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

[USAFRet]

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."

"Building your own laptop" is not a thing.
There is no parts standardization like there is with desktops.

Desktop, yes. Laptop, no.

 

[RandomWan]

Personally, I would have gone with a 13700K and upgraded to a 4070Ti (in regards to the priced out build).

Most anything I'll build anymore is always going to make more sense for me to do it myself since I hold onto most parts that aren't ancient. I threw together a NAS with the i5 6500, 16GB DDR4, PSU, and drives I had sitting around. I only had to buy a case and motherboard for it. I have a portable computer that doubles as a VR rig made from my old i7 6700k/1080Ti system. I just had to buy a mini ITX board, case, and SFX power supply.

My current gaming rig is the only thing I bought all new parts for and with all the custom loop and work that went into it, it likely would have cost at least $1K more than what I paid in parts.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

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."

This is wrong on multiple levels. First, the idea is to build your own PC rather than a laptop, or a pre-built desktop. If you need a laptop, there are reasons to go that route, specifically:

1. You don't have a desire to build your own PC
2. You prefer a single system-wide warranty over multiple warranties per part (even though it may be shorter, or will cost extra). Note that this may also mean you have to ship the entire system back, where if you built it yourself, you could just ship the graphics card or whatever back for replacement while continuing to use your PC.
3. For laptops, portability is a huge bonus
4. You have space constraints (again, for laptops)
5. You don't want to deal with OS installation (but are apparently okay with all the bloatware most pre-builts come with)

It's important to note that the Tom's Guide author doesn't make ANY of these points in his article. It boils down to, "I had a BIOS problem when I tried upgrading my CPU, which I should have known about if I had any real experience building PCs. Now I'm blaming desktops in general and recommending far more expensive laptops as the best alternative."

Your hypothetical Nvidia denial of claim is bunk, as there are no reports of that happening. It's a strawman argument. "Nvidia is bad and greedy and will deny your warranty because I made up a story about that happening!"

I used to review laptops for AnandTech, for about a decade. During that time, I had multiple laptop failures and issues, particularly on long-term units. Because of the cramped designs, overheating, component failures, fans wearing out, hinges breaking, and more are all not just far more likely than with a desktop, but are in fact quite common with laptops that are more than two years old. I have recommended laptops to family members, who don't game, because they're fine for lots of other tasks.

But gaming notebooks are bulky and prone to problems is my general experience. I have two desktops that are very old now, one from 2014 (i7-4770K) and one from 2009 (i7-965X). Both still run fine, as far as running goes. The old Bloomfield definitely isn't snappy these days, probably delivering similar performance to an ultraportable laptop. But come on, that's 14 years old now!

I do have an old laptop (my wife's Core 2 Duo) that's even older. It also runs, though the 2GB RAM is a major problem for doing anything useful. It hasn't been used in about 13 years, and just sits around gathering dust. But it was never really used as a normal laptop, going to classes or work or whatever. It just sat on a desk as a glorified desktop. In my experience, laptops that are used daily rarely last more than five years without replacing fans, hinges, and potentially other parts.

 

[bit_user]

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.

It's a fair point. Not everyone is comfortable working inside a PC or troubleshooting if anything goes wrong. For some, yours will be the best solution. It's good to point out, especially for those within easy distance of a Microcenter.

 

[bit_user]

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 🙂

Why? Because dust?

Even when I had a dust-magnet case and a hot P4 with a dust-trapping Zalman "flower"-style CPU cooler, all I ever had to do was pop off the case door, blast the CPU cooler, PSU, and bottom of the case with pressurized air, and close it back up. Never took more than a couple minutes. Sadly, I had to do that twice a year to avoid CPU thermal throttling (which was quite severe, in those days).

Since then, I've switched to cases with removable dust filters on all intakes + positive-pressure. I've been running those setups for ~10 years now, and never had to dust out a case! Now, all I have to do is just clean a couple filters per case.

I've seen LTT's ill-conceived airflow test and the videos where people try to simulate dust buildup by pouring sawdust into the intakes. None of it matches my own experience, but then I've never tried running my current cases without their intake filters.

 

[bit_user]

"Building your own laptop" is not a thing.
There is no parts standardization like there is with desktops.

