How Much Money Can You Save Building Your Own PC?

The big gain in building your own rig is not how much you save the first time, it is when you are willing to spend a little more and get yourself something that will be much nicer and easily upgradable for way less in the future.

For instance how many of you would pay $100 extra for a nicer case on a OEM computer? But if you invest that in a build your own computer you get to keep that case through many builds. The same goes for the PSU, add on bay devices etc... I bought thermaltake iboxes like a decade ago and still have them in all my PCs.

With an OEM device you never know what might happen. I had a friend with an HP and he bought a GPU to add to it so he could game. He had the weirdest lag in the thing, it would depend on what way his player was facing. We could never figure out anything the only thing we could do was get rid of that HP. That same GPU worked fine in a custom built machine.
 
Goatblaster said:
Lol, I think the last pre-built computer I bought was a commodore 64.
Click to expand...

This.

Also my mother had an Amstrad "lugable pc"

Starting with my first x86, everything's been custom built (and that first one we literally ARGUED with the seller that "yes, we want 8mb of ram!" they thought we were insane!)

(discounting laptops, of course)

Though I will say this, If I had kids, I'd buy them a prebuilt walmart special, no point in wasting time and $$$ on something that's only going to be used for facebook, web-browsing, and youtube... (at least that's what I see from most of the kids at work)
 
samops03 said:
The first PC i ordered from a catalog was a Micron 233Mhz pictured below. I think i paid around 2k for it and it lasted me a while. I remember putting a Voodoo in it later and then putting in a new MB and CPU. The case was actually really well built. I have built all my PC's since then.

micron_pc.jpg
Click to expand...

Ah, yes. The current generation and their newfangled 3.5" drive Bays. They weren't there when it really started :)

G=C800:5
 
TechLarry said:
Ah, yes. The current generation and their newfangled 3.5" drive Bays. They weren't there when it really started :)

G=C800:5
Click to expand...

Well that was the first PC i purchased with my own money. My intro to PC's was with my uncles Commodore 64. Beyond Castle Wolfenstein came out in 84... The year i was born :cool:
 
My last OEM PC desktop was a compaq 486 dx2 66mhz with 8 megs of ram, like a 528 meg hd, 2x cd rom, etc.

I then built a pentium machine, pentium 2 that was upgraded to a 3, etc. For most people though I try to get them to buy a business dell machine. 3yr next day warranty is nice. That or a business hp or something.

I will say personally I did go buy a mac mini last year to use as a primary desktop. I play games on the consoles now(drm on the pc drove me nuts, at least on the consoles you don't really notice it). Now I will say I didn't even turn on the mini before putting in a 256 gig ssd and 16 gigs of ram. I looked at rebuilding my failing desktop and really wasn't going to save much over the mini although it would have been a little faster. The mini allowed me to have it auto backup my macbook pro which was a nice added feature.

Now on the PC side I really only have laptops. An old core 2 dell xfr with an ssd in it that stays in my car and a second gen i5 probook with an ssd in it that I'm typing on right now.

I'm not saying I wouldn't built myself a pc again but in all reality there is a very good chance that if I needed a desktop I'd find a dell deal and add an ssd and be done. When I was looking at the mini I considered an optiplex and really it came very close to the cost of me rebuilding my desktop if I put the ssd in myself. It was to the point if I didn't go with the mac I would have bought the dell for a few reasons.

Chances are it would be more quiet than the build yourself option unless I really took some time and planned it out(and spent more)

3 year next day warranty. Much better than having to deal with multiple mfgs or really just taking a failure as a reason to upgrade.

It would save me time. My time is worth more to me than the cost savings.
 
JethroXP said:
Other than a laptop, the last pre-built PC I purchased was a 368DX-33 from Micron Computers back in 1992 when I was in college. However being older now, with a wife, kids, and a job I was considering buying one simply because I thought I didn't have the time to thoroughly do all the research into specific components like I used to. But once I started looking at pre-built systems I found myself doing all the same research to understand the capabilities of one vs. the other. Now I'm looking forward to building another PC, mostly because I think it will be a fun thing to do with my oldest boy who has never had that experience before. Have to train the next generation :)
Click to expand...

Similar story;
My first and last PC that was purchased as a ready to go system was in 1992 if I recall. A 486DX 33Mhz which I paid about $2400 for. It was from USA FLEX if anyone remembers them. (Big adds in Computer Shopper magazine) And I was committed to the idea of building my first PC myself but at the time you COULD NOT buy the components inexpensively enough to beat the pre-built price.
 
NO damn way am I buying a boutique PC. The idea is utterly ridiculous! I've been building my own for over 20 years. :D
 
I've been building my computers for years but I can totally understand buying a pre-built one. When building there's always the occasional issue where your newly put together machine won't boot or won't recognize some hardware. Dealing with issues like those can be a pain and time consuming especially if there are any DOA parts.

And then there's trying to diagnose which part is broken when things go wrong. The same symptom can often have multiple potential causes and without a bunch of spare parts to swap out it can be hard to determine which one is bad.
 
I was so excited to perform my very first build (reason for joining [H]) but it didn't turn out too well. Had to RMA an ASUS workstation board (nightmare) so I humbled myself and bought OEM again. My potential build would have been about $400. cheaper, though.
 
It might actually be cheaper to buy rather than build since OEMs probably aren't paying double price for GPUs.
 
I never expected to save anything. I have never bought a pre-built, just because I wanted to have exactly my choice of parts.

But I have pointed out killer deals on pre-Builts for a couple of friends who bought them. I could build anything at those prices.
 
you save money sure, but you have to deal direct with providers for parts which can leave you with out a working computer while you chase down RMA's for days and weeks.. vs most OEM having a quick turn around.

Going OEM your paying for peace of mind in that you don't have to worry about it breaking, assuming it is under warrenty.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top