Is pc building a dying trend?

[rsbennett00]

I'm very serious about this troll. I've had amazing customer service from apple. I recently had a hard drive go out. If it was a personal build I would have RMAed it, perhaps purchased something new online. So either a week out of a computer during RMA or a day out and $300.

Instead I brought my mac to apple. They replaced the hard drive, for free, AND had the operating system re-installed for me THAT DAY.

All in all the mac cost $300 more than I would have paid for the parts to build my own PC but I get the spectacular OS-X along with amazing customer service, and all in very sexy box.

Ok, that's good to hear. I've only tried apple support about a dozen times and it was terrible every time.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Ok, that's good to hear. I've only tried apple support about a dozen times and it was terrible every time.

Did you go to the apple store?

 

[rsbennett00]

Did you go to the apple store?

Nah, the closest one is a couple hundred miles away. I always called or had to ship shit and it took forever. Average turn around time was 30 days. We eventually gave up and went back to HP's regardless of what people wanted.

 

[OverVolt]

"Is pc building a dying trend? -> 8 page thread

:hmm:

no?

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Nah, the closest one is a couple hundred miles away. I always called or had to ship shit and it took forever. Average turn around time was 30 days. We eventually gave up and went back to HP's regardless of what people wanted.

That's like saying that you think Bentleys are stupid cars because there's nowhere to service one in your town. I agree; don't get an apple product if you live more than an hour's drive from an apple store.

As for the other 90% of the US population, Apple makes the best PCs.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

Apple builds fine PCs with amazing customer service: so I don't see why I should build my own anymore.

try leaving ur imac on 24/7/365 for years at a time and see how long it lasts and whether they are willing to give u such great customer service the fourth or fifth time u have to bring it in

 

[rsbennett00]

That's like saying that you think Bentleys are stupid cars because there's nowhere to service one in your town. I agree; don't get an apple product if you live more than an hour's drive from an apple store.

As for the other 90% of the US population, Apple makes the best PCs.

Well, HP will send me parts or send a tech, will apple? Nope.

After paying almost $10k for a mac pro with applecare, you would think we could get a little service.

Bentley would send a tech to your local audi/vw/lambo/porsche dealer as well.

 

[KlokWyze]

i built a sick ITX rig about a year ago. small SSD + 7790 GPU, cheap amc combo in a sweet fuckin case for < $300.

Outperforms my xbone handily. Steam big picture mode is great. so many controller based games now... I use it on my home theatre TV.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

You should stop spreading lies or at least clarify you mean "some" and not imply all.

The vast majority of pre-builts have garbage PSU's that will maybe last the lifetime of the warranty. Have you never done in-home service calls? You're getting butt-hurt over something you are naive about.

 

[OBLAMA2009]

The vast majority of pre-builts have garbage PSU's that will maybe last the lifetime of the warranty. Have you never done in-home service calls? You're getting butt-hurt over something you are naive about.

exactly once that thing is of warranty theyre gonna charge u more to fix it than its worth. in prehistoric times we had a contract with digital and it was always "$150 for a cd player" "$200 for a crap video cards" "$120 for a proprietary power supply"...and most of the time the parts were "refurbished"

the biggest problem with pre built is the power supplies--low wattage, short lifetime, and proprietary

 

[Childs]

try leaving ur imac on 24/7/365 for years at a time and see how long it lasts and whether they are willing to give u such great customer service the fourth or fifth time u have to bring it in

My Macs at home and at work are never turned off, except for when there was a power outage. Oldest machine is a maybe a MacPro 3,1 or Xserve3,1, which I probably got in 2008. My PC at home is never turned off either, and that has only shutoff for hardware upgrades. Modern machines and components seem to last long enough that the warranty is kinda irrelevant. If something doesn't fail early in its life cycle you'll probably be ready for something better if it eventually fails. I can't imagine a PC failing 4 or 5 times within the warranty period and I would still want to use that PC brand.

 

[Sulaco]

You can't just look at one prebuilt though, would you just look at one car?

For instance:

HP Z230
I7-4790 quad core 3.6ghz
8gb ram PC3-12800
1TB 7200rpm sata-600
dvdrw
win7 pro
3 year next business day warranty
$815

Add a video card and an SSD.