Yes and no. You're right about the lack of standardization, but you can get modular, upgradable laptops. I'm not quite sold on the idea, but I'll at least take another look at them before buying my next laptop.

Framework Laptop 13 (Intel) Review: Coming in Handy

Three generations in, the Framework Laptop 13 is still the most repairable laptop around, but with some new tricks.

www.tomshardware.com

I expect Framework has taken most of the "fun" out of upgrading their laptops and made it fairly idiot-proof. So, you might not get the same joy as building & upgrading desktops.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes and no. You're right about the lack of standardization, but you can get modular, upgradable laptops. I'm not quite sold on the idea, but I'll at least take another look at them before buying my next laptop.

And that is a VERY recent addition to the ecosystem.

 

[Co BIY]

There is a huge difference between "putting one together" and "matching up the correct parts" and "getting the best performance parts". I will agree that putting the parts together is easy. However, most (non-Tom's) people couldn't tell you RAM from a disk drive. That of course is why they made pc-parts-pickers. Those are for the noobs. I'd venture to say most posters here don't bother with those.

True.

Overall, you'd be surprised by the percentage of the populace that can't work a screwdriver... even with help from Youtube. I'm just saying it's not so easy as you think!

Yes , and when you see those people you realize how important it is to not be one.

Struggle is life.

Large multi-national corporations and inter-governmental organizations are happy to handle all our business for a very reasonable percentage.

Even better than off the shelf is a no-hassle monthly subscription auto-deducted form your bank account for life. - [SARC]

 

[sitehostplus]

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.

From the website:

"Basic Onsite Service with Hardware Support, 36 Month(s)
Selected

Year(s)
-+
month(s)
-+

Price varies by Hardware and OS selections"

Yep, sounds like a purchased service agreement to me (with a required minimum of 3 years of service purchased to boot).

 

[pixelpusher220]

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 )

The problems aren't hardware related, it's mgmt and customer relations and voiding warranties for using an ASUS published firmware

 

[Co BIY]

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 ...

Fast repair really only comes from a full-time IT department with spares and a parts room. Otherwise a pre-built doesn't guaranty anything.

On my wife's HP laptop speedy warranty repair was available ... when I offered to do the motherboard replacement myself. When the 3rd line Indian tech guy realized what the problem was and that I knew what I was talking about he offered me the motherboard and a PDF diagram or a three-four week wait for a tech to fix it.

 

[Co BIY]

I've had laptops before and they ain't half bad.

I agree,

Once they are plugged into wall power / dock for performance and work time, plug in another screen or two of a decent size and attach a real keyboard and mouse then I can accomplish some work.

 

[bit_user]

From the website:

"Basic Onsite Service with Hardware Support, 36 Month(s)
Selected

Year(s)
-+
month(s)
-+

Price varies by Hardware and OS selections"

Yep, sounds like a purchased service agreement to me (with a required minimum of 3 years of service purchased to boot).

Try decreasing the number of years. You cannot. It won't go below 3. There's no way you can buy that machine with less than a 3-year warranty.

I'm not asking you to change your opinion of Dell, or anything like that. Just to accept that what you said about their warranties being only 12 months clearly doesn't apply to this particular business-oriented product line.

Fast repair really only comes from a full-time IT department with spares and a parts room. Otherwise a pre-built doesn't guaranty anything.

Big OEMs generally offer next-day on site service plans, in most major markets. At least, for business-oriented machines.

If you buy a Mac, you can carry it into an Apple Store for service.

 

[bit_user]

Once they are plugged into wall power / dock for performance and work time, plug in another screen or two of a decent size and attach a real keyboard and mouse then I can accomplish some work.

It also helps if you don't mind their little fans spinning up and down all the time. On my last corporate laptop, it drove me nuts... until I disabled turbo boost and further limited power utilization to about 85%.

Part of that was no doubt the amount of random "security" software my employer had running in the background.

 

[JarredWaltonGPU]

Try decreasing the number of years. You cannot. It won't go below 3. There's no way you can buy that machine with less than a 3-year warranty.

