Poll: Gaming PC: To build, or buy pre-built?

[Quirkymeister]

Hello,
I've finally got my finances together and am ready to acquire my own PC so I don't need to continue to mooch off my mother's laptop. Only one question remains...
To buy pre-built, or to construct the thing myself?
Now, I have absolutely zero experience with this kind of thing, and as such am incredibly paranoid that something could go wrong. I've several friends that are PC gamers, but they all had their ones built for them. I've watched lots of videos online about building a PC, and whilst I see why people compare it to LEGO building, I am a terminally clumsy person, and if a Lego brick were worth $100+ and could cease to function if mashed too hard against the wrong socket or if squeezed too hard, I would feel far safer in my investment if another could handle all the fragile objects for me. Not to mention perils like static build-up and such that could damage parts before they are even put together...
That said, putting together several builds from retailers in my area, getting a comparable machine that is pre-built, including peripherals, would be at least $100 more expensive, if not more, depending on exactly how powerful I want this thing. I can afford to spend extra, but being a uni student with a tiny income, it's gunna take a while to make back my cash, and the less I spend, the better.

So, escapists, I put the question to you...

Should I build it myself, despite my misgivings and paranoia, or can I get it prebuilt and still hold my head up high?

 

[Albino Boo]

If you are not confident, you can buy motherboards with the CPU and memory already installed. Those two bits are the most fiddly and the most likely to cause issues. For build advice as to what to buy, try looking here http://www.logicalincrements.com/

 

[Doom972]

If it's your first PC, just buy prebuilt. Use a high end game's recommended specs (Witcher 3 for example) as a reference to what hardware you should get, and if your budget allows it, get a PC with a better graphics card.

 

[Auberon]

Or ask someone to put the rig together and specify some key matters (overclocking, example games/software to gauge specs etc), then have it built at local shop if possible - just having the hardware put together should not be too expensive extra, and OS/drivers are easy by yourself.

 

[Cowabungaa]

Build it yourself, it's way cheaper. If you're not confident enough, get a friend or maybe a local shop can do it for you. The amount they'll (probably) charge is way less than you'd spend extra on a pre-built system.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I'd say build. You learn so much by finding what parts are compatible, and how they all go together.

It does take quite a bit of time and patience though: Setting a performance goal, selecting parts, weighing cost vs performance, checking part compatibility, shopping numerous stores/sites for better prices, assembly, os/driver/software install. I'd say the worst part is installing the OS, drivers, and software. You finally get everything put together and powered up then you just sit there while it installs this, reboots, installs that, reboots, installs the other thing, reboots...

Having a family member or friend who's experienced with pcs and willing to help is advisable, and having a functioning pc/phone/tablet to google while troubleshooting is mandatory.

 

[sneakypenguin]

I'd get prebuilt, if you get one on sale or with a deal your really not spending that much more and the single warranty is nice. Or buy a mobo cpu already in a case then snap in w/e else you want.

EDIT: Also for gaming GPU is everything. Get an SSD a decent cpu (no i7 overkill) then throw the rest into the GPU.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Pre built is infinitely more convenient, but as you know they are more expensive (significantly so if you are buying certain brands). Self builds are daunting at first and when you're putting a lot of money into it, it gets kinda scary. Saying that, it feels WAY better to put together your own dream machine as has a more personal touch.

If you have the money and don't mind putting down a few hundred extra dosh, go for pre-built. You'll be just as satisfied with it (ultimately you want it for utility, not for admiration). If money is tight you can possibly squeeze a little more juice out of your money by going custom (get a better gpu or cpu or a larger stick of ram).

As others have said you can possibly ask someone else to put it together for you, at a cost... so ask around. EDIT: As the guy above me said, you can also get a Case with mobo and cpu already installed, then just worry about plugging in the other stuff you want which are far less finicky /EDIT

If you are going custom:

It took me weeks of planning to find parts and get a good price for my system. I used this site to help check compatibility and manage costs:

https://pcpartpicker.com/

It puts together a list of items in different categories taken from various online stores (like Amazon or Newegg), with a plethora of filters for your convenience.

