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Your gaming PC ... did you build it or purchase it pre-built?

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I build my own because its fun. It's a hobby. That said, not too long ago it was a hobby that gave me a lot of extra bang for the buck. Nowadays some of the reputable boutique system builders are pretty darn price competitive. I certainly understand why people buy from them. I wouldn't recommend building your own system except to someone who I thought would enjoy doing it. It's easier than ever to build your own, but lots of people just want to open the box, plug it in and turn it on.
 
I build mine because I enjoy it. Now for friends and family? I tell them to get a Mac or Pre-Built. I ain't got time to help them fix it.
 
BSim500 said:
Nothing wrong with cheaper prebuilt's if they've got what you want. Or locked i5's if they run your planned choice of games. Personally, I always custom build for a few reasons:-

1. If you install the OS from scratch then you've only got the cr*p you want on it and not at best, 20x extra pieces of "overly helpful" utilities / demos, at worst, glorified spyware. One of the worst offenders I've seen came with 2x anti-virus + 3x anti-Malware packages with real-time scanning enabled on at least 3 of them, no SSD and a 5,400rpm HDD. It ran like a pig due to constant I/O bottlenecks. One example of many of how you may end up needing to spend a day "tweaking" a pre-built anyway.

2. I don't know if it still applies (or varies from one brand to another), but the cheapest motherboard & PSU aren't always a good choice even if you don't overclock. Maybe you want to add a high-end video card down the line. Can the PSU cope at optimum 90% efficiency at 50% load, or is it "just enough"?

3. I'm a silent PC enthusiast quite happy to pay a small premium for silence optimized components (higher quality fans with better acoustic / vibration characteristics, over-sized heatsinks, low vibration / suspension mounted HDD's, gold / platinum rated PSU's and GPU's with zero rpm capability under light load, etc).

4. Better choice of optional extra's (eg, a certain size or brand of SSD or BD-RE drive which may not be offered as an upgrade). Or a certain design of case with maybe 4x USB ports at the front, etc?
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This, exactly. Plus if you build it there are no nasty surprises when you want to upgrade it.

On the other hand, while I do recommend to some people that they build their own rigs, mostly I recommend off the shelf unless they are hard core gamers. I don't mind helping someone past confusion, but I don't have the time to be someone's lifetime tech support.
 
CyberPower only charged about an extra $100 or so last time I checked, it's places like Dell that gouge your wallet with $200 RAM upgrades and $300+ SSDs.

Despite that, I've always built my own. Every time I've thought about getting a pre-built, the companies haven't offered the case I wanted, or some other parts like my preferred mix of hard drives, or something.

If you get a bigger case like my Antec P280 then building it yourself is a snap. An hour of time and a couple of Phillips screwdrivers and you're set.
 
I build my computers but always tell people I know to buy a pre-built. Why?

I am NOT their personal tech support. I will not be there 24/7 to remove every spyware,malware, and virus they download and I won't help them get a dos game running on windows 8.1. I am not interested in having to fix the same issue 10 times because they don't listen to my advice.
 
I just priced up a system on iBuyPower and the same system on PCPartPicker - price difference was $114 (i5 4690k, Z97, 16GB DDR3, 970). That $114 has iBuyPower handling your warranty, which is worth it for a lot of people. PC gaming used to have a huge overhead when you went retail, which it isn't, anymore.

Anyone who looks down on someone with a boutique PC is no better than an Apple fanboi.
 
Eric1987 said:
Wow you would recommend a pre built computer for your friends? Terrible friend. I would NEVER allow my friends to make that dumb of a decision.
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If you're smart, you would if your friends weren't technically competent and you didn't want to be tech support for the rest of your life. This isn't 1997, where your choices were Packard Bell crap vs. Compaq crap vs. HP crap. PCs are commodity items and while I do still build my own (just because I enjoy it), I won't build them for anyone else except my brothers because 1) Again, I enjoy it and 2) I know my brothers won't bug me for support. Anyone else who asks me, I tell them "Buy a {insert vendor}."

Anon_lawyer said:
I build my own because its fun. It's a hobby. That said, not too long ago it was a hobby that gave me a lot of extra bang for the buck. Nowadays some of the reputable boutique system builders are pretty darn price competitive. I certainly understand why people buy from them. I wouldn't recommend building your own system except to someone who I thought would enjoy doing it. It's easier than ever to build your own, but lots of people just want to open the box, plug it in and turn it on.
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This.
 
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dougp said:
I just priced up a system on iBuyPower and the same system on PCPartPicker - price difference was $114 (i5 4690k, Z97, 16GB DDR3, 970). That $114 has iBuyPower handling your warranty, which is worth it for a lot of people. PC gaming used to have a huge overhead when you went retail, which it isn't, anymore.

