10 reasons why to build your own computer:

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Did I mention that it's it tremendously fun to unwrap the parts? To hold that shiny new GC in your hands for the second last time? Don't know about you guys but that is amongst my 10 most favourite things when it comes to build a PC for myself...
 

Agreed.

There is that moment of high anxiety when you press 'start' the first time. . . .and nothing happens . . . . .
only to find out you forgot to flip the rear PSU switch on 😀 . . .you hope . . . .
 
I once had a customer hows son saved up is money to by an Alienware pc that cost around 5K.it was something similar to myine at the time ,which was less than 2K(buying parts over time).For me ,that was a big WHAAAAAW!.The customer thought my smile was in appriciation
 
regardless of whether you budget is large or small building your own computer ALWAYS saves you money! The cheapest Dell (no monitor or speakers... nothing but the box) was $349, on newegg i was able to build one for $327 https://secure.newegg.com/NewVersion/WishList/TemporaryWishList.aspincluding a $10 MIR. So while it's cheaper, it would only make sense to build your own if you already knew what you were doing. Honestly though, If someone told me they wanted a $350 dollar computer... I would point them towards the Asus EEE ultraportable, At least it's a complete system! The EEE might even be more powerful as well (celeron 420 in the mentioned Dell)!

If your price range is $750 or more, building your own becomes an even greater bargain. Dell is known for using absolute junk when it comes to motherboards, PSU's and HDD's. The combination of all these junk components paired with the bloatware will make your machine clumsy, sluggish and maybe even BSOD prone. I've seen a lot of cheap PSU's and Mobo's cause a lot of problems in computers. When you build your own computer you have much greater quality control. I built a barton 2500+ system almost 6 years ago and it's still going strong on my fathers desk! I've heard of Dells arriving DOA! On top of the higher quality is getting what you want! Plan your upgrade path and pick your components well, and you could be using the same case, HDD, PSU, etc. for a long, long time saving you hundreds of bucks 2 years from now!

If you decide to build your own you will be forced to learn and research some information that will be very useful down the road when troubleshooting problems that might arise. Keep in mind that if you simply cannot operate a screwdriver, building a computer isn't for you (neither is using a stove or riding a bike... in fact, you might want to invest in a sturdy helmet). I think everyone should at least know how to reinstall or repair a windows installation! I know it's hard to put the dvd in the drive, enter your key and wait... seriously? As for alienware, well, my system cost over 25% less than their $2,000 equivalent. Not to mention high quality components that I'm confident will last well into my next build as well as the ability to overclock my system (thank you abit and zalman 9700!). Also, alienware computers look more like fancy coffe makers than computers... I much prefer my antec p182 thank you.

so heres the list:
1. You always get a better machine for your money or same machine for less.
2. All part's are known quantities.
3. Gain invaluable experience (we're all power levelers at heart).
4. Dell parts are cheap/junk/poop.
5. Dude, your not gettin' a Dell!
6. It's not as difficult as alienware says (remember to tighten the chinstrap on your helmet).
7. It's very rewarding and satisfying... to bash iTards when you find out you have the same computer but it cost 50% less!

... my $0.02. (computer dork manifesto)
 
You get better quality when you build your own, most brands out there use some random parts, like motherboards from Tiwan or something. Also I find that most brand name systems use the crapiest PSU's. The best part for me is the actual hands on work that you can do with a custom build. I gives you a project to complete.
 


It would be tough to build your own cheaper.
Your Link is empty so I can't see what is there.
I doubt you had OS, Keyboard, Mouse, Speakers, etc...

Here is a nice Package for $379 with Shipping, OS, Monitor, Keyboard, Etc...

Dell Vostro 200 Pentium Dual Core E2140 1.6Ghz 1GB/80GB, DVD, XP or Vista Desktop + 19" LCD for $379 w/ free shipping. Thanks rounderlee

Specs:

Intel Pentium Dual-Core Processor E2140 (1.60GHz, 1MB L2 Cache)
Genuine Windows XP Home Edition or Vista Home Basic
Dell 19 inch Widescreen E198WFP Analog Flat Panel Monitor (w/ DVI)
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz - 2DIMMs
Single Drive: 16X DVD-ROM Drive
80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio



Or Course if you need a Faster System, Get the Quad Core with a Seasonic PSU for $440...

