Build Or Buy? Five Sub-$500 Store-Bought Systems Compared

[shin0bi272]

one thing that you guys forgot to mention (or if you did I didnt see it) is that often these prebuilt systems use old or used parts in their system and charge you full price for them.

 

[frederico]

Please include results from the $500 custom PC, so I can link this article on our building and upgrading forum. A frightening proportion of gamers are still using integrated graphics.

 

[need4speeds]

Ok I'll give it a try.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Factory-Refurbished+Essentio+Desktop+/+AMD+Athlon%26%23153%3B+II+X2+Processor+/+4GB+Memory+/+750GB+Hard+Drive/2070096.p?id=1218307911236&skuId=2070096

$349.99 Asus - Factory-Refurbished Essentio Desktop / AMD Athlon™ II 220e X2 Processor / 4GB Memory / 750GB Hard Drive

http://www.bios-mods.com/forum/Thread-Unlocked-M4A78LT-M-cm1630-Unlocked-retail-ROM-for-OEM-ASUS-Essentio-CM1630
There seems to be a way to flash the oem asus board to a modded retail bios. Its the right amd chipset on top of that, that has core unlocker.
It's a athlon 220e meaning it should be a athlonII quad core. Tri core maybe? Hopefully there is one extra good core.
http://usa.asus.com/Desktop/Entertainment/Essentio_CM1630/#specifications

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102878
$109.99 SAPPHIRE 100297L Radeon HD 5830 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817702018
$39.99 BFG Tech BFGR650WGSPSU 650W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835228002
$3.09 APEVIA CF8S-UGN 80mm Case Fan
Grand Total:* $153.07+$350= $503.07 plus taxes and shipping.

 

[icemunk]

[citation][nom]allomancer[/nom]For those who say you can't build an under $500 system that beats those, I wanted to take a stab at it, so here goes.Case + PSU: IN WIN BK623.BN300BL 0.6mm SECC Steel MicroATX Desktop Computer Case 300W Power Supply - $61.99Motherboard: Foxconn M61PMP-K AM3 NVIDIA MCP61P Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - $44.99CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 255 Regor 3.1GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor - $57.99RAM: G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) - $39.99Video Card:HIS H567FO1G Radeon HD 5670 1GB - $59.99Hard
Drive: Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $39.99Optical Drive: LG Black 22X SATA CD/DVD Burner - $19.99Keyboard: Rosewill RK-101 Keyboard - $5.99Mouse: Rosewill RM-C2U 3 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB Optical 800 dpi Mouse - $5.99OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit English 1-Pack - OEM $99.99Total: $436.90It's got the same CPU and hard drive space, more RAM, and vastly superior graphics as all those pre-builts for well under $500. Obviously I can't vouch for the quality of those components, but they're not going to be worse than what's in those budget boxes from Best Buy in any case. Oh, and I even checked on shipping, and it's under $30, so that's about what you would pay in tax anyway if you bought a PC at the store. I did find it a little ironic that the OS was the single most expensive item in that build.[/citation]

Yup, only thing is I wouldn't run that 5670 on a 300W powersupply.

 

[icemunk]

Phenom II X4 810 OEM CPU & MSI 870-G45 CrossFire DDR3 ATX Motherboard - ($149.99) (-$15 mail-in rebate)
Corsair Cooling Air Series A50 Performance CPU Cooler AM2 AM3 ($19.99)
Corsair Builder Series CMPSU-430CXV2 430W ATX Power Supply Active PFC 120MM Fan *3 Year Warranty* ($34.99)
Powercolor Radeon HD 5770 850MHZ 1GB 4.8GHZ GDDR5 DVI HDMI VGA DIRECTX11 PCI-E Video Card ($109.99) - $20 mail in rebate
LG GH22NS70 Super Multi 22X SATA DVD Writer Black OEM ($19.99)
Coolermaster Elite 370 Black Mid Tower ATX Case 3X5.25 1X3.5 5X3.5INT No PS ($34.99)
Corsair CMV4GX3M1A1333C9 4GB 1X4GB DDR3-1333 CL9 Memory Module $36.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB 3.5IN SATA 6GB/S With NCQ Internal Hard Drive OEM ($39.99)

Total: $447.92 and minus another $35 if you use the mail in rebates.