I'm not asking you to change your opinion of Dell, or anything like that. Just to accept that what you said about their warranties being only 12 months clearly doesn't apply to this particular business-oriented product line.


Big OEMs generally offer next-day on site service plans, in most major markets. At least, for business-oriented machines.

If you buy a Mac, you can carry it into an Apple Store for service.

I used to support hundreds of Dell PCs as an IT worker, and they had next-day onsite service for all the Latitude and Optiplex systems. I've always wondered if the same service would happen for a smaller company, though. (I was working at Target Corp in a data center, so certainly a larger customer that would warrant priority treatment.) Has anyone owned a Latitude or Optiplex for their own home use, and had to call in for support?

Side note: This was back in the Pentium 3 and later Pentium 4 days, and there was a firmware / motherboard revision problem with the Optiplex PCs we used that caused Photoshop to crash on a regular basis. Getting Dell to admit it was a problem was basically impossible. Eventually, we had a system fail for some other reason, and when the support tech came out to do the hardware swap (Why couldn't I do it myself? Don't ask...), I snagged the fixed PC just so that I could avoid the Photoshop crashes — that was after I noted that there was a new motherboard revision installed.

 

[Tac 25]

not sure if my comment is still valid. Put together my pc in 2021, and it cost approx. 30,000 pesos. Mobo, cpu, ram, psu, gpu, cooling. If I had purchased a pre-built that time, the one I saw was 50,000 pesos. Satisfied, since saved money, and still got the performance I wanted. To be fair.. was not able to ask what cpu and gpu were installed in the 50,000 peso pre-built pc, it's possible that the ones installed in it are better than the parts I bought.. which would explain the higher price.

still have the pics. Fortunately, they worked well together. Did not have problems.
yeah, 10th gen is far from being the best, but it's enough for my needs. Can play DOA 6 at max res on 1080p, and it can multitask.. gaming and encode with Handbrake at the same time --- things that my 2600k backup pc cannot do.

Spoiler

edit: minor problem was how to position the M9 cpu fan. Problem solved after I created a thread here in Tom's with pictures. It was discovered that the cpu cooler was installed backwards. Just asked the technician to re-install it facing in the right direction.

 

[Deleted member 431422]

Why? Because dust?

Even when I had a dust-magnet case and a hot P4 with a dust-trapping Zalman "flower"-style CPU cooler, all I ever had to do was pop off the case door, blast the CPU cooler, PSU, and bottom of the case with pressurized air, and close it back up. Never took more than a couple minutes. Sadly, I had to do that twice a year to avoid CPU thermal throttling (which was quite severe, in those days).

Since then, I've switched to cases with removable dust filters on all intakes + positive-pressure. I've been running those setups for ~10 years now, and never had to dust out a case! Now, all I have to do is just clean a couple filters per case.

I've seen LTT's ill-conceived airflow test and the videos where people try to simulate dust buildup by pouring sawdust into the intakes. None of it matches my own experience, but then I've never tried running my current cases without their intake filters.

Nope, just because I thought it'd be fun to do 🙂 There wasn't much dust, except at the bottom of the case anf PSU (it lives there). I had a day off and bought 3.5" to 2x 2.5" adapter, so while I'm changing simple stuff why not route all that mess of cables properly. It was a do something productive with your free time thing.
I have dust filters as well.

 

[matencio]

My build is under $600 for a $1400 PC. Heck, yes, it's a good deal to build it myself. And if something goes wrong, I know exactly how it was built, so I know how to fix it, just like my old cars before computers screwed that up (in the 50s, 60s, and some 70's) Oh, the good old days when there were no subscriptions and you could fix everything yourself. Can we go back?

 

[MG Clark]

Has anybody on earth, Influencers excluded, ever gotten good or even acceptable customer service from one of the big PC manufacturers?
I'm pretty sure the only way to get Dell to even answer the phone is to have 100+ retweets on a complaint about the company.
If you want customer service that meets the bare minimum standard of "technically exists", then you have to overpay for a mac. I think now they charge you a subscription fee on top of their high hardware costs, but such is the price of not having computer knowledge in 2023.