In the top right there is a tab you can use to change localisation (defaults to US, but I used UK) which changes the stores and pricing on the site.

It's not perfect mind you. For me the PC case I got wasn't compatible with with the fans I bought, ended up using cable ties to mount them (worked surprisingly well). That was my fault for not reading about the Case and its fan fittings (used rubber grommets instead of screws) so take heed, read about everything you are looking to buy.

When it comes to the hardware it's great, as it narrows down options based on your choices (Pick a GPU of a certain type and it will only show Motherboards that are compatible, pick a Mobo and it will only show compatible CPUs... so on and so forth). You can also throw in starting software, like OSs and utilities like anti viruses, to keep track of costs.

My system came to ?1,500 euro (including VAT and Shipping costs) while a comparable system from a known brand at the time was coming in at ?2,200 (though it had i7 by default where I chose to stick with an i5). I bought everything new, nothing second hand. It can run withcer 3 at an average of 52-46 fps on max settings with hairworks on (though tweaked a little in the config files).

 

[kasperbbs]

It would be cheaper to build your own and you could pick the parts that you want. Having said that i bought it prebuilt myself since i'm a lazy f***.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Building is usally your best bet. It's more work but with the right research you can make a waay better rig than you can buy and in many cases cheaper.

The trick is to not chase the leading edge tech. Trust me it's typically better to aim middle to high-end middle with upgrade potential than to go high-end off the shelf. Assembling a system from scratch is also fairly easy if you're capable of reading and following instructions.

 

[AT God]

I just built my first gaming rig a few weeks ago. To put it bluntly, my previous computer was around $3000 and was pre-built and was a mid range PC at the time. The one I built a few weeks ago cost $800 (carried over a $400 video card) and is a high range PC.

I think pre-built is only good if you can pay at least twice as much for the convenience of not having to spend a few hours putting a computer together. Also, pre-built ones usually come with better warranty support, Dell is really good at replacing parts when things break for free if it is under warranty.

Basically, pre-built saves maybe a few hours of assembly and is much faster to sort out online, but costs at least twice as much.

 

[Zakarath]

I have to recommend building. It lets you get exactly what you want, for less money, and it really isn't as tough as it sounds. There's plenty of good guide videos around, too. Newegg's few on building a PC are very solid.

I did my second PC build a month or so ago; after building a midrange one a couple years ago, I decided to go basically top-of-the-line this time around, and built a $2k tower that can easily go head-to-head with the $3.5k one best buy has on their website.

And a lot of prebuilts will skimp on motherboard and PSU quality to boost their profit margin.
Also, they usually come loaded down with tons of bullshit bloatware.

Captcha: seems legit

 

[Jamash]

Why not get the best of both worlds and buy a pre-built custom PC?

There are places which allow you to choose and customise every aspect of your PC, like you would do yourself if you were to build your own, but they also put it together for you.

This is what I did with my PC, I bought if from a place in the UK which allowed me to choose every aspect of the build (which they verified to make sure all the parts I chose were compatible and there were not redundancies or massive wastes of money), then they assembled it, tested it for 1 week (including controlled stress testing it for 48 hours in a "hot room" to make sure the cooling and build was up to scratch), then they packaged it up and sent it to me with a 12 month warranty on the assembly work they had performed.

I'm sure there are good companies in your locale which also offer this service.

It is more expensive than building one yourself, but you pay extra for not having to do the labour yourself and the piece of mind of knowing it's assembled properly.

It will probably also be more expensive than buying an off-the-shelf pre-built model from a chain of retailers (especially if you choose high end components throughout), but you will be paying for quality parts throughout every aspect of the build and avoiding the pitfalls of cheap PSU's, sub-optimal brands of RAM and other hard to verify and sometimes hard to replace components which make up lots of pre-built PCs and save their manufacturers and retailers a lot of money. It will also provide you a lot more value for money than a off-the-shelf pre-built PC, even if you do pay more initially.

 

[Recusant]

If you lack the confidence to build it yourself, but would otherwise do so (and likewise don't have anyone to build it for you), there's no harm in going pre-built, it'll just be more expensive. I would suggest, however, that you don't get rid of your old machine (unless it's completely fried, or you're selling it or something): rather, take it apart, reassemble it, and learn how everything works and fits together. Once you feel more secure in moving and exchanging parts, you'll be more confident in doing it yourself in the future. And don't forget: with knowledge comes the possibility of upgrading, rather than getting a whole new system.

 

[Kathinka]

I built my first PC with 14, while blind drunk (two states that in the czech republic basically mean the same thing anyway). If you can follow simple instructions and assemble a lego set, you are more than capable of building a PC. There literally is only one connection I could think of that you could physically make that could break anything. Everything else really only fits where it's supposed to.

Newegg made some fantastic tutorial videos on youtube.

Now go and save a bunch of money! Welcome to the master race.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

It's that that much more expensive to buy a pre-built. You can buy a pre-built AMD desktop, like this one [http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229285], and upgrade the video card when needed. In the long run, you're like spending about $100 more (even with upgrading the video card) buying the pre-built vs building.

 

[G00N3R7883]

Now, I have absolutely zero experience with this kind of thing, and as such am incredibly paranoid that something could go wrong.

End of thread. You should buy a pre-built.

Its what I do, for exactly the same reason. I don't know what I'm doing, I'm happy with paying a bit extra to get a professional to do it properly. I personally buy from Alienware, and am extremely satisfied with performance and stability.

 

[Mr.Savage]

Whilst I would personally say to build your own, it does take a LOT of time in research to figure out the exact parts that will perfectly suit your needs.

If your not going to buy a PC RIGHT now, and were willing to wait a bit, you could potentially get a Steam Machine, seeing as you're their target audience.

I took a look at all the ones on offer, and pretty much all of them are overpriced for what they give you...Except the models from Syber. Calculating the costs of all the parts involved, you'd only be paying about a $50 to $60 premium for having it all pre-assembled in a nice tiny case about the size of a large console. And they come with a Steam Controller if you're intrigued with that (You could also easily sell it off if you ended up not liking it, offsetting some of the cost).

They come preloaded with SteamOS, so that would be a bit limiting in what you could play, but since it's just a PC in a custom case, you could super easily pop Windows on there, or even Dual-boot it with SteamOS without much hassle at all.

It's also fully upgradable...RAM, CPU, GPU, Hard Drive...it's all changeable, which is awesome.

Here's the link for them, if you're interested: http://www.sybergaming.com/products/steam-machine.aspx

It does give credence to the Steam Machine idea, I must say.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Gonna have to go with "Build." No better time than now to learn.

It's not difficult and there's a plethora of information/tutorials/benchmarks available to help you figure out then execute a particular build.

Ya save money, know where all your parts came from and their exact model, and can work from there.

Check out some youtube videos on how to build a computer. It's sincerely not hard to do.

 

[Tuesday Night Fever]

I buy my gaming PCs from a local computer hardware store. They're a little mom and pop place that doesn't generally get too many people building high-end gaming PCs, so they tend to go out of their way to make sure I keep going back to them for upgrades and new computers.

I'm all-thumbs when it comes to actually assembling things, and I'm terrified I'll break something expensive, so I come up with a list of components that I want, and they build it for me. It's a hell of a lot cheaper than buying from companies like Alienware or Falcon Northwest or whatever (though admittedly they tend to have fancier cases), and I get a sweet 2-year warranty that covers all components. If anything should happen to any part of the PC, any number of times, they'll replace those parts and install the new ones free of charge.

The last PC I built they actually upgraded my graphics card and ate the cost difference because they didn't have the one I wanted in stock, and didn't want to risk losing my sale since they expected it to take an extra week to get the card I originally wanted.

So yeah, I definitely recommend supporting a local computer hardware store.