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

[Morbus]

I don't want kids and I don't want a relationship. I don't see that changing for the foreseeable future so not much is really going to change.

Good for you! :cheers:

 

[DownTheSky]

Aventum III

That guy says a lot of bs. Either he has not much clue what he's talking ab or he's talking out of his ass.

 

[mooncancook]

The Packard Bell 486 was the first and last pre-built desktop computer I own. I don't think that trend is going to change anytime soon.

 

[ToySoldier]

That guy says a lot of bs. Either he has not much clue what he's talking ab or he's talking out of his ass.

DTS.... not all of us make $12/hr here and live in our Mom's basements. I make over $100,000/yr working for a major railroad company in the US... plus I have another $20,000/yr of passive income. With the exception of what little remains of my mortgage. ... I have zero debt.

Dont get me started on my investments or near future ones.

 

[nightspydk]

This thread sure is moving in an truly compelling direction yessir haha

 

[cronos]

DTS.... not all of us make $12/hr here and live in our Mom's basements. I make over $100,000/yr working for a major railroad company in the US... plus I have another $20,000/yr of passive income. With the exception of what little remains of my mortgage. ... I have zero debt.

He's talking about the web article, not your embarrassment of riches

 

[AdamK47]

DTS.... not all of us make $12/hr here and live in our Mom's basements. I make over $100,000/yr working for a major railroad company in the US... plus I have another $20,000/yr of passive income. With the exception of what little remains of my mortgage. ... I have zero debt.

Dont get me started on my investments or near future ones.

You have time to play games, but not enough time to build a gaming PC? Seems suspicious.

 

[nightspydk]

..and time to make pointless discussions..sorry haha
couldnt help it hehe

 

[ToySoldier]

You have time to play games, but not enough time to build a gaming PC? Seems suspicious.

'Making time' and 'Not enough time' are two different animals. I havent played Arena Commander or any other module in over 2 months.

I have a $100 Tyon Mouse I havent even had a chance to test out. Working insane hours and rotating shifts.... the price of making over 6 figures at my job. Perhaps in a couple of months things will slow down.

Digital Storm does an amazing job with its modified water cooling system that I dont have the patience to pull off. My days of holding a dremel and carving up a case are over.

 

[geforce255]

I built mine.

XCLIO 2000 Black & Titanium Case
KingWin Gold Certified 80+ 1000 Watt PS
Asus P8Z77-V Premium Motherboard
Intel Core I7 3770K @ 5.0 gHz
Corsair CWCH70 Hydro Series H80 CPU Liquid Cooler
CORSAIR Vengence 16GB
PowerColor Radeon 7990 6GB
OCZ Vertex 3 SATA 3 SSD
1TB WD Black Edition SATA 3 + 3TB Seagate SATA 3
Panasonic DVD
Windows 7 Ultimate - 64 bit

 

[mizzou]

been strictly built ever since amd came out with athlon cpus

also just realizd i havent ownd an intel cpu...ever. i dont count my parents computers

 

[Nograts]

Meh. PC building is kind of a dead art form. It used to be somewhat of a cost saver but nowdays when you price out pre-built component-to-component you're looking at such a small price gap to DIY that it's not even worth it.

Save the headache, get the warranty > Self Built time + headaches

 

[XavierMace]

So you make more money and then you pay people to do what you can do...Is it me or does that seem incredibly stupid? I hope I never get rich enough to think like that. I don't wanna go broke from paying people to do shit I can do. LOL!

So I assume you do all your own maintenance on your car as well? Fix your own appliances?

 

[flexy]

"Building" a complete PC, that is, entire new case, board, CPU, PSU maybe even I do RARELY. I update a lot more often than actually "building" a new PC.

Just wondering because some people said they're "burnt out" building PCs...heck how often do those people built them?

I enjoy building (and updating)...but that's not the entire story, because the next phase is overclocking. (The built, the components of course shall all be high quality since I am always having overclocking in mind).

So the building (selecting a case, cooler, PSU, board, whatever) and the overclocking is my hobby....so of course I don't buy pre-made.

 

[XavierMace]

"Building" a complete PC, that is, entire new case, board, CPU, PSU maybe even I do RARELY. I update a lot more often than actually "building" a new PC.