Before you build a PC, the first question you need to ask is, "Can I do this job with a 4 e-core N95/97/100 mini PC that I can get off of Amazon for under $150"? Because those will be perfectly fine at office work and web pages and video watching at a price that feels impossible (Most cost less than the Windows 11 Pro license that often comes pre installed... and occasionally doesn't work). They can even work ok as your 2nd encoding PC for running your stream, as long as you use hardware encoding and don't expect much from its ability to do things with significant GPU load (like color correcting multiple video sources).

If the answer is no, it's time to build a PC, because anything you expect out of a <$400 desktop can probably be done well enough with a mini PC.

But the big downside to building a PC right now, is that decent motherboards with good features are gaudy and still overpriced AF. That's a bummer because having a way better and more controllable motherboard is a very significant upside to building a PC, instead of attempting to upgrade or maintain a locked-down big-box computer.
Plus, case manufacturers definitely prioritize looks over functionality, so it can be hard to find a good case that meets the holy trinity of affordability, cooling, and efficient use of space.
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I don't get why so many cases need to be a heavy full-atx glass behemoths made to literally shine a spotlight on the empty wasted space where a rack of drives should be.

Large corporate customers get pretty good CS from Dell. My brother-in-law is a network admin for a mid-sized web based company providing online onboarding/orientation training and continuing medical education for hundreds of hospitals, clinics, and other medical services providers. He started out with the same company 20+ years ago as an in-house help desk "computer guy" who also set up systems for new employees or set up upgrades for existing employees, most of whom are content creators producing customized content for customers.

They use Dell for all of their content creators' desktops, laptops, and all of their servers strewn throughout the country in data centers. They have a dedicated account rep at Dell that takes good care of them, often providing same day delivery of parts and/or entire systems when needed on short notice.

 

[MG Clark]

I had a good track record, too... until I tried to build an Apollo Lake mini-ITX machine. That one nearly broke me. It turned out the DC-DC converter board I was sold seems defective (or maybe designed for 19 VDC input, the internet seems to know nothing about his board) and the memory which Crucial's Memory Finder assured me would work with my ASRock J4205-ITX motherboard only worked if I used just one DIMM and put it in the second slot. I didn't even get those two things sorted out until years later, when I took another swing at getting it working. That said, it's a rather nonstandard machine, so I don't see it as an indictment on DIY.

That reminds me of another time online memory compatibility tools let me down. When I built a Sandybridge-E workstation, I also used Crucial's compatibility checker. It told me to use their 1.35V DDR3 DIMMs. However, when I installed them, they ran at 1333 MHz instead of the rated 1600. It turns out that board supports both Sandybridge and Ivy Bridge CPUs and Ivy Bridge likes 1.35V, but Sandybridge doesn't. I found a doc on Intel's site specifying what speeds that CPU would run different voltage, rank, and occupancy DIMMs at, confirming I needed 1.5V for 1600 MHz operation. I complained to Crucial about this, and they said:

1. Our tool only checks the motherboard compatibility, and those DIMMs are indeed compatible with that board, running an Ivy Bridge CPU, at the rated speed.
2. Sorry, we no longer have any of the 1.5V ECC UDIMMs you need for 1600 MHz, so you're SoL.

Luckily, I had just bought Haswell Xeon E + motherboard for my dad, so I could give him the 1.35V DIMMs and just eat the cost of buying another brand of 1.5V DIMMs for myself. Of course, that meant he had to run 2DPC, because my board was quad-channel and his was only dual-channel, but he preferred the additional capacity to any performance hit from running a quad-DIMM config.

It's minor headaches like this which make me sympathetic with people who just don't want to deal with this stuff. That's why I would never tell someone they should DIY, unless I know them well and think they'd enjoy the process.


OMG, now you're dredging up traumatic memories of BIOS beep codes.
: O

Crucial's memory compatibility tool is not the same thing as the MB manufacturer's QVL. Yes, it can be tedious reading them line-by-line to see if the memory you're considering is on the list. But I've never had memory that was on a QVL not work with the MB on whose list it appeared.

