News Why Building Your Own PC Is Still a Smart Move in 2023

[sitehostplus]

The Dell Precision machines (laptops & fixed towers) that we use at work come with a 3 year warranty. Most of the time, we get them on a 3-year lease, which seems like it's probably not a coincidence.

That 3-year warranty is a purchased extended warranty. Go down to Best Buy and see what they offer when you're not purchasing that extended service agreement.

 

[bit_user]

That 3-year warranty is a purchased extended warranty. Go down to Best Buy and see what they offer when you're not purchasing that extended service agreement.

No, it's not. For their Precision product line, 3 years is the baseline warranty. You can't actually get less than that, at least on any models I've seen.

See for yourself:

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/desktop-computers/sr/desktops/precision?appliedRefinements=38600
​

Once you add it to your cart, then you will see the warranty options. For me, a Precision 3660 Tower shows 36 months of "Basic Onsite Service with Hardware Support" and you can't go any lower.

 

[g-unit1111]

The bad thing is for the first couple of years of the 20s, GPUs were unaffordable and couldn't be found anywhere, because of crypto miners and bots buying up all the good ones, so the idea of building an inexpensive system was out of the question. Now with the 4060TI and the 7600X, this is a game changer. The idea of the sub $1000 PC is back into play.

 

[hotaru.hino]

No, "support" has a very specific meaning, in this context. It's how long they will keep issuing major fixes and security patches.

Which that's still about a year to a year and half between major version numbers for Ubuntu, with LTS versions getting security patches for 10 years. Either way, I don't see how this is better than Microsoft's support cycle.

Sure I can probably upgrade more smoothly to a new major version as long as I'm on top of that, but I can't stick with say 22.10 past July this year and expect OS updates from Canonical because that's 22.10's EOL date.

If you want a sandboxed version of Python, which you independently control, that's not generally something you're going to get from any distro.

What a distro does for you is to provide consistent sets of package versions that are mutually compatible, so that everything on your system plays nicely with everything else on your system.

And this is the biggest issue with Linux. I can go get an old version of Python for Windows, install it, run it, and have no problems.

I believe even Linus Torvalds said this is why Linux can't breakthrough to the mainstream as a replacement for Windows or Mac.

 

[bit_user]

Edit: the irony of picking on Python is that it's long had support for multiple Major.Minor versions to be installed on a system, at the same time. However, I've chosen to take the most extreme interpretation of what you're describing, which is that you want complete control of the version. I've been there; done that. Built packages from scratch and installed them in a custom location, but that was a long, long time ago.

Which that's still about a year to a year and half between major version numbers for Ubuntu, with LTS versions getting security patches for 10 years. Either way, I don't see how this is better than Microsoft's support cycle.

Ubuntu has a 6 moth release cycle. Every 24 months, they do a LTS release that has a 5 year support window. The rest have a long enough support window to get you well past the next release. So, if you need to install a release newer than the latest LTS, you have to do at most 2 upgrades until the next LTS release, and then you can go for up to 5 years without upgrading.

The meaning of these distro releases is also different than Microsoft Windows. Windows ties major kernel & userspace API changes and OS features to its releases. Linux is more like a continuous integration model, where new features are being added all the time, the userspace API basically never changes, and the kernel API is always changing.

TL;DR: trying to equate the two is a very flawed comparison, in a lot of ways.

Sure I can probably upgrade more smoothly to a new major version as long as I'm on top of that, but I can't stick with say 22.10 past July this year and expect OS updates from Canonical because that's 22.10's EOL date.

Nobody is making you run Ubuntu. There are dozens of other distros to choose from, including true "rolling release" distros.

And this is the biggest issue with Linux. I can go get an old version of Python for Windows, install it, run it, and have no problems.

Again, that's a flawed comparison. When you install Python on a Linux system, it's normally global to the entire OS image. So, everything using it "sees" the new version and all of the libraries used by it and its modules need to be compatible. This has an upside and a downside. The upside is that security bugs can be fixed in the one "shared" install of Python. On Windows, you can have apps which each bundle their own version of Python and would each need to be patched to get any fixes to it or its libraries. Most 3rd party software vendors aren't terribly diligent about releasing these patches, on a prompt basis.

Case in point: when the log4j vulnerability came out, I got hassled by my IT department because I had a piece of software which bundled its own Java runtime environment, including its own copy of the vulnerable log4j library. They had run some kind of scan which detected it, but they misidentified the software using it. It took us a few rounds of miscommunication before I understood what they were complaining about, and was able to find and remove the software package. More than a month after the vulnerability (and log4j fix) went public, its publisher still had not released an updated version of their software which included the fixed version of log4j.