Just wondering because some people said they're "burnt out" building PCs...heck how often do those people built them?

I enjoy building (and updating)...but that's not the entire story, because the next phase is overclocking. (The built, the components of course shall all be high quality since I am always having overclocking in mind).

So the building (selecting a case, cooler, PSU, board, whatever) and the overclocking is my hobby....so of course I don't buy pre-made.

Back when I was doing desktop support, I would say my computer never stayed as-is for more than 6 months tops. Sometimes it was a small upgrade, sometimes not. And that was just my primary desktop. I've got a guest PC and HTPC as well (plus servers). More importantly, at the time, I was doing it for a living too. I'd guess I've probably done 400 completely from scratch builds. I couldn't even guess how many times I've opened a computer but it's at least 4 times that number. Hell, in the past week, I've opened up 6 servers at my house for upgrades.

I still build mine but it's purely because I like tinkering with things. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a prebuilt to anybody who doesn't enjoy tinkering with their PC and I stopped building PC's for anyone other than close relatives a long time ago.

 

[Sulaco]

Meh. PC building is kind of a dead art form. It used to be somewhat of a cost saver but nowdays when you price out pre-built component-to-component you're looking at such a small price gap to DIY that it's not even worth it.

Save the headache, get the warranty > Self Built time + headaches

Nonsense.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Meh. PC building is kind of a dead art form. It used to be somewhat of a cost saver but nowdays when you price out pre-built component-to-component you're looking at such a small price gap to DIY that it's not even worth it.

Save the headache, get the warranty > Self Built time + headaches

I haven't found a prebuilt that doesn't cost a fortune that has all the bells and whistles a person who builds a computer would want. There's a distinction there. It takes time to find a good price on parts (if that's what you are interested in), but if you have to replace parts on a prebuilt to get what you want, it hardly seems worth it.

I don't build systems very often, but when I need one I build one.

That being said, working in IT has made me not want to tinker and/or experiment like I did when I was younger. Once it works, I want it to just work...I don't want to have to fix it. I don't care about alpha builds of OS's or programs or tweaking everything to it's maximum setting, etc etc. Just get it stable and use it.

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[nageov3t]

haven't bought a pre-fab PC since the 90's... I'm nit-picky enough that I want total control over all the parts that go into it.

I don't think I'd recommend a friend doing the same for a gaming PC unless they were a hardware enthusiast, though.

 

[Grooveriding]

I couldn't ever see myself buying a boutique PC. Yes they are highly marked up and a rip off, but I already spend a tidy bit on my PC every year because I enjoy the hobby, I have enough sunk into just cooling my rig to build a high end machine. Taking out building it myself would gut it of 90% of the enjoyment I take in the hobby.

 

[Morbus]

Meh. PC building is kind of a dead art form. It used to be somewhat of a cost saver but nowdays when you price out pre-built component-to-component you're looking at such a small price gap to DIY that it's not even worth it.

Save the headache, get the warranty > Self Built time + headaches

That's not exactly fair. The biggest electronic seller here in Portugal, for example, doesn't have a single gaming desktop build. NOT ONE.

That alone should tell you something.

Checking out my local specialized dealer yields about a dozen of desktop computers, the most expensive of them (branded "ULTRA GAMING SX INTEL I7-4790K") costing 1190€... It has a craptastic tower (40€ from a crap brand) a GTX760, a DVD-R, SD card reader, a ASUS Z97M-PLUS motherboard, and a Nox 850W PSU (I have a Nox 650W PSU from the same and it works, but it's not even bronze rated), and no SSD.

On top of that, it comes with Windows 8.

So tell me if it's a dead art. I can build a similar tower for about 300€, off the top of my head. And we're in Europe, prices are not THAT overblown around here.

 

[exar333]

Nonsense.

Agree.

Not self-promoting here, but I just did a thread last year on my new build. Even after building 50+ systems in the past, this was by far the most challenging. It was my first attempt in designing and building a custom H20 loop and I scaled-down to mATX, which offered some other challenges as well. In the end, I am pretty proud of how it turned-out and I had a great time planning and doing the build.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?p=36791848#post36791848

 

[UaVaj]

digitalstorm vanguish ii - gamer without breaking the bank.

ultimate level 4 for $1399 + $65 ship
all parts priced out to ~$1060 shipped via pcpartpicker.