That system will play all the latest games on medium-high settings easily, and litterally blow the doors off any of those Store-Bought systems, and likely last much longer.

 

[bwcbwc]

Should have budgeted $600 for the pre-built models vs. $500 for the gaming PC. The pre-builts come with an OS, but adding Windows to the build version would put you in the $630 range (520+110).

So giving the pre-builts a leg up with a couple of upgrades just evens the playing field for the money spent.

 

[need4speeds]

Some changes to try and make it within budget...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817101044
$24.99 ePOWER EP-450CD 450W ATX12V / EPS12V Modular Juice Box- Dedicated Graphic Card and CPU power Supply - OEM
Grand Total:* $138.07+$399.99=$488.06 plus taxes and shipping puts it still a few dollars over $500.

There are also some off brand 450-600 watt atx p/s, they usually put out only about 50% of their wattage claim. so a 500 watt is only a 250 watt.
I would just try the oem 300 watt and see if it work or not instead.
The oem 300 watt might even be better than the fake 500 watt who knows?

 

[math1337]

[citation][nom]JohnnyLucky[/nom]Grandma's idea of gaming is a few rounds of Solitaire. The pre-builts will do for her.[/citation]
a $1 dollar deck of cards will do it.

 

[drwho1]

[citation][nom]lordravage[/nom]I have a real problem with this article. It isn't comparing a $500 prebuilt system to a $500 home build at all. It compares 5 computers from Best Buy that range from $299 to $409, versus a $500 machine that lacks an OS, mouse and keyboard. Factor everything in and the home build costs almost TWICE as much as the cheapest competitor.I know you mentioned the discrepancies in the article, but if you aren't going to try a little harder to make a good comparison you shouldn't even make the article. Shop around online at better retailers than Best Buy, find the very best systems you can that cost about $550, THEN compare those to your own system.I still expect the prebuilt systems to fall behind, but the article we have here isn't even a real comparison.[/citation]

although I agree with you, I think that the writer meant that most people that are looking for a sub-$500 PC don't even know what they are looking for, they don't know much better than turning a PC On/Off.

this kid of people usually they think that the kids at Best Buy are "knowledgeable" but we know better.... don't we?

 

[blibba]

What's going on here?

http://media.bestofmicro.com/A/K/290684/original/photoshop.png

 

[frazik]

.....
you still think ud save money with a prebuilt machine? you could most definitely build it under 500 dollars and then put in a OS. its when the price comes to less than 200 that its more worth it to buy a prebuilt... but in that case the computer is next to useless; (just for simple tasks mebe indeed for your grandmother)
[citation][nom]jeff77789[/nom]Also, on another note, the money that you have to pay just to get an operating system like Windows simply takes too much out of your budget if you are going for $500 as your max. i wouldn't suggest building unless your budget is >$550[/citation]

 

[dealcorn]

That upgraded graphics are the most cost effective way to improve your game is old news worthy of repetition. In a competitive free market, you can generally get pretty much anything someone thinks they can make a buck selling. That there are no sub $500 gaming pc's in the identified distribution channels at the time of the article means no one thinks there is a viable business model selling them in those channels. That none of the store boughts could accept a preferred graphics upgrade means that consumers value the cost reductions of fewer connectors and reduced dimensions more than they value the functionality of those features. The article screams that gaming is increasingly viewed as a niche market and the potential for crossover from the general pc population is reduced because the hardware is no go. Let me rephrase that. Probably, you could build any of these products with case dimensions, connectors and power supply that better supports gaming for less than $5 more. If a customer cares about this functionality, it is worth at least $15. The fact that no bigie offers this functionality reflects a belief that customers do not care. As an aside, the marriage of capitalism and niche web retailers was made in heaven. Oddball niche retailers used to be consistently expensive. No longer and they are easy to find and able to accommodate a variety of interests. Thoughtfully designed custom gaming rigs are not going away.


On the other hand, some games play kinda OK on Intel's latest IGD and Intel makes happy talk that better gaming IGD are important to them and they see the resources to make it happen pretty quick. Some day some game developer will say over half its sales are being played on Intel IGD. Most likely, it will be like that for all developers facing the retail market shortly thereafter. Specialized, custom built gaming machines will always game better and be around, but over time they will become a niche within an expanded gaming market.

