Is it better to buy a pre-built PC or to build your own? Why?

Question

Is there a good website for buying your own hardware for a real cheap price?

Answer 1

I think it is better to buy prebuilt. I don't think it would be any cheaper to build your own, and for me it would be far more headaches.

Answer 2

Each kind has its good points, but building your own is in the end a better way. However, lately, you cannot beat the price of a pre-built machine by doing your own: you have to be building a high-end machine before you can beat these guys at price.

Pre-built machines have all kinds of added gizmos in the operating system, and also they use non-standard keyboard commands for entering set-up to access the bios and safemode.

But they usually come with a disk that restores the operating system, if something should go wrong with that, that is easy to use.

So if you just want a decent enough machine to do office work and surfing and email, a little photo editing, watching video clips and some editing of those and the whole common use stuff, it is less hassle to buy one. If you want a gaming machine and are willing to do the research [what goes with what] and go through the hassle of building it, it would be cheaper to build your own, and you would have real control over what is on it and what you can do with it, geek-wise.

Another thing is, computer technology is going through still another one of its changes, what with new cpu types and now there is the DirectX 10 thing and PCIe is standard now, so maybe you should wait until some dust settles, like after Vista is fully out and you can get more than one video card that is DirectX 10 supportive [only nVidia now supports it with the G 8800, $4 to 6 hundred].

Answer 3

I bought a brand new laptop from Dell after a year and half the computer is worthless and it gave me nothing but problems since day one. This is because they just do the basics to make sure it works.

The desktop I have was built from scratch by a company. I have had it for five years and it worked great. Some of the parts that they used were used computer parts that were re manufactured and some brand new. The thing with it is that they did a whole heck of a lot more testing and like I said I haven't had any major problems with my computer in five years.

I build your own because at least you can get the specs that you want. Or find a company that builds computers because you are better off. Pre-built PC's like Dell or HP are mass produced and will cause you more headaches.

Answer 4

.
It is better and cheaper to build you own.
This is desirable over prebuilt because often because of several factors.
One being, a "generic" tower is usually roomier
with more extra ports and slots for add-in hardware.
Another begin
a prebuilt pc will claim to have a better CPU and/or other goodies, but still have an older motherboard
(to use up their old stock)
and then even though it has faster add-ins, the motherboard will still not allow functions to "go faster".

When you build your own, you KNOW you have the
parts and quality that will give you the performance you need.
DO NOT buy "cheaper" ram...it is electrical, and anything electrical is only as good as it is built for. Cheaper ram might last a year, while better ram for a few dollars more will last for years. Get your ram at Crucial.com.

KNOW what you want your pc to do for you, and only buy the parts that will give you compatible performance when combined.
So...you'll have to do a bit of homework
Read more than one source about each component.
Get a good background before making purchases.
Talk to other techies that have built their own, and listen and learn by their mistakes.
Here is a good place to start
http://www.basichardware.com/how_tos.html
you will like this site a lot.

=========================================
After you get her up and going
install Windows 2000 or Windows XP with SP2
and
then install Internet Explorer 6 with SP2
Both are now running smoothly.

(it is TOO EARLY to fool with Vista or IE7 !!!)

=========================================
Then download these FREEprograms you'll want

A. For removing and stopping virus attacks.
B. For removing mal-ware and adware that act as trojans to retrieve information from your computer and your computer habits.
C. Anti-hijacking tool to remove attempts to hijack your home page and other.

A. Get AVAST
1. Remove what you have now. It didn't do right did it? Dump it
2. Go to Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs and delete the anti-virus program you have now,
if you have one;
then use your Search feature, type in the name of your current anti-virus program
if you have one > right click and delete any instance it finds.

3. Get this neat free program
Get FREE Home version of an excellent anti-virus software = AVAST
http://avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html....
Install > run > do a thorough scan
and allow it to run on your computer all the time.
Whatever it finds > select DELETE

The annual registration and frequent updates are free too.

B. Get Ad-AWARE spy-removal tool from Lavasoft
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php
1. Download, install and run this program weekly or more.


C. Get anti-hijacking tool
called HiJack This
for any hijack problems you might encounter Get this FREE anti-Hijack software
1. The program is called HiJackThis 1.99
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html
2. Download and run the program
BE CAREFUL what you delete,
from it's findings...because
it will find the offending program
and others that you may NOT want to delete.
Only delete the one that hijacked you.
3. Reset your home page
a. Surf to your homepage of choice
b. In Internet Explorer above click TOOLS > Internet Options > tab General > frame Home Page > click button USE CURRENT.
c. Click ok

h2h

Answer 5

Unless your looking for some seriously custom hardware like high end video card Modded cases or super large hard drives RAM etc etc. I would just go with a pre built PC
bottom line it will be cheaper.

Answer 6

Personally I perfer a build it yourself. Primary reasoning is this: I do not have to deal with manufacturers built in programming. With a build your own you can do just about anything. With a manufacturer's you can do anything with in their constraints.

If you attempt to remove some annoying program they insisted you have and then reboot, it usually re-installs itself through their pre-programming. This then becomes annoying.

With a build your own, you install it and that is all there is, whatever you install. No pre-programming of any kind.

Try this site for computer components - http://www.tigerdirect.com

Answer 7

http://www.tigerdirect.com
http://www.newegg.om
http://www.monarchcomputers.com

or try sumone that can build it for you with everything you want but I'd prefer to build them I built my own computer stricly for gamming so it's very fast but if you wanna build it your self u'll learn a bit and get addicted lol but it's more worth building than having it built cause sumtime people can rip you off with crappy products and a faulty operating system so if u build it urself you can look at otehr sites and choose what u like in ur computer and the best part is the tower lol

Answer 8

Not only will it be cheaper for prebuilt but there will be less instances of software annd hardware conflicts. Also with prebuilt you have single source for warranty, not each individual component. Go Dell.

Answer 9

I agree with not building your own ,many glitches can drive you bonkers.

Answer 10

Here's a good site for the steps you need to take..

http://www.pcmech.com/byopc/

And here's a good site to pick up all the components.

http://www.newegg.com