Should I build or buy a new desktop?

[slowbro]

Forgive me if this is in the wrong forum board (I tried putting it where I think it belongs).

I'm headed off to college soon and am wondering whether I should build or buy a new desktop to house in my dorm. I plan to do light gaming (LoL, DotA, etc.), some streaming, and some audio (FL Studio, REAPER, etc.) and graphic editing programs (Paint.NET, Inkscape, GIMP, etc.), but I also want the computer to last the whole college experience. What do you think I should do?

 

[ssddx]

i would suggest building your own.

when you buy prebuilt often you cannot be too sure of the quality of the parts they put in the case while if you build it yourself you will know exactly what goes in there.

generally the prices will be about the same but the quality of parts you will put into a homebuilt will be better than a prebuilt.

its also rather easy to do and if you need parts suggestions you have a whole sleugh of experts here who can answer such questions.

--

if you wanted us to give you build suggestions you would need to list a budget.

if this is the case and you want homebuilt respond back on this and i'll move this in /systems/newbuild/ for you so that you can start getting recommendations.

if not, and its only a simple A/B answer that you wanted then its fine here in this section.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

Yup, budget is all important. That being said, light gaming means you might want to look into a high end AMD APU build. Depending on what you consider 'light', and what kind of settings you intend to run at, an A10-7850k and good FM2 mATX motherboard (gigabyte makes solid ones which are quite affordable) would run most games a medium-low to medium settings.

The price breakdown:

AMD A10-7850k $169.00
Gigabyte GA-F2A88XM-D3H mATX board $65.00
DDR3 RAM 8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport BLS2K4G3D1609ES2LX0 $75.00

Case and power supply for about $150 tops, Seagate makes a nice 2TB SSHD (Solid State Hybrid Drive) for quick speeds and large storage for about $80.00, and then your controls (keyboard/mouse) of choice.

That puts the build at $530 or so without any careful shopping - there are probably better deals but this would get you a fairly solid start on things.

 

[ssddx]

sorry but you most certainly do not want an APU for any sort of serious gaming.

for about $600-650 with o/s included you could run even games like bf4 at high. for about $500-550 you could run them at medium. an apu is not going to do that or even anything remotely close.

i do have alot of respect for apus and they work well for general use computers, media centers and some very light gaming on things which are not demanding but really lag far behind when it comes to anything demanding.

 

[Rookie_MIB]

sorry but you most certainly do not want an APU for gaming.

for about $600-650 with o/s included you could run even games like bf4 at high. for about $500-550 you could run them at medium. an apu is not going to do that or even anything remotely close.

i do have alot of respect for apus and they work well for general use computers, media centers and some very light gaming on things which are not demanding but really lag far behind when it comes to anything demanding.

Well, #1, he didn't mention a budget, #2 he said light gaming and productivity. I did say that this would work for 'light' gaming at 'medium to low' resolutions. Many of the reviews of the A10-7850k indicate it's capable of 30ish + FPS in most games. You even admit it would work for light gaming and general use? So - why not an APU then?

 

[ssddx]

you are correct... he certainly did not list a budget which is why i held off on any potential recommendations. if its a low budget then an apu build might actually be what he needs. if its a bit higher then it would make sense to go cpu+gpu.

an a10 is certainly able to handle games like LOL at 45-60fps at maximum however it may struggle on some other games where it might only reach 25-40 on medium settings. as long as non-graphics intensive games are played or settings are lowered whenever needed then yes it would technically work.

i am not saying it will not work (it could). i am saying that unless he is on a low budget there might be a better way to go about it (cpu+gpu) which would give him better performance.

until the OP decides what they want to do and what their budget is... there really is no point in making suggestions so i would suggest that we leave off until we hear back from him.

 

[slowbro]

At first, I was looking for a mere A/B answer. But from everyone that I've talked to about build vs. buy, it seems that a lot of people prefer (and suggest) building over buying in my scenario. Perhaps, it's my calling...

As far as budget is concerned, I have a maximum of $1000 to work with. However, that number is subject to drop depending on how my college financing turns out.

Let me explain exactly what I plan on using the new computer for, so you guys can better craft your responses, opinions, and feedback:

+ Basic Tasks
Word processing, web browsing, etc. I'm planning on getting a Chromebook/netbook to cover most of the basic tasks on the go so that's a good $200 scraped off that $1000. But that leaves me with about $800 to splurge on a desktop that will last me through college! Right?

+ Gaming
I plan on playing games like League of Legends, WARFRAME, and AssaultCube. I'm not sure how to categorize these games other than by the relatively low specs needed to play them well (or at least, decently enough). That being said, I would like to be able to play these games and games like them at decent graphics and with a great FPS rate.

+ Music Composition
I've used various programs to compose music such as FL Studio, Ableton Live, LMMS, MilkyTracker, Finale, etc. Audio editing doesn't appear to take up much power or priority other than if you stack a bunch of active VSTs together simultaneously, so yeah.

+ Graphic Editing
A copy of Paint.NET is a necessity for all the quirky little graphic edits I wish to make for certain images. GIMP and Inkscape are also nice to have. I should be able to run these programs smoothly and with no problemos.

+ Streaming
Depending on how the whole college thing works, I might be streaming some of the games I play both on the PC and on consoles online. It would be nice to have a system that would work with having me playing a game and streaming my gameplay at the same time.

+ Linux
I might dual-boot Win/Lin depending on how I feel about Linux after having had the desktop for a while. I've always been interested in Linux and have used it for several months in the past, but perhaps college is the opportunity to actually dig my fingers deep into it.

+ Video Editing
If I get into streaming, I might be getting into video editing as well. I've used Sony VEGAS before, and it's pretty decent for what clips and scenes I liked editing in the past. Hopefully nothing to extensive would come out of this.

I also have a build that I've constructed on PCPartsPicker HERE, which I think isn't too bad considering the price tag (of $780 including rebate deductions, promo deductions, and shipping costs) includes the monitor and peripherals.

All suggestions are welcome!