Build or buy???

[MikeC]

A PC I mean. I checked with one of the computer guys I know about a processor and motherboard, both good deals he said. As I priced the silly thing out I realized that I could buy from Dell and have a warranty.

Has anyone in the recent past thought this out? What did you do?

BTW, I'm looking at 2.8GHz-3.0 GHz P4's. Just a good desktop to replace a dying laptop.

 

[ShakaZulu]

Buy, it comes with software already installed...........besides is the savings really worth the pain of putting it together.

 

[Brandon]

Unless you want a cutting edge machine at a great price... just buy one.

Dell has some awesome deals on P4 machines in the speed range you're wanting. Probably wouldn't be worth the hassle to build one at that price. The 2.8-3ghz P4's are almost 2 years old now, so the price on them is very attractive.

-B.

 

[d@n]

I build my own since I like to upgrade and tweak on it a lot but I agree with the previous posts. If you just want a useful machine, it's best just to buy one and be done with it. It's hard to beat Dell in price and quality nowadays.

 

[frenchy07]

I agree with d@n. I also build my own just to enjoy the frustration of it but with the deals of today I won't be building another from scratch.

Brian

 

[crestgel]

build it if that is the kind of thing you like to do.

 

[ScubaFreak]

I build my own, but thats my day job...so i know how to do it, for me, I can build a much higher spec PC through buying the parts off the web, compared to paying x amount for a package deal!

If ye know what your doing, it'll work out better in the long run, but If you think it could be a little tricky, go with the package deals!

SF

 

[teknitroxdiver]

I doubt if you would save any by building it yourself. Last time I priced a midrange system it cost the same or more than a major-branded system. You may save some on a high-end system. Of course, it's great fun to put one together and is very easy, so that might be a reason on it's own.

 

[Buoyant1]

The only thing to consider is when you buy from Dell or Gateway is that they give you a software recovery disc. This is a HUGE problem if your operating system or if any of your programs start to crap out and you need to just re-install the program. The problem being... YOU CAN'T JUST DO THAT!

My Gateway was crapping out lately, so as I did with my first system (which was built FOR me) I just re-installed the op system, and the program's about once every 6 months, no biggie, the computer lasted about 5 years until I grew out of it.

New system, went with Gateway (like my company, my wifes company, seemed like a decent product for the money, it basically is) Not long ago, my operating system started freezing, things were slowing down,etc. so I figure that it was time to just re-install....nope! I checked the warnings on the disc after I inserted it and quickly stopped. Asked a "guru" friend, and he gave me the bad news...

SO as it started dying it's slow horrible death, I was lucky enough to recover a good bit of what was on it, but also lost some great stuff ...like about 10 hous of bootleg Pink Floyd!!!(as well as my bookmark file that for some reason didn't resolve itself when I tried to re-install it)..

SO keep THAT in mind when going with one of the bigger companies!

 

[Scubatooth]

i would agree with most of the people that buying one off the shelf would be a good deal if your not keen on building your own.

For me atleast like scubafreak said depending it may be better to build it if you know what your doing and are looking for a higher end machine. For example the desktop is just built for graphic editting rig (PS, Illistrator, etc) cost me about 1300 for everything for the box and this includes AMD xp 3200+ 400 FSB (one of the fastest Processors on the market, sorry dont care for intel), 10K rpm SATA drives, 1GB of 2-2-2 CAS memory(lower the cas number the more efficient the memory), Sonys new Superdrive, and a matrox Parphelia video card, just for a couple items on the box, but its a fully loaded rig.

In stark contrast i priced out the same specs out with several major makers and was shocked at what this would cost to get built by them. First off was Falcon Northwest and it came to $3100, a couple of local makers at around 2800, and alienware at 3700 which blew me away as that was really high. so as a resulti built the box my self and havent had any problems with any of the components

(BTW, Dell, gateway, and Compaq/HP werent on the list because they couldnt provide a system with some of the essential(proc, Ram, and Video card) items i wanted in the system)

As for the restore disks they are worth anything as its a generic image that is loaded to all the machines, if you really want a back up copy of your base install go buy a copy of ghost and use it for doing backups( but make sure you have a seperate partition as you cant put a ghost image on the same partition as the desitnation of the ghost image.

FWIW

Tooth