The build

[ctbook]

Hello.
I have a question for y'all.

I am all excited to build my next PC. I have no great or unusual demands. Wanna play games, surf, burn music and movies. I have an old slow system now and am frustrated by its response times opening apps etc. Anyway, I am just...I dont know if frugal is the word, but I see the dell systems, for instance, for such low prices; so low, I couldnt build comparable for same $$ especially when you consider OS cost.

There must be something I'm missing here about a homebuilt. Enlighten me please. I just dont see a dollar for dollar comparison between the two.


Thanks,

cb

 

[Frightcrawler]

uh...i dont think this belongs here.
unless your talking about laptops, which are pretty hard to build without a barebone.

 

[ctbook]

figures on my first post I dick something up...whats the correct forum topic please?

 

[compudog]

General Hardware would be a good place, but I assume you saw Pre-Built/Barebones PCs. To answer your question, the fact that you built it yourself is the biggest draw. You have total control over what goes in it. It's a matter of pride as well. You will use the PC you built everyday. You will know it's ins and outs, it's quirks, it's wants and needs... (j/k)

It's very difficult to compare a home built to one of the cheap systems from Dell. Dell makes a solid machine, for the masses, for the neighbor across the street. The "everyman's" computer. But you are unique. An individual and you want something you can be proud of.

You can build a nice PC for not much more than a Dell system and still be able to upgrade and add to it as your wants and needs grow.


Welcome to Anandtech!



Edit- typos.

 

[thuned]

If you don't know the difference then just get a Dell. Their prices are so cheap that it's comparable - or even cheaper - to the cost of putting the computer together yourself.
Of course, you might actually see a difference in reality, unless you're the average joe like what compudog says. When you customize your computer on dell that comes with 128 MB of ram, and you want to change it to 512 MB, it will probably be cheaper if you get the ram seperately from crucial.com. Same with the hdd, vid card, etc.
Another thing is Dell uses propietory power supplies. If it breaks, it's either dell or ebay. I haven't heard many cases of it failing though (relatively).