That said, if you want to install Python in a nonstandard location, you absolutely can. You just need to do it in a way other than using the standard distro packages (unless you install it in a container, which is really your best option). Then, you can use whichever version you like, within the constraints of modules' external library version dependencies. However, if you just use a container, then you can have an entirely self-consistent and self-contained set of python executables, modules, and libraries that won't interact or interfere with the rest of your system.

I believe even Linus Torvalds said this is why Linux can't breakthrough to the mainstream as a replacement for Windows or Mac.

Eh, I mean, how many people are using Chromebooks? That's pretty much straight Linux, with the full fat userspace*, right there.

* In contrast to Android, which uses a Linux kernel with its own custom, slimmed-down userspace.

 

[ilukey77]

My first PC was the alienware aurora r7 cost me $2500aud after it sat there for a few years i thought id would like to upgrade it found myself being able to do very little in upgrading ..
So i built my first pc 4 years ago 3700x 5700xt red devil ( watched heaps of videos on components and how too build ) when i finally took the leap it was the best thing i ever did ive currently got 4 fully built computers and im always upgrading my main..
im still looking at building more computers mainly as a hobby above anything else !!
Never will i ever buy a prebuilt again !!
My Advice..
Always stick to the fundamentals of PC building use quality trusted brands overkill cpu cooling and psu wattage , never mix ram , take your time , double check everything before pushing that power button and above all have fun !!

 

[bit_user]

overkill cpu cooling and psu wattage ,

A good PSU brand typically has extra margin, so you don't need to go way overboard on wattage. You don't want to be under, for sure.

If you use a bad quality PSU, extra wattage usually won't compensate for its shortcomings.

 

[ilukey77]

A good PSU brand typically has extra margin, so you don't need to go way overboard on wattage. You don't want to be under, for sure.

If you use a bad quality PSU, extra wattage usually won't compensate for its shortcomings.

when i say overkill i mean dont rest on just enough a quality 850w is a decent psu for most everything ..ATM

That said ive had my corsair 1000w for 2 years now bought it back when i was using the 5600x 6900xt red devil and its done me well for the 5800x3d 6900xt the 5800x3d 7900xtx and now the 7800x3d 7900xtx ..
and with rising GPU and CPU wattage im almost certain i will get away with the 1000watt plat psu for the 8800x3d and 8900xtx ( or whatever they are called ) so what 4 to 6 years maybe not a bad investment !!

the 7900xtx red devil does recommend 900w so i was good with my psu before i even owned the 7900xtx !!
so not completely silly to way overkill sometimes !!

think it cost me $300-$400 aud !!

 

[pixelpusher220]

just avoid ASUS *anything* at this point

 

[ilukey77]

just avoid ASUS *anything* at this point

Normally i would say sure but honestly they have learnt their lesson steve and GN saw to that..

Ive had no issues with my Asus Rog crosshair x670e gene with my 7600x or the 7800x3d i just was weary not to enable XMP and kept updating bios's as they became available..

The issue has all but been solved now..

I could hate on Gigabyte for the aorus b550i pro AX itx board i had with the constant network adaptor drop outs or the gigabyte z590i vision d with the non working front m.2 with 10th gen ( works with 11th gen ) i personally wont buy another gigabyte board because of that but others swear by them !!

like the 4090s power connector issues 2 things scared me off from buying the 4090 ..
1. the crazy high aussie prices 3k to 4k aud for one ( amazing card though )
2. the melting power connectors ( understand alot were user error but still a risky mistake you can make )

 

[sherhi]

It's always financially better to build unless you go for some very cheap model around 600€ but those are weak anyway, usually they have some 11320h which is good only for some basic office work and these kind of CPUs age like milk, buy for kids for high school or university and throw out after 5 years while wasting basically all components. My mom was talked into buying some Lenovo AIO 7 years ago and it runs like garbage, fan always at full speed, barely runs cadastre (using basic GIS) with that HW inside...even after SSD upgrade it runs like crap due to some kind of limited ram upgrade options, if she bought regular desktop it would have cost the same and would last until win10 dies for what she does on that PC and could use case, storage, fans, monitor etc for next cheap PC.
Still just like with desktop even notebooks have to be regularly opened, cleaned and repasted but since prebuilt stuff is usually for average Joe it's not done much.

Btw how many PC users, who buy their own PCs (no corporate notebooks distributed for home office etc), need to move with it? Must be very small minority...if you can build it, don't need to move it and have space at home for it then building a desktop is always a better option (from technical and financial point of view).

 

[newtechldtech]

The only reason to make your only PC is for High end parts for pre built system companies ask for 50% more price.
Also , it is not recommended at all to make your own pc for business or professional work , for fast repair is critical for work ...