~$400 difference.
$90 for one hour of labor to slap it all together.
$310 for lifetime "call us" technical support.

sound about right for someone who does not want to self built.





where they reallie get you is on the high end build.

digital storm aventum ii - world most advance performance pc

best level 3 for $7048 + $199 ship - $529 NH-D14 cooling
all parts priced out to ~$4260 shipped via pcpartpicker.

~$2458 difference.
$90 for one hour of labor to slap it all together.
$2368 for lifetime "call us" technical support.

sound about right too.

 

[amplifyzs]

I Just received my very first gaming PC yesterday.

I bought an Alienware Area 51, the (2500$ version) but after tax it was 2650$ ish.

I thought about building my own custom gaming PC but since iv never done it before i was afraid i would end up destroying or breaking all the new shiny and expensive parts. (I am a coward I know) the very thought of building one by myself was intimidating to say the least. I also have heard great things about Alienware there customer support and the general quality of there computers and decided to go with a pre built system....and i am so glad i did i love my new Area 51!

it has the 5820k processor in it and a GTX 980, 8 GB DDR4 Running at 2133 and a 2TB HD. I bought an Intel series 1TB SSD and i plan on installing it to my computer sometime next week. I also plan on adding another 8 GB of ram next month.

I also purchased the corsair K-50 gaming Keyboard and the corsair M40 Raptor mouse, The corsair MM200 extended cloth mouse and keyboard mat, The new Hyper x cloud 2 headset (gun metal grey), and a Xbox 360 windows controller.

As for games the only ones i have purchased so far which was late last night are Battlefield 4 plus premium membership, WoW, and i Pre-ordered Battlefield Hardline plus premium membership.

I also bought an ipad mini, a LG Smart Blu-Ray player, and a new cell phone (The HTC Desire 5.5 inch screen version)

So that is currently my Gaming Setup. (coming from only owning and playing games on consoles) I use to Prefer the Xbone. Now i shall forever remain a member of the PC Master Race! lol!

Thought i would share my setup since i"m a brand new PC gamer and i"m trying to meet some pals to play games with and chat with soooo yea.

 

[exar333]

I Just received my very first gaming PC yesterday.

I bought an Alienware Area 51, the (2500$ version) but after tax it was 2650$ ish.

I thought about building my own custom gaming PC but since iv never done it before i was afraid i would end up destroying or breaking all the new shiny and expensive parts. (I am a coward I know) the very thought of building one by myself was intimidating to say the least. I also have heard great things about Alienware there customer support and the general quality of there computers and decided to go with a pre built system....and i am so glad i did i love my new Area 51!

it has the 5820k processor in it and a GTX 980, 8 GB DDR4 Running at 2133 and a 2TB HD. I bought an Intel series 1TB SSD and i plan on installing it to my computer sometime next week. I also plan on adding another 8 GB of ram next month.

I also purchased the corsair K-50 gaming Keyboard and the corsair M40 Raptor mouse, The corsair MM200 extended cloth mouse and keyboard mat, The new Hyper x cloud 2 headset (gun metal grey), and a Xbox 360 windows controller.

As for games the only ones i have purchased so far which was late last night are Battlefield 4 plus premium membership, WoW, and i Pre-ordered Battlefield Hardline plus premium membership.

I also bought an ipad mini, a LG Smart Blu-Ray player, and a new cell phone (The HTC Desire 5.5 inch screen version)

So that is currently my Gaming Setup. (coming from only owning and playing games on consoles) I use to Prefer the Xbone. Now i shall forever remain a member of the PC Master Race! lol!

Thought i would share my setup since i"m a brand new PC gamer and i"m trying to meet some pals to play games with and chat with soooo yea.

Congrats

If you are interested in starting to build your own PC, start on a cheap build and learn there. Better to 'mess up' on a $500 build vs. a $2500 one. It is fun, and you might like it and get comfortable for your next gaming machine build.