Anyone who looks down on someone with a boutique PC is no better than an Apple fanboi.
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The thing is, to me the best advantage of 'build your own' is not that it's cheaper compared point to point with a pre-built, but that in the long run it's better. For example, if I were to upgrade today, I wouldn't need a SSD or a HD, or a monitor, or a mouse or keyboard or RAM or DVD drive or case or PSU or even video card. So basically I would compare pricing of pre-built vs. motherboard + CPU, and that always beats pre-built in my case.
 
xantub said:
The thing is, to me the best advantage of 'build your own' is not that it's cheaper compared point to point with a pre-built, but that in the long run it's better. For example, if I were to upgrade today, I wouldn't need a SSD or a HD, or a monitor, or a mouse or keyboard or RAM or DVD drive or case or PSU or even video card. So basically I would compare pricing of pre-built vs. motherboard + CPU, and that always beats pre-built in my case.
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You should look at iBuyPower - they don't use custom motherboards like Dell or HP, they use the parts you would use. As I said, I was comparing K-level processors, G-Skill Ripsaw X RAM, etc.
 
I have built my own since 2000 but last time I went prebuilt cause I grew tired of the hobby just like I grew out of working on my own cars. I got the Asus G20. Small, quiet, power efficient and 2 yr warranty on the whole thing and didn't have to do a damn thing other than hook it up and install Steam.
 
OP must have time on his hands if he wants to get into overlocking along with it being his first ever build. OC'ing, imo doesn't usually add anything necessary for gaming on a modern system but doing it right takes some time. It can also potentially shorten the lifespan of hardware. Dabbling in the bios, resolving issues, diagnosing..etc takes some research and is something that is for hobbyists that enjoy that sort of thing. Only he knows that for sure. I've seen new builders get stuck just on getting Windows to see their hard drive all because a bios setting wasn't set right.
 
HeXen said:
OP must have time on his hands if he wants to get into overlocking along with it being his first ever build. OC'ing, imo doesn't usually add anything necessary for gaming on a modern system but doing it right takes some time. It can also potentially shorten the lifespan of hardware. Dabbling in the bios, resolving issues, diagnosing..etc takes some research and is something that is for hobbyists that enjoy that sort of thing. Only he knows that for sure. I've seen new builders get stuck just on getting Windows to see their hard drive all because a bios setting wasn't set right.
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I never said I was into overclocking ... would just like the option. Here is an example of a pre-built PC that seems very well priced ... a Lenovo i7 for about $650:

http://slickdeals.net/f/7692603-len...fi-win-8-1-650-after-rebate-free-shipping?v=1
 
You don't need an overclocked CPU anymore for gaming except for multiplayer and to keep the minimum FPS up in games generally if you really want (and by up I mean a locked i5 might dip to 40 and one you slam up to 4.5GHz might dip to 50). My preference is build. Big box prebuilts have poor mobo's (ALC 1150 where are thou?), poor PSUs that are little better than firecrackers, flimsy cases, and good luck finding one with a fat SSD. Boutique pre-builts, meh, I prefer to build myself.
 
I have always and will always build my own systems.
However with that said, recently I had a friend of mine's company put together an iTX box for my Dad.
I know he is trustworthy, I chose the parts and he didn't charge for the build just the parts.
So really nothing different other than the assembly handled by his techs.
 
I've pretty-much always "built", but not too long ago I decided to "buy". I found a couple of Lenovo i3 deals at Staples, that were a bit less than I would have paid to build them.

I figured I could upgrade the PSU, and add a video card, and have a gaming rig. So I did, I put in a PSU, upgraded the RAM from 6GB to 8GB, and even added an SSD, and thanks to the MS refresh media, put on a nice fresh copy of Win8.1.

I used it for a little while, it was speedy, being an i3 and all, but I had some issues with the GPU, a 7790, and Windows 8. They didn't get along.

Ironically, perhaps, I sold the PC to a friend, and then later on, sold him the exact same video card. Only that's after I upgraded the OS from Win8 to 8.1.

Well, that might have been the reason I had trouble with it (and/or the updated Catalyst Omega drivers fixed the bugs that I had been having), since AMD's drivers support Win7 and Win 8.1, but no longer support Win8 itself. (Nor Vista.)

Anyways, my friend is happy with it, and hasn't reported any problems with it. He's been gaming with it too.

If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't "buy". The low price is seductive, but if you have issues with it, like I did, it's not like it's easy to just swap out the motherboard. And if you did, you would have to re-purchase the OS. Which throws the savings out the window.
 
I just make a microcenter run. Too many corners cut on boxed systems for the most part. Shopping wisely cuts the price gap while allowing a person the option of higher quality parts. Cases, power supplies, etc. can be recycled into future builds. Haven't bought a boxed system too keep....Only flipped back in the days of Dell super coupons 🙂
 
Built this one myself,started off as a budget build with a i3 2100,6790 and a 500gb WD Blue drive.

Now has a i7 3770,gtx970 and a 180gb ssd+1tb WD Blue.

Been fun slowly watching this thing transition into the build it is today.
 
I make my own builds but I enjoy comparing, finding, and assembling PCs. That comparing, finding, and assembling is half the fun of getting a new PC for me.

The last I checked, pre-built machines were fairly competitive. Problems arose when upgrading components, the markup to upgrade RAM, etc. is insane - moreso the higher up the enthusiast chain one chooses to buy. If I were to buy, I probably wouldn't do too many upgrades.

On building for other people:
If something doesn't work right, I can tell my friend to just take it back to Best Buy and exchange it for a working copy. That's easier than the RMA process. Dell, HP, etc. have their own support numbers as well.
 
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