 

[MG Clark]

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 )

The M2 limitation was due to the 10th gen processors only supporting 16 PCIe 4 lanes. That's not enough PCIe 4 lanes to provide x16 to the PCIe 4 GPU slot and have any lanes left for an M2 socket. It was not an arbitrary decision by any of the MB manufacturers. Any LGA 1200 board with CPU connected PCIe 4 M2 slots from any MB manufacturer will have the same limitation with 10th gen CPUs unless the PCIe GPU slot is limited to x8 instead of x16. It's due to the CPU's limitations, not the MB's

 

[MG Clark]

If you're talking about that USB 3.2 Type E cable, they make adapters for that. It wont work at full speed, but at least the port would be available. One of the beauties of USB, USB is USB is USB.

Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Not to mention PCIe cards with USB Type E connectors that are fairly cheap and easy to install.

 

[MG Clark]

The problems aren't hardware related, it's mgmt and customer relations and voiding warranties for using an ASUS published firmware

ASUS is not denying anyone warranty for using ASUS published firmware, even though the boilerplate disclaimers in their user agreement say they can. They initially had a public relations fiasco over not communicating clearly regarding the issue, but are supporting warranty claims.

 

[bit_user]

Crucial's memory compatibility tool is not the same thing as the MB manufacturer's QVL.

The main problem with the QVL is trying to source the exact memory models they qualified. Memory products have a relatively short product cycle, which means they can be difficult or impossible to find within as little as 6 months, or perhaps very overpriced when you can find them.

Yes, it can be tedious reading them line-by-line to see if the memory you're considering is on the list.

Tedium isn't the issue. The issue is that they qualify relatively few models of each capacity & speed, leaving you with very limited options.

Here's the entire QVL for that board:

Type	Vendor	Speed	Size	Model	Chip	Sides
DDR3	ADATA	1600	4GB	ADDS1600W4G11-B		DS
DDR3	ADATA	1333	4GB	AD3S1333C4G9-R		DS
DDR3	Apacer	1333	4GB	78.B346G.C670C		DS
DDR3	Corsair	1600	8GB	CMSO16GX3M2C1600C11		DS
DDR3	Crucial	1866	8GB	CT102464BF186D.M16FP		DS
DDR3	Crucial	1866	4GB	CT51264BF186DJ.M8FP		DS
DDR3	Crucial	1600	16GB	CT204864BF160B		DS
DDR3	HyperX	1600	8GB	HX316LS9IBK2/16	PSC B-die	DS
DDR3	Kingmax	1600	8GB	FSGG43F-D8MMB YXE		DS
DDR3	Kingston	1866	8GB	HX318LS11IBK2/16	PSC B-die	DS
DDR3	Kingston	1600	8GB	KVR16LS11/8		DS
DDR3	Kingston	1600	4GB	KVR16LS11/4		DS
DDR3	Panram	1600	8GB	PSD3L1600C118G2VS		DS
DDR3	Transcend	1600	8GB	TS1GSK64W6H		DS
DDR3	Transcend	1600	4GB	TS512MSK64W6H		DS

Source: https://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/J4205-ITX/index.us.asp#Memory
​

So, let's say you wanted to have 16 GB. You had exactly one option. And if that kit was out of production, then if you can even find the kit, it might cost you an arm and a leg. Or, if you wanted 8 GB @ 1866, then you had just two options. To say nothing of 16 GB @ 1866, where they provide zero options, yet maybe newer DDR3 chips are up to the challenge.

Basically, the idea of sticking to such a limited QVL is unrealistic, especially if you're buying a board like this a couple years after its introduction.

 

[bit_user]

The M2 limitation was due to the 10th gen processors only supporting 16 PCIe 4 lanes. That's not enough PCIe 4 lanes to provide x16 to the PCIe 4 GPU slot and have any lanes left for an M2 socket. It was not an arbitrary decision by any of the MB manufacturers. Any LGA 1200 board with CPU connected PCIe 4 M2 slots from any MB manufacturer will have the same limitation with 10th gen CPUs unless the PCIe GPU slot is limited to x8 instead of x16. It's due to the CPU's limitations, not the MB's

I thought Intel completely walked back on Gen 10 (Comet Lake) having any PCIe 4.0 functionality.

Intel Gets the Jitters: Plans, Then Nixes, PCIe 4.0 Support on Comet Lake

One step forward, one step back.

www.tomshardware.com