 

[Frozoken]

Ram and ssd prices are the only things keeping my hopes up for the hobby. Although cpus are pretty good too rn albeit a little pricey.

 

[bit_user]

Ram and ssd prices are the only things keeping my hopes up for the hobby. Although cpus are pretty good too rn albeit a little pricey.

Part of the reason CPUs have gotten more expensive is that they have more cores. If you don't need so many cores, buy a lower-end model and you'll find prices are more comparable to what you're traditionally used to, while still being nearly as fast for lightly-threaded workloads.

 

[lojikal]

Putting together your own desktop should save you money and help you take control of your tech life.

Why Building Your Own PC Is Still a Smart Move in 2023 : Read more

I've been building my own PC since 1994 and never regretted it. Truly a great article written here. If you've never built your own PC before I highly recommend you read this article and give it a try. Satisfaction guaranteed 100%.

 

[aldaia]

Been reading all thread and realized I may have the record (unless I missed something) for longest time assembling PCs. First one was about 35 years ago, in the mid 80s, around 1986-87. CPU was a 80286 go figure. Good thing was, no thermal paste and no cooling was needed. On the other hand memory DIMMs didn't exist yet (not even SIMMs nor SIPPs). You had to populate the motherboard with several dozens of individual RAM chips. Ohh and HDD was not plug and play, BIOS had to be set up with your particular HDD data: Cylinders, Heads and Sectors per track.

That being said, since then, I've been doing a bit of everything: buying laptops , buying OEM desktops and assembling my own depending on the particular intended use and needs. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages and each one has its niche.
- Laptops: its niche is mobility you can use it in places you could never use a desktop.
- Prebuilt or OEM desktops: Its niche its convenience. Plus I doubt I could build a DIY PC so silent as my office desktop. It's not top performance, but the thing is I don't need it. In fact it's actually overkill for my office tasks. I'll never upgrade it, at most I will replace a failed component. And when it gets old enough I'll buy a new one. Could I have a faster SSD, yes but nobody will notice the difference. Could I have a better GPU, who cares when the iGPU is already overkill. Convenience is the game here.
- DIY: That is what I have as personal home PC. I started assembling them for the money saving (not only for me but also friends and family). Later the money saving was negligible or even gone, however I could get a more balanced system for my needs. And lately not even that, I think that now I do it just for the fun of it!.
Depending on one's needs and abilities any option is valid.

An important aspect of DIY that I think no one mentioned is that this experience also helps to make better choices even when buying pre-built systems. Very useful to select the right config for some particular needs.

 

[PEnns]

You want control and want specific parts in your PC?

You can pick all the parts that you wish (and have certain companies verify compatibility) and then have said company build it for you (and in MicoCenter's case, build it within a few hours while you're having beer and tacos nearby - then pick it up and go home..... and all that for a lousy $150-$200 fee.

Building used to be fun when I was younger, now, now I'll gladly pay the $200, have a reputable place build it for me and they'll deal with any eventual headaches.

And remember: I choose what parts that go into it!!

 

[waltc3]

My last pre-built desktop system was purchased in 1995, from Micron, for $4700... It contained some exotic hardware like a 1GB SCSI HD, and a Jazz tape backup drive, and a few megabytes of EDO system ram, Pentium (original) 166MHz, and other pricey stuff. Basically, the system was many hundreds of times slower and had thousands of times less storage space, which of course was normal for state of the art in 1995. All my systems since have been with cherry-picked components purchased separately from their respective companies through Amazon or Newegg (better drivers, better quality hardware and warranties). A great advantage in doing this is that from then on over the years you can upgrade piecemeal as the desire or need arises, CPU, motherboard, ram, GPU, etc. And that is less expensive still. When I go to AM5 in the future, for instance, I need only the motherboard, CPU, and ram, while everything else I currently own transfers over without problem or expense.

Laptops are a different matter, because every laptop made is a custom device and the drivers for the devices in those laptops need to be obtained from the laptop manufacturer instead of from the device maker, in most--but not all--cases. Also, any laptop you buy or desktop you build that features a brand new architecture CPU (from Intel or AMD, makes no difference) will go through a months-long teething process with bios versions. Unavoidable. Best advice, imo: wait a year after new architecture CPUs are released to buy them. By then, the bios versions will be far less problematic.

