher quality parts (overclocking, extra features, etc)
--> who cares, overclocking is for nerds and every PC comes with all the bells and whistles now

C) cheaper cost
--> yeah, whatever! go check out the Hot Deals forums. Core Duo systems for $500 or less.

with that said, the parts from my workstation are being donated to upgrade my aging linux fileserver, and i'm cruising over to the Hot Deals forum to pick me up a full Dell for ~$500 with a 19" LCD and a 1 year warranty. Newegg shopping carts can't beat that!

i accept your decison. i was just surprised by the reasons. i can sort of understand the first. in all the years, that part never get's old for me.

but your second reason is stupid. buying individual parts does get you higher quality parts. you know every spec of your system and if something goes wrong, you can usually fix it pretty quickly. and why is OC'ing for nerds? is improving cars also for nerds? OC'ing just let's you get more performance out of a said part. i don't see what wrong with that.

and for your third reason, yeah a Dell might indeed be cheaper. but that's cause they usually skimp on a lot of things. but buying a dell does give you a legal copy of windows which is good.

*COUGH* POWER SUPPLY *COUGH*

Handmade for me, kthxbye.

The Dell PSUs are EXTREMELY underrated, and most of them will run just fine with anything you throw at them.

 

[xtknight]

I will never buy another Dell/other cheap company OEM PC as long as they lock you out of most of the BIOS/overclocking settings. I don't like paying for Windows when I don't want it either.

If I had to buy an OEM PC the first thing I'd do is burn the recovery DVDs, then format/wipe the whole thing clean. After that, I'd swap the PSU and motherboard out. It's actually probably not a bad deal if I got one extremely cheap. I guess I'd consider doing that if there was some unheard of deal and the new PSU/mobo weren't expensive.

When I got my hp dv2000 laptop, the dude at CompUSA walked me and my dad through Windows XP while we sat at a table just to "make sure it was fine" since it was openbox, even though we paid for it new. Oh man was my blood boiling at that point. All I could think of was "DBAN" and "format" as all the spyware popped up.

I, for one, am thankful that the OEM PCs like Dell do exist, because then that's all I have to tell my neighbors. It's actually a great deal too for parents who don't care about OCing or anything else other than just browsing the net. Why not get a usable desktop for a very cheap price?

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: xtknight
I will never buy another Dell/other cheap company OEM PC as long as they lock you out of most of the BIOS/overclocking settings. I don't like paying for Windows when I don't want it either.

If I had to buy an OEM PC the first thing I'd do is burn the recovery DVDs, then format/wipe the whole thing clean. After that, I'd swap the PSU and motherboard out. It's actually probably not a bad deal if I got one extremely cheap. I guess I'd consider doing that if there was some unheard of deal and the new PSU/mobo weren't expensive.

hmm sure.

 

[Sid59]

i'm in the same boat along with my friend. His computer is running on 4 years old and is giving him nothing but head pains the last year plus. I suggested he look into Dell but he was staunchly against it. He said he'd rather build it (which means me build it and support it) and save on cost. I told him flat out that i'm not even going to build my next computer with the prices Dell has to offer. I told him he can get a Dell card and make payments on a computer of his choice and not worry about anything breaking because of a 1 year warranty.

He collapsed and recieved a nice credit line to put towards his new computer. Saves him and my the headache of his crappy computer. There was no way i wanted to spend time reasearching the parts, cost + shipping, and the hours it takes to build, troubleshoot the computer AND then the software he wants.

Personally, i'm ready to move to a Dell or a SFF computer. I'm not that big into gaming anymore and never played the latest games. I'd rather get something like a dell and plop some cash for a nice monitor.

 

[her209]

The only time I will consider buying a Dell is if I'm looking for a laptop.

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: ForumMaster
but your second reason is stupid. buying individual parts does get you higher quality parts. you know every spec of your system and if something goes wrong, you can usually fix it pretty quickly. and why is OC'ing for nerds?

There's just no need now.

When you could overclock a 300mhz Celeron to 500hmz that was a huge deal. Computational power is cheap and readily available now. It's just not worth it, plus my main focus now is on silence.

I really don't care what you do with your time, if it makes you happy then by all means continue to do it.

 

[Rip the Jacker]

Has hell frozen over?

Anandtechers considering buying Dell computers?

 

[otispunkmeyer]

same here,

just got rid of the rig in sig (though it had an X1900XT instead of the SLI 7800's) it was built, maintained and upgraded by me since 2004 and now after 2 years my next purchase will be a WS monitor of somekind and a laptop.

my excuse is its just too expensive to maintain a high end gaming rig. needing new GPU's every year along with new components such as the physx and dual core cpu's i just cant afford it. so a dell laptop and 360 it is!

 

[Vegitto]

Meh, I'd only get as prebuilt as a filler. Like with Dell, if you get the 2407 and you order the cheapest system with it (?250), you get free shipping and free dead-pixel warranty. You can easily make the ?250 back by taking it apart and selling the components or just selling it to some dumb schmuck for ?350.

 

[DrPizza]

Originally posted by: RossMAN
Not to mention most Dell desktops are near silent, include a legal copy of Windows XP and full 1 year warranty.

That's pretty much the biggest difference... unless you have a free license via your college, for average quality systems, the cost of WinXP will put you over the cost of buying a whole computer, nearly every time. The exception is in cutting edge computers; I believe you can still assemble them for less than they're sold for.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: her209
The only time I will consider buying a Dell is if I'm looking for a laptop.

exactly.

or if a computer is less than 300 bucks and has nice stuff in it. my bro got a poweredge SC400 or something with a p4 2.8C, 1GB of ram, 80GB hard drive, all for $150 or something after a coupon. mind you this was years ago...