Versus newegg pricing:
i7 4790 $309
MB MSI H81M-E33 $47
8GB crucial ram $68
random 1TB 7200 rpm drive ~$50
random dvdrw ~$25
random case ~$50
Win7 pro $139

This is already at $688 and missing some things like a power supply. There are also other considerations like noise level. I know first hand that the z230 workstations are basically silent in a noiseless room and the case is big enough to fit a radeon 6990 (12.5"?).

I'm just trying to make the point that not all prebuilt machines are crap to be instantly dismissed when considering a new rig.

Where are you getting those prices?

Because Newegg has the exact spec'd machine you listed for $1312 , with a 240 Watt Power Supply, and no SSD or GPU.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

there is no way i would buy a prebuilt desktop

I'm still always going to be in this camp, mainly for three reasons:

1. I don't trust the motherboards nor power supplies on prebuilts
2. I like having three year warranties on all my parts
3. I'm not going to pay the Windows tax on a non-gaming build when the first thing I'd do with the system is format and install Linux

 

[Geekbabe]

I haven't built a custom PC in years and I used to build sweet gaming rigs. It's not that I don't love doing it, the satisfaction involved in building a real screamer is immense! Problem is, life gets in the way, I work full time and also focus on lifestyle tech review for mobile devices. Mobile is where the action is now, slimmer, faster easily portable devices that work with a busy lifestyle. Apps that save you money, help you control devices in your home, organize your schedule. PC gaming is increasing becoming a niche interest.

 

[Eug]

try leaving ur imac on 24/7/365 for years at a time and see how long it lasts and whether they are willing to give u such great customer service the fourth or fifth time u have to bring it in

My 2010 iMac was on 24/7 for 2.5 years. I don't keep it on now 24/7 though because I don't need to. Well actually, it's turned on, but I let it sleep after a couple of hours.

Know that my 2010 was a replacement for my defective 2009, which was also on 24/7.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

$340 4790K 4.4GHz stock + $70 Asrock non-OC mobo

vs

$240 4690K stock + $100 Z98 mobo + $70 air cooling and maybe it won't reach 4.4Ghz at the end of the day and no hyperthreading.

So much free performance right? "But the expensive mobo has more features" doesn't work either when like 95% of people will not even be hampered by the limitations of mobos with the lowest end chipset.

I can't stand hearing about the free performance from overclocking. That held in the glory days of overclocking 15 years ago, but now when you pay a premium to get the k on the end it's such a stupid waste of money. For the life of me I can't understand why people love the 4690k so much.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

1. I don't have much time to game anymore.
2. Games aren't getting better in proportion to hardware getting better.
3. Hardware isn't getting better at rates it previously was.
4. Different parts are getting better than what were previously getting better. It used to be just the CPU and Videocard. Now it's the CPU (Multi-cores), Videocards (Multi-cores), and SSDs, and Memory.


That said, I will always build my computer ever since I first did a long time ago when I was ~13. The Difference? I think we are all doing so LESS OFTEN.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I can't stand hearing about the free performance from overclocking. That held in the glory days of overclocking 15 years ago, but now when you pay a premium to get the k on the end it's such a stupid waste of money. For the life of me I can't understand why people love the 4690k so much.

I actually save money by buying the K combos at MC
The only cost increase is for a fancier motherboard and/or cooling.

1) Mobo : Not always true (eg. I can get the Z87-GF65 for $29AR) and you may want the additional features (more SATA3, USB3, PCI-E 16x slots, aesthetics, etc.) anyways

2) Cooling : No need to an $$$ uber-1337 HSF, just a simple Hyper212+ would suffice. OCed or not, I never like running with the stock HSF anyways.

 

[Eug]

These days, I use my Xbox 360 to play Hexic or Robotron.

BTW, Robotron came out 33 years ago.

On my phone I'll play Angry Birds or something, although I just installed an NES/SNES emulator on my iPhone, so I'll be trying out some of those games. On my desktop I play nothing now.

 

[Arkaign]

Where are you getting those prices?