(No Monitor, but it's all Ready for an 8800GT)
($250 for CPU & $100 for OS= $350. Feel Free to find the rest of the parts for $90)

Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (8MB L2 cache,2.4GHz,1066FSB)
Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic - English
1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz- 2DIMMs
250GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3100
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Dell USB Keyboard and Dell Optical USB Mouse
56K PCI Data Fax Modem
Trend Micro Internet Security 36-months
3Yr In-Home Service, Parts + Labor, 24x7 Phone Support
Good Upgrades to consider:


 
1. Manufactured PCs suck.
2. Manufactured PCs suck.
3. Manufactured PCs suck.
4. Manufactured PCs suck.
5. Manufactured PCs suck.
6. Manufactured PCs suck.
7. Manufactured PCs suck.
8. Manufactured PCs suck.
9. Manufactured PCs suck.
10. Manufactured PCs suck.
 


+1

even more so now than before. BTX motherboards. need i say more?
 
The only reason not to build your own computer is because you don't know how, and that's not a very good excuse because it's not that hard to learn the basics nowadays, what with all the support out there.

Being able to build your own computer and having a basic knowledge of the hardware/software you're using is becoming a basic skill these days, much like the ability to drive a car or work a cash register.
 


I agree, I think the #1 part is just the fact that i built it, my way. .... AND Yah the chicks... they love a man who builds his own rig :) LOL
 
1. Price (caveat: is only a factor when you get above $1200 or so....under that it's just about impossible to match what's out there from major vendors.)
2. Getting a real OS CD instead of a restore CD
3. Getting component manuals.
4. No price point compromises....vendors want to hit certain price points. Good marketing means advertising various component specs and then skimping on 1 or 2 non advertised ones.
5. Ya don't lose warranty when ya open the case to fix something.
6. When ya do 5 above, you already know how each part goes in / comes out.
7. You PC was made by a person with normal size hands and therefore your case design is such that you can actually do 5 and 6 above.
8. You probably spend an extra $20 on extyra cooling which will make everything last longer.
9. You can swap and upgrade w/o voiding warranty
10. In this millenium, girls will find you more attractive in a evolutionary sense. You need to have read this to understand this comment:
http://users.digitalindigo.net/~shane/fmd/scotadams.html
 
There really is no better or worse. It's a matter of what you value and what resources you have at hand.

Factor in all the hours you've spent sitting in front of a monitor learning about building a computer, choosing parts, finding deals, etc., and building your own doesn't look like such a great investment. You build because you are interested and enjoy it.

A person with little interest or knowledge in computers pays a premium for prebuilts (which virtually evaporates at the <$600 level). The premium represents the cost of spending their time on non-computer building related activities that they value. Spread that premium over the life of the computer and it's not so much damage in proportion to the disposable income earned and spent over the same period. It's not a bad deal at all.





 
That article was so roffle worthy I almost died. Thanks for the read.




I strongly disagree. Having knowledge of a computer these days is a very important and very basic skill. Notice how all those who don't have that knowledge are helpless as we being to depend more and more upon computers? Plus, there's also a fair amount of us who are doing this for a living. So once again, another situation in which it's not wasted time.

And you can't let the premium represent the cost of spending their time on other activities that they value because there's no way to assume how the rest of their life is spent.

Add the fact in that most pre-built computers (unless you're talking about the over-expensive botique builders) are stocked with the lowest-end quality parts from their class (like the very lowest quality processor of its kind, worst Intel chipset out there). When you build a computer on your own, you know what's going in there, have complete control over it, and you build it to last.

Oh, and how about all the time that the Gateway/Dell/HP user spends on the phone with tech support or sending it in to get repaired? You didn't factor that in.
 