 

[mchuf]

[citation][nom]allomancer[/nom]For those who say you can't build an under $500 system that beats those, I wanted to take a stab at it, so here goes.Case + PSU: IN WIN BK623.BN300BL 0.6mm SECC Steel MicroATX Desktop Computer Case 300W Power Supply - $61.99Motherboard: Foxconn M61PMP-K AM3 NVIDIA MCP61P Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - $44.99CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 255 Regor 3.1GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor - $57.99RAM: G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) - $39.99Video Card:HIS H567FO1G Radeon HD 5670 1GB - $59.99Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $39.99Optical Drive: LG Black 22X SATA CD/DVD Burner - $19.99Keyboard: Rosewill RK-101 Keyboard - $5.99Mouse: Rosewill RM-C2U 3 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB Optical 800 dpi Mouse - $5.99OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit English 1-Pack - OEM $99.99Total: $436.90It's got the same CPU and hard drive space, more RAM, and vastly superior graphics as all those pre-builts for well under $500. Obviously I can't vouch for the quality of those components, but they're not going to be worse than what's in those budget boxes from Best Buy in any case. Oh, and I even checked on shipping, and it's under $30, so that's about what you would pay in tax anyway if you bought a PC at the store. I did find it a little ironic that the OS was the single most expensive item in that build.[/citation]

The biggest complaint I've seen here isn't that you can't build a gaming machine for around $500. It's that the machine Tom's built is really priced over $600 when OS and Kb/M are included and that the home built machine is being compared to sub-$400 machines. You rig is pretty good and still around the $500 mark.

 

[nebun]

[citation][nom]allomancer[/nom]For those who say you can't build an under $500 system that beats those, I wanted to take a stab at it, so here goes.Case + PSU: IN WIN BK623.BN300BL 0.6mm SECC Steel MicroATX Desktop Computer Case 300W Power Supply - $61.99Motherboard: Foxconn M61PMP-K AM3 NVIDIA MCP61P Micro ATX AMD Motherboard - $44.99CPU: AMD Athlon II X2 255 Regor 3.1GHz 2 x 1MB L2 Cache Socket AM3 65W Dual-Core Desktop Processor - $57.99RAM: G.SKILL NS 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) - $39.99Video Card:HIS H567FO1G Radeon HD 5670 1GB - $59.99Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda ST3500413AS 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $39.99Optical Drive: LG Black 22X SATA CD/DVD Burner - $19.99Keyboard: Rosewill RK-101 Keyboard - $5.99Mouse: Rosewill RM-C2U 3 Buttons 1 x Wheel USB Optical 800 dpi Mouse - $5.99OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit English 1-Pack - OEM $99.99Total: $436.90It's got the same CPU and hard drive space, more RAM, and vastly superior graphics as all those pre-builts for well under $500. Obviously I can't vouch for the quality of those components, but they're not going to be worse than what's in those budget boxes from Best Buy in any case. Oh, and I even checked on shipping, and it's under $30, so that's about what you would pay in tax anyway if you bought a PC at the store. I did find it a little ironic that the OS was the single most expensive item in that build.[/citation]
so....how many games can you play on 1900x1200 on high detail on this ststem? i want at least 45fps....none

 

[mchuf]

[citation][nom]icemunk[/nom]Yup, only thing is I wouldn't run that 5670 on a 300W powersupply.[/citation]

Sure you can. I have one installed in my son's Gateway (300W psu with 20A on the +12v rails) and he's been running it for close to a year now with no problems (the thing probably runs 5+ hours a day). The Gateway has a i3 530 cpu and 6 gig of DDR3 ram and was $459 @ Best Buy and the card was $90 @ Newegg. Look at the message boards here on Tom's. the HD5670 is the most reccomended card here for systems with 300w psu's.