Because Newegg has the exact spec'd machine you listed for $1312 , with a 240 Watt Power Supply, and no SSD or GPU.

That's not Newegg, it's a 3rd party vendor. It's also a model of the Z230 (of which there are a LOT) that has the overpriced Quadro K GPU in it (bad for gaming, but has certified drivers for Autodesk/Solidworks/etc).

Annoying, I know. It's like how there's legit Amazon and Amazon 3rd party vendors who can post whatever at ridiculous prices.

I'm not sure where the cheap deal is, I'd assume direct from HP with some coupon or something.

The SFF Z230 has the weak PSU. The actual tower variant still looks to be over $1,100 for a 4790, 8GB, 1TB model, but both Dell and HP are known to have silly cheap deals from time to time if you know how to get them. So who knows.

 

[Newell Steamer]

There were (and to a limited point still are today) two reasons to build a PC:
1) you get a cheaper price by picking the parts you need
2) you want to create a beast (and not pay anything more than what the parts are worth)

Today, you pretty much get OEMs giving you a dirt cheap PC with decent parts & performance. You CAN save a couple of hundred bucks by swapping out cheaper alternatives - whereas in the past (late 90s, early '00s), you could have saved well over $500 by building something on your own.

Also, most PC users just don't want to deal with customized PCs. Consoles and mid ranged sub $1,000 PCs are good enough for their gaming. Yes, Doom 4 / Far Cry 5 won't look as great on the XBox One / PS4, as they would on a 32GB, Quad Video Card PC. But, do you REALLY want to spend $3K - $10K on maxing out all video card settings? I think the majority of the market has said no.

And, the customized behemoth PC rigs were always a niche type of market to begin with. It has dwindled over the last decade - because there is something out there that is "good enough".

Last point; small form! Tablets, laptops and shuttles seem to be what people want. Large, hulking towers with over 8 fans take up too much space.

 

[GTaudiophile]

The motivation to upgrade is hardly there for me either because I don't game much anymore. I may fire STEAM up say for 12-24 hours per year?

Why don't I game?

1. Too busy.
2. Most friends are too busy as well.
3. No HL:EP3. I'll upgrade if/when Valve RELEASES this.
4. Games were too buggy/never patched. Case in point: BF:1942 was awesome. Then EA bought DICE and every subsequent BF release was buggy as hell. I mean I remember having problems with the main menu of such games. And instead of fixing anything, they would just introduce a new game that was still buggy. I just got pissed off too many times. I mean it just seems to me that games these days are all about eye candy instead of plot, narrative, production value, game play, and proper coding.

 

[ControlD]

BTW, Robotron came out 33 years ago.

And still might be the greatest game ever made.

 

[CoPhotoGuy]

Nobody wants these big behemoths of pcs. We want nice tiddy laptops tablets and phones

Uhhh...no. I cannot do my photo work on a tablet, sorry. I do want a powerful system and that means desktop, and it also means I build it myself so that I can customize it and get it at a decent price.

Sure the system builders can compete on your vanilla desktop system, but not an a performance system. I mean I can't even configure a Dell XPS or Alienware to be as good as my desktop and it costs more than mine did.

 

[rsbennett00]

That's not Newegg, it's a 3rd party vendor. It's also a model of the Z230 (of which there are a LOT) that has the overpriced Quadro K GPU in it (bad for gaming, but has certified drivers for Autodesk/Solidworks/etc).

Annoying, I know. It's like how there's legit Amazon and Amazon 3rd party vendors who can post whatever at ridiculous prices.

I'm not sure where the cheap deal is, I'd assume direct from HP with some coupon or something.

The SFF Z230 has the weak PSU. The actual tower variant still looks to be over $1,100 for a 4790, 8GB, 1TB model, but both Dell and HP are known to have silly cheap deals from time to time if you know how to get them. So who knows.

I logged into HP's site, went to the z230's and sorted by price, then found the first CMT i7 with 8gb and without a video card. I didn't use a coupon.

And what is it with people *coughCoPhotoGuycough* that only look at one vendor before deciding the entire market can't accommodate. That would be looking at ford and saying "no one makes a decent car".