 

[Deleted member 431422]

I spent 4 hours today cleaning my two year old PC. Which included removing everything and assembling it together. It's fun to do so. Had to think really hard how to route cables inside my microATX case 🙂
I dealt with prebuilt systems from Dell and Lenovo. They're fun and easy to maintain, but can be very limited in what you can do with them and you might actually pay more in the future due to PSU or mainboard being proprietary.
A friend asked to upgrade her Dell Optiplex. I was limited to GTX750Ti because PSU didn't have 8pin connectors. Unfortunately 1050ti are too expensive, even used ones. She's happy though 🙂 It's still better than her laptop with i5-4210U and 840M.

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

No, it's not. For their Precision product line, 3 years is the baseline warranty.

Speaking of Dell... what do you think about the Alienware line of laptops? As said upthread I am in the market for a laptop for travel and what not (I've got 3 weeks of vacations lined up in the next year) and I can't bring the desktop with me nor can I build my own laptop... (right? LOL)

That being said... I see Dell's Alienware line. I know Alienware hasn't been the same since Dell took over... but is it still a decent laptop?

I don't need cutting edge beast mode but a decent laptop with non-iGPU for playing something like Diablo would be cool. My main reasons for wanting a laptop though are for video editing and storage of my drone/GoPro etc footage while on vacation.

I'm thinking something like a 3000 series card with 32GB system ram and 1TB storage.

 

[Deleted member 431422]

A few years ago, when my eldest grandson was 11 years old....watching him take a pile of new parts boxes and making a working PC in an afternoon....priceless.

Late November, I called him and asked "Are you busy on Saturday? I'm making a new PC and need your help."
I had bought all the parts, boxes sitting on the kitchen table.
The only part of the assembly I did was putting the CPU in.
After that, I said "Go for it."

2-3 hours later, the glow in his eyes as he pushed the power button and stuff appeared on the monitor...priceless.
He graduated high school last week, that PC still runs.


Opening a Dell box and pressing the button is not even close.

Today, the hardest part of building a PC is the parts selection.

Sometimes my coworkers, when I tell them what I did with my or theirs PC's, look at me oddly. They don't understand my fascination with computer parts. It was fascinating to take apart an old Turion Acer laptop and see how they manufactured it. All is fine though. They bring me stuff to disassemble/assemble so I'm happy.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Speaking of Dell... what do you think about the Alienware line of laptops? As said upthread I am in the market for a laptop for travel and what not (I've got 3 weeks of vacations lined up in the next year) and I can't bring the desktop with me nor can I build my own laptop... (right? LOL)

That being said... I see Dell's Alienware line. I know Alienware hasn't been the same since Dell took over... but is it still a decent laptop?

I don't need cutting edge beast mode but a decent laptop with non-iGPU for playing something like Diablo would be cool. My main reasons for wanting a laptop though are for video editing and storage of my drone/GoPro etc footage while on vacation.

I'm thinking something like a 3000 series card with 32GB system ram and 1TB storage.

Alienware laptops are generally fine. The hard thing with gaming laptops is that you pay a lot, for less than similarly named desktop parts, and overall quality can still be iffy. That or you pay an even higher premium for build quality but get loud fans (looking at you, Razer).

Are there better options than Alienware? For pricing, sure. For the whole package, though? That's a tougher call. Asus, MSI, Gigabyte, Lenovo, Razer, and the various Clevo-based laptops all have potentially similar specs, but battery life can vary a lot, as can screen quality and build quality. Alienware laptops may not be perfect, but overall they tend to be better than the others in my experience.

Just... don't expect a thin and light gaming notebook to run cool and quiet. LOL

 

[NeoMorpheus]

Control+F "AMD"= zero.

Hmm, "article" sponsored by Intel and nvidia I presume?

 

[Deleted member 2838871]

Alienware laptops are generally fine.

Alienware laptops may not be perfect, but overall they tend to be better than the others in my experience.

Just... don't expect a thin and light gaming notebook to run cool and quiet. LOL

Excellent. Just what I wanted to hear actually. I was leaning towards the Alienware line mainly because I just got a $3500 approval at 0%. I want to keep it under $2000 though... LOL As said it would be more for storage and video editing of vacation footage than gaming... but something that plays games at a decent level would be perfectly fine.

Thanks for the tips!

 

[AlskiOnTheWeb]

Putting together your own desktop should save you money and help you take control of your tech life.

Why Building Your Own PC Is Still a Smart Move in 2023 : Read more

Building your own laptop has little reward and far more risk ... you're also putting quite a bit more money in the game if you are building a gaming rig. There are far too many moving parts and it certainly seems to me that technology is becoming more brittle ... not less. I'd have to disagree with you and go with the other author. Put your hard earned cash into something that is more likely like a fully vetted laptop to succeed rather than dealing with the likes of gouging nvidia who will say ... "Well, your 4090 blew up because you used such and such a mother board and you overclocked it ... you're on your own ... no warranty coverage."