 

[Onus]

The core idea of this article is solid, never mind the niggling over details (although I do agree a better job of price-matching could have been done). Another approach would be to configure a modest self-built gamer, and then see how much it would cost to order a comparable Dell. The difference is even more astounding, even considering the cost of the OS and peripherals.
Or, approach a Geek Squad member, and say "I want to play {game_x} on good settings at 1600x900. What's the least I need to spend?" and see what he gives you, then benchmark it.

 

[icemunk]

[citation][nom]mchuf[/nom]Sure you can. I have one installed in my son's Gateway (300W psu with 20A on the +12v rails) and he's been running it for close to a year now with no problems (the thing probably runs 5+ hours a day). The Gateway has a i3 530 cpu and 6 gig of DDR3 ram and was $459 @ Best Buy and the card was $90 @ Newegg. Look at the message boards here on Tom's. the HD5670 is the most reccomended card here for systems with 300w psu's.[/citation]

True, of course it will run the system.. kinda like how you can haul a pretty heavy trailer with a small car (beyond what they recommend), but that will tax the powersupply more and shorten its lifespan.

 

[blackened144]

I just recently replaced my parents old machine which was a beast with something like the HP machine.. Its an Athlon II 250, 3GB ram, 640gb hdd, integrated graphics, and Win 7 64bit Home.. The machine itself was $299 at Staples but I put a Hauppauge 1600 TV tuner in it for them as well.. This system is even faster than the beast it replaced, and on top of that this thing is virtually silent and is less than half the size of the beast.. The "beast" Im referring to is my old machine.. P4 3.2Ghz OC'd to 3.6Ghz, cooled by the AeroCool HighTower, 2gb mem, 6800GT video card with my AC Silencer heatsink, and 2x80gb RAID array, housed in my Chieftec Dragon case with like 8 80mm fans in it.. The best thing about it I dont have to support it..

 

[blackened144]

[citation][nom]math1337[/nom]a $1 dollar deck of cards will do it.[/citation]
Its hard to shuffle and deal with arthritis.. Pointing and clicking is easier.

 

[jj463rd]

A good article but the price of the Phenom II X4 955BE has dropped @newegg to $115 so you could use this instead of the slower 925 for the May build.In addition the 925 has dropped too to $100.Also a less expensive Phenom II X3 might be another alternative good choice to save money.I would tend to trust Tom's about the Antec power supply and not get a unreliable piece of crap and have the system die early.I just ordered one myself (it was on sale).

 

[greenback]

I would also add the cost of upgrading in a year or 2 the home biuld will get that exta spent now as most lightly you will need to ditch the pre-build and buy another 500 that still wont play wow cat at any decent lvl let alone any newer games.
I think the hardest thing about building a pc with no more motherboard jumpers these days most case you dont even need to touch the bios is actually whats said in article is searchimg for the right setup for your needs and my biggest suggestion after that is shop around for the parts I saved £150 on my last build doing that

 

[greenback]

oh yeah last tip come to tomshardware and look through reviews

as this is my first post coming here though I have used your review for years I would like to say thanks for all the time a effort you put in to save me that time and effort A BIG THANK YOU

 

[grody]

The only thing more useless than this article are the ponderous comments of people's theoretical builds. No one cares. Go make your own blog and post your dissertations there.

All the main criticisms of the article have been said - not showing the $550 custom in the benches, not accounting for the O/S cost, laughable choices for the sub-500 market, etc., but they bear repeating. This article was good for a laugh, but generally, you want people to laugh with you...

 

[joshyboy82]

Should've included $500 computers from IBuyPower and CyberPowerPC. You can get computers there for under $500, you can customize them a bit and they are pre built for you. Based on perusing, they seem valid in the competition and include better performance. They also are something a person who knows nothing about computers could buy, so the point is still valid.

 

[max40watt]

I think we can generally agree that a random prebuilt will give less performance for the dollar than a custom built machine with carefully selected parts for the optimum price/performance. However, as much as I like to build a system, the past few I've made for friends and family have all started at the Dell Outlet. Where you can easily pick up a pretty much new Core i dual or quad core for around $300 to $400, always coming in $100 or more below a similar system I could build myself, even with parts being on sale. I generally just slap in a relatively nice gpu and a new psu if needed, and end up with a great system, with fairly good in house warranty support for far less than I could build myself but achieving all of the performance (albeit without overclocking).