A lot of people upgrade their favourite PC's but with the prices of individual items ? Are they really saving money ?

[customervoicechoice]

I've noticed with prices of 2 year old Processors on Amazon.com being the same or more expensive than tablets with the same chips installed , how much do you really save upgrading your favourite P.C. ? Would you get a faster and cheaper P. C. if you brought last years best discounted , rather than the hassle of upgrading your P.C. , fun yes no doubt , i found overclocking and the such like interesting , for potentially maybe a slower and more expensive result in the end ? , not to mention unreliability ?

Dave Cheers.

 

[jay32267]

You really don't save a ton of money building your own PC....or buying components separately. The main advantage I see....and the reason I do it.....is I can have my system the way I want my system. To me.....that's where the value comes in.

 

[USAFRet]

Upgrading, you can do it individually.

A newer, faster GPU.
Add a new SSD.
Change the RAM.

The CPU and motherboard will last through several changes of other stuff.

If it gets to the point of CPU and motherboard change, well...that's generally a whole new PC anyway.
So build something new.

And "tablets" have nothing to do with this. Not even on the same continent.

 

[USAFRet]

And building your own is not necessarily about saving money.

It's about quality parts and assembly.

Given $1500, I'd rather have a box of chosen individual parts delivered to my house for me to assemble, than buying a $1500 CyberWhatever from Amazon or BestBuy.

 

[customervoicechoice]

Upgrading, you can do it individually.

A newer, faster GPU.
Add a new SSD.
Change the RAM.

The CPU and motherboard will last through several changes of other stuff.

If it gets to the point of CPU and motherboard change, well...that's generally a whole new PC anyway.
So build something new.

And "tablets" have nothing to do with this. Not even on the same continent.

That's true performance wise ,but im relaxed right now comfortably reclined in my sofa, i couldn't do that before desk bound wise with my mouse attachment , it's all about personal preference, what suits you , I've gone from the P..C to Laptop to notebook to moibile and now i found what suits me as a general all rounder, is a 10.1" tablet 8 mm thick ,only weighs 0.5 kg ,carry it around in trenchcoat pocket , five years ago i said no way i hate those clunky tablets , with the touch screen control , they won't last it's just a passing phase , now i don't even need a mobile really , no time to pick it up, it just sit's there , i could never have predicted that ever.

 

[USAFRet]

That's true performance wise ,but im relaxed right now comfortably reclined in my sofa, i couldn't do that before desk bound wise with my mouse attachment , it's all about personal preference, what suits you , I've gone from the P..C to Laptop to notebook to moibile and now i found what suits me as a general all rounder, is a 10.1" tablet 8 mm thick ,only weighs 0.5 kg ,carry it around in trenchcoat pocket , five years ago i said no way i hate those clunky tablets , with the touch screen control , they won't last it's just a passing phase , now i don't even need a mobile really , no time to pick it up, it just sit's there , i could never have predicted that ever.

Tablets are great consumption devices. utube, email, replying to forums.
That is a whole different world than gaming or productivity.

People that primarily (or exclusively) use tablets are not the ones worrying about upgrading a PC.

I have a couple of tablet things. 7" Asus and 10" 2 in 1 Transformer.
I also have a large PC with 2 x 24" monitors, 32GB RAM, and 2TB SSD drive space.

I would no more sit out on the back porch watching utube with my PC than I would trying to edit the 300+ pics I took yesterday on one of the tablets.

Completely different user base.

 

[Aeacus]

Regarding your initial question, it's cheaper to upgrade desktop PC and buy a better GPU/CPU (e.g $200) than build a complete PC from ground up (e.g $1000+). Hence why people upgrade their desktop PCs. Also, PC enthusiasts (myself included) spend a lot of time and money to make their PCs look and perform as they desire with little to no concern on spent money. E.g custom sleeved power cables, custom made water cooling loop, RGB lighting etc.

Regarding tablets and other such small toys, it completely depends on your lifestyle and needs. If you like to travel a lot then getting desktop PC isn't the best idea. In this case, laptop would suit better due to it's mobility. If you don't need all that performance laptop offers then go with tablet or smart phone instead.
As far as desktop PCs go, there's a lot what you can do with them besides casual web browsing. PC gaming is huge part of desktop PC market. Also, desktop PCs are also used for producing content, e.g video/3D rendering. I'd like to see how you'd render 30min long 4K video in your tablet.

 

[spdragoo]

And sometimes the prebuilds aren't as "cheap" as you would think.

Take the PowerSpec G461 available from Micro Center (http://www.microcenter.com/product/508543/g461-desktop-computer): it's actually a beast of a home PC, sporting the Coffee Lake i7-8700K on an ASRock Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming K6 motherboard (meaning you can OC it), 16GB of DDR4-3200 RAM, a 500GB SSD (SATA 3, not M.2 or other types) & a 2TB HDD, & a GTX 1080Ti. The case is one of their in-house cases, & you don't know the brand of the PSU, but you would think $2,000 USD for this item would be a good deal..

Until you start looking at building a similar system. Per PCPartPicker (https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RtzM4q), you can get the same CPU, same motherboard, a similar-looking case, with an EVGA SuperNOVA G2 750W PSU & EVGA's FTW3 Elite Gaming GTX 1080Ti...for $1,942 USD including Windows 10 Pro (64-bit). So, for roughly the same price, you get the same (or slightly superior) components compared to a prebuilt system.

 

[USAFRet]

And sometimes the prebuilds aren't as "cheap" as you would think.

Last year, a guy came here wondering about a CyberPowerPC system.
All recent parts, nicely hotrod.
$2400

Going through pcpartpicker...
The exact same or better parts, including the OS, keyboard, mouse...
$1800

$600 for the privilege of their crappy assembly. WIN!!

 

[Aeacus]

Building your own PC is cheaper than prebuilt PC as long as components stay at reasonable price. A while ago, there was a mining craze and all mid- to high-end GPU prices where through the roof. At that time, buying prebuilt PC was actually cheaper than building your own PC.

@USAFRet
If you're so kind, can you refer the prebuilt PC company with their correct name as CyberPowerPC and not just CyberPower? Reason for that is because CyberPower is one of the best UPS makers, they don't make prebuilt PCs and i happen to have 2x CyberPower UPSes in use.

 

[USAFRet]

@USAFRet
If you're so kind, can you refer the prebuilt PC company with their correct name as CyberPowerPC and not just CyberPower? Reason for that is because CyberPower is one of the best UPS makers, they don't make prebuilt PCs and i happen to have 2x CyberPower UPSes in use.

Fixed.
I also have a CyberPower UPS.
I do not have 2, because one of them was DOA...:lol: