Budget Builds. DIY or Pre-Built ?? help me decide.

[James Meekma]

Hello everyone, I'm not too knowledgeable about all the parts of a computer and how they work and my girlfriend and I are looking to get a budget rig that has room for expansion in the future. I'm trying to choose between two systems right now,a DIY i put together or this cheap rig from newegg. All i'm really looking to do is simple word processing for writing a book and playing WoW and Smite. So please,when look at the specs please keep what i want to do on them in mind.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3tOa9

VS

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883229362

 

[Ra_V_en]

Id go for the custom build... you know what you have inside at least.. and indeed those choices are very good....even the HDD you pick is the one I'd recommend. While about the newegg we only know that is slower, has 500GB hdd and uknown inside components.
If you have skills to put all those parts together then DIY is the choice.

 

[James Meekma]

The only thing i'd be scared of with the DIY build is putting it together, it would be my first build i've ever done. And i would be terrified if i put it together and nothing worked.

Id go for the custom build... you know what you have inside at least.. and indeed those choices are very good....even the HDD you pick is the one I'd recommend. While about the newegg we only know that is slower, has 500GB hdd and uknown inside components.
If you have skills to put all those parts together then DIY is the choice.

 

[Ra_V_en]

There is tutorial how to put all in:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-1827271/building-computer-selecting-parts-inside-complete-depth-tutorial.html

And in fact if it's "your first time" then you are more likely to be more careful than those people who are doing it all the time. You need to get a screwdriver ready, some thermal paste for CPU and a bit of patience... the rest is like assembling a Lego only with a bit more care.

 

[justcallmetom13]

The only thing i'd be scared of with the DIY build is putting it together, it would be my first build i've ever done. And i would be terrified if i put it together and nothing worked.

Id go for the custom build... you know what you have inside at least.. and indeed those choices are very good....even the HDD you pick is the one I'd recommend. While about the newegg we only know that is slower, has 500GB hdd and uknown inside components.
If you have skills to put all those parts together then DIY is the choice.

Putting together a PC yourself will teach how a computer works, what parts you have inside and what you need to upgrade in the future.
Sure, pre-built PCs are nice but I think a lot of the companies make you pay for the building process too, which you could be using on the PC itself!

 

[Mindstab Thrull]

If you're worried about it not working properly, you may be able to find a local shop with fairly competitive prices and who's willing to put it together for you for a small fee. Also, there's more quality budget-friendly cases around than the one you chose; $80+ is a lot unless there's features in it you're specifically looking for. The Cooler Master HAF 912 Blue Edition, for example ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119272 ), is $60 and commonly is highly rated.

I would also recommend spending a little more money on a slightly larger power supply. An extra $10 gets you this one ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438012 ) instead, which is 500 Watts and also 80 PLUS Bronze. The reason I bring up a larger PSU is that even though your currently lineup adds up to about 200 Watts, at some point you're going to want to add a dedicated video card, which can take up a bit. I don't know if you read the review on this site about gaming CPU's ( http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html ), but they list the FX-6300 at the same price point as the processor you listed. It requires a different motherboard (AM3+ instead of FM2) but you can get a reasonable board for actually less than what the MSI board on your list does - so you should be able to get better performance for less. Oh, and according to http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html a reasonable video card for gaming will be about $80.

Something else I would note is that if you have a dedicated video card, your RAM requirements aren't as high simply because when you don't have a discrete card - ie, you're using the on-chip graphics of your CPU - it uses your RAM not just for regular applications but to handle the graphics as well. A discrete video card like a GeForce GT 640 has its own graphics processor and memory, so the CPU can concern itself with just CPU stuff and not graphics as well. This means you have the option of cutting down to 4 GB reasonably and putting the money you're saving in various places toward an actual video card. If you want I can try and price out a system for you. Leave me a message!