It doesn't matter what the other activities are. It could be sitting around smoking weed, or it could be knitting sweaters for orphans, it could be prospecting for gold. Those activities don't translate into computer building skills, so in the context of this discussion the foregone computer building skills are an opportunity cost. Gateway/Dell/HP get a comparative advantage over those people in terms of the ability to build a PC because they can build them at a lower opportunity cost, so trade (dollars for computers) occurs. If someone values smoking weed or knitting sweaters (as evinced by the use of their time) over learning to build computers, that individual and Gateway/Dell/HP are in a mutually beneficial exchange.

The vast majority of people will do just fine not knowing what the crap goes on inside their computer. It's just like with cars. Doctors, accountants, lawyers, plumbers, English professors, Wal-Mart clerks, forest rangers, teachers, secretaries, airline pilots, truck mechanics, and the vast majority of the economy has no need for computer skills more advanced than MS Office. They rely on techies for that, just like the techies rely on them for medical, financial, legal, plumbing, etc. expertise. No one is getting left behind unless they don't keep current in their field.
 
OK here we go

6-Building your own setup can be done over time
Buy mobo , cpu this week , powersupply and case next week or next month , Price's change on a daily basis. I wait to get a killer deal myself

5- You get what you want(or think you want )

4- If your not careful you mite learn something :)

3- People will THINK your smart ( but we know better)

2- If the computer fails you can stand in front of a mirror and scream at the incompetent idiot who built that piece of POOP

1- All the girls will say OH my what a big brain you have :)

OK thats my list of 10 reasons

Math is hard
 


FTW!!!

plus b1thces like it?

FTW!!!!!!!

:lol: :lol: :lol:
 


Ok, I am old enough to already have been old when this article when it came out....but for those who haven't seen it....

http://users.digitalindigo.net/~shane/fmd/scotadams.html

Scott Adams
Windows Magazine, May 1995

"I get about 100 e-mail messages a day from readers of my comic strip "Dilbert." Most are from disgruntled office workers, psychopaths, stalkers, comic-strip fans -- that sort of person. But a growing number are from women who write to say they think Dilbert is sexy. Some say they've already married a Dilbert and couldn't be happier.

If you're not familiar with Dilbert, he's an electrical engineer who spends most of his time with his computer. He's a nice guy but not exactly Kevin Costner.

Okay, Dilbert is polite, honest, employed and educated. And he stays home. These are good traits, but they don't exactly explain the incredible sex appeal. So what's the attraction?

I think it's a Darwinian thing. We're attracted to the people who have the best ability to survive and thrive. In the old days it was important to be able to run down an antelope and kill it with a single blow to the forehead.

But that skill is becoming less important every year.

Now all that matters is if you can install your own Ethernet card without having to call tech support and confess your inadequacies to a stranger whose best career option is to work in tech support.

It's obvious that the world has three distinct classes of people, each with its own evolutionary destiny:

Knowledgeable computer users who will evolve into godlike non-corporeal beings who rule the universe (except for those who work in tech support).

Computer owners who try to pass as knowledgeable but secretly use hand calculators to add totals to their Excel spreadsheets. This group will gravitate toward jobs as high school principals and operators of pet crematoriums. Eventually they will become extinct.

Non-computer users who will grow tails, sit in zoos and fling dung at tourists.

Obviously, if you're a woman and you're trying to decide which evolutionary track you want your offspring to take, you don't want to put them on the luge ride to the dung-flinging Olympics. You want a real man. You want a knowledgeable computer user with evolution potential.

And women prefer men who listen. Computer users are excellent listeners because they can look at you for long periods of time without saying anything. Granted, early in a relationship it's better if the guy actually talks. But men use up all the stories they'll ever have after six months. If a woman marries a guy who's in, let's say, retail sales, she'll get repeat stories starting in the seventh month and lasting forever. Marry an engineer and she gets a great listener for the next 70 years.

Plus, with the ozone layer evaporating, it's a good strategy to mate with somebody who has an indoor hobby. Outdoorsy men are applying suntan lotion with SPF 10,000 and yet by the age of 30 they still look like dried chili peppers in pants. Compare that with the healthy glow of a man who spends 12 hours a day in front of a video screen.

It's also well established that computer users are better lovers. I know because I heard an actual anecdote from someone who knew a woman who married a computer user and they reportedly had sex many times. I realize this isn't statistically valid, but you have to admit it's the most persuasive thing I've written so far.

If you still doubt the sexiness of male PC users, consider their hair. They tend to have either: (1) male pattern baldness -- a sign of elevated testosterone -- or (2) unkempt jungle hair -- the kind you see only on people who just finished a frenzied bout of lovemaking. If this were a trial I think we could reach a verdict on the strong circumstantial evidence alone.

I realize there are a lot of skeptics out there. They'll delight in pointing out the number of computer users who wear wrist braces and suggest it isn't the repetitive use of the keyboard that causes the problem. That's okay. Someday those skeptics will be flinging dung at tourists. Then who'll be laughing? (Answer to rhetorical question: everybody but the tourists.)

Henry Kissinger said power is the ultimate aphrodisiac. And Bill Clinton said that knowledge is power. Therefore, logically, according to the U.S. government, knowledge of computers is the ultimate aphrodisiac. You could argue with me -- I'm just a cartoonist -- but it's hard to argue with the government. Remember, they run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, so they must know a thing or two about satisfying women. You might think this was enough to convince anyone that men who use computers are sexy. But look at it from my point of view: I'm getting paid by the word for this article. I'm not done yet.

In less enlightened times, the best way to impress women was to own a hot car. But women wised up and realized it was better to buy their own hot cars so they wouldn't have to ride around with jerks.

Technology has replaced hot cars as the new symbol of robust manhood. Men know that unless they get a digital line to the Internet no woman is going to look at them twice.

It's getting worse. Soon anyone who's not on the World Wide Web will qualify for a government subsidy for the home-pageless. And nobody likes a man who takes money from the government, except maybe Marilyn Monroe, which is why the CIA killed her. And if you think that's stupid, I've got 100 words to go.

Finally, there's the issue of mood lighting. Nothing looks sexier than a man in boxer shorts illuminated only by a 15-inch SVGA monitor. If we agree that this is every woman's dream scenario, then I think we can also agree that it's best if the guy knows how to use the computer. Otherwise, he'll just look like a loser sitting in front of a PC in his underwear.

In summary, it's not that I think non-PC users are less attractive. It's just that I'm sure they won't read this article."
 
Actually i wasn't making up the build...

Celeron 420 1.6ghz -$43.99
Windows Vista Home Basic 64bit OEM -$89.99
Crucial 1GB DDR2 667 -$22.99 (12.99 W/$10.00 MIR)
WD Caviar 7200RPM SATA 250GB HDD -$59.99
Lite-On 16x DVD burner/48x CD SATA -$24.99
Asus P5L-MX motherboard (onboard video/Audio) -$69.99
DCT factory standard USB keyboard -$4.99
Logitech SBF-90 optical mouse -$5.25
Linkworld 3230-02c222u Black case w/430w PSU -$19.99
microsoft works 8.5 OEM -$14.99

Grand total of $347.16 (I did forget about microsoft works)

This whole system could be a bit cheaper if you used a barebones system too. With MSI's MBOX p4M900M2-L you get a PSU, MoBo, integrated audio and video, and a case for $69.99 which would bring the price down to $327.27 or something.

By the way Zenmaster, non of the systems you mentioned up there are available on Dell's website. Maybe you, as well as me, need links? The $379 Vostro system in fact does NOT come with a monitor (http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=brcwsfz&s=bsd)
Also None of the Vostro lineup machines can be upgraded to a Q6600 or a Seasonic PSU unless I missed something. Those machines also do NOT include speakers in the price, not the machines you listed. which line is that that lets you upgrade to those choices? So far Zenmaster, nothing but a pile of turds has rolled out of your mouth. stop defending Dell! even if you did buy one of those crappy towers dell do you really think you could just buy a graphics card and throw it in there? If it was a slim tower it physically wouldn't fit. Would it affect your warranty? Also, a celeron 420 with one gig of DDR2 667 Ram wouldn't really be able to run Vista, let alone any decent games. If an OEM Q6600 costs $250 on newegg without a cooler, do you really think dell is going to give you a full system with one for $440? If they did i'm sure it would be nothing but top quality parts.



 
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