Prebuilt or built it yourself?

[Mauldor]

I normally hand built all my computers but I was peeking at Dell Outlet and some of the systems seem good value (i think)....

To give a example:

P4-3200
1 GIG 400 Ram (2 x 512)
Radeon X300 Gfx Card (PCI-Express) - Crap I know
250 GIG HD
all bits and bobs excluding monitor

Price - £558 inc vat and Delivery

This system has probably gone and info is scare to what type of P4 it is, memory etc, along with the fact the gfx card sounds pants.

Now the question is - would it be better, easier to buy bits as required and thus end off with a better system for the same or better price? I was thinking of say Athlon 3400 etc. Now ram for 1 gig is gonna cost say £100 before we even start, then there is the chip which will be about £150 say - already aproaching the price of a Dell (its a 8400 btw).

Is the P4-3200 any good compared to me going for a athlon 64? Yes I hear there good for games but surely this is also geared by gfx card and the like.

What everybody views?

P.S. Web site is http://outlet.dell.com/Emea_Dfo/EuDi...constraint=DIM

[Bifta]

You could build an Athlon 64 machine for far less, and it'd outperform it easily, you'd also be able to upgrade the PSU, which you can't generally do with Dell machines.

[TheBlueRaja]

My porsonal opinion is that i would always self build - i would'nt even entertain a prebuilt system.

[Stuart W]

without looking.... I'd say be carefull.

Dell may be selling you an obscure MoBo & lesser CPU than you want.

Example...
Lets say you get a Dell desktop PC. You may find that the Motherboard is not a standard shape, and that the CPU in the motherboard is the highest spec the board will take.
When you first buy it, it's great..... until you want to upgrade it.
You quickly find that you will need a new MoBo, which won't fit in the Dell case, so you need a new case..... then you find out the Dell power supply doesn't fit the new case...

It's worth looking into these things, it may be slightly more expensive to buy the parts & build yourself, but a lot cheaper in the long run.

HTH

[Millay]

Interesting topic... you gotta brake it down into what you wanna do...

Ive always built my own systems, but don't know if i will build my next rig myself..

Reasons to self build:
1, Build to your exact own spec
2, You know what you are getting
3, Its fun (sometimes).

I personally think the money saving is not the reason to self build anymore,because if you shop around you don't save that much money unless you want some wacky spec

Reasons to by prebuilt
1, Less hassle
2, If it dont work you dont have to worry its the suppliers problem
3, Faster.

I have only given 3 points to each so to leave the amounts equal. and this is a very generic look at this.. there are always differing reasons depending on your requirments so some may not apply or more may...

well thers my two pence worth

[Jon M]

If I was making a recommendation to someone, I'd point out that firstly software is one deciding factor... if I needed the OS and Office for example.. that could tip the balance on cost over a self build.

Also, warranty (although a lot of components are covered by manufacturers anyway) and the big one.. support.

You can guarantee that if you recommend self build or build for a friend, that they will come to you for support, so if it was a technophobe I'd say pre-build, and leave the headaches to their support staff.

[Paul K]

Think Millay has pretty much summed it up, build it yourself and you know exactly what is in the box and it is a brilliant learning experience to be honest. Buy a unit pre-built and all you are doing a lot of the time is saving yourself hassle, you know the PC should work out of the box, you know if it goes wrong that it is up to them to fix it and unless you know a fast supplier that can get all the parts to you in less time the pre-built will be ready to use before a home build.
Personally I would say build it yourself unless you want the unit up and running within a certain time frame, if you have the time to build it yourself though I would do it, you can learn so much from putting a PC together yourself and seeing exactly where everything is and by researching what parts you want to buy you will learn a lot about the different components out there on the market

[Derek]

I'd personally go for self build every time.

Last time i went for a pre built Evesham, includes 3 years warranty with 2 years on site. Far less hassle if something is a bit iffy.

Im currently looking to build a new machine myself but the prices of the parts in ebuyer compared to the same evesham machine suggests to me its not worth doing it myself

[ntl customer]

If you know what you're doing, feel confident about doing so and have lots of spare time and can wait in yourself or get your spouse/mother/father/other family to wait in for deliveries when you are not in, then self build is the way to go.

I built my own computer recently and am pretty pleased with it. Although there were some problems (it took about 3 attempts to get the stock Intel heatsink/fan to snap into place properly and not at a wonky angle). There was lots of swearing and teeth gritting, and final relief that it went in. And then there is the 'excitement' and baited breath when you first switch the thing on - it could go on without problems like it did for me, or it could not go on at all or in the worst case, blow up. So read the instructions carefully and follow them to the letter - familiarise yourself with the parts, how they work and any special settings that they may have (e.g. voltage switches, jumpers etc). If you're a first timer, not reading the instructions is a recipe for disaster.

Also it will take time to select/order/build the computer and its parts - so if you need something quickly, then self build isn't always the way to go - it took me about 3 weeks to have all my parts as some bits were out of stock and I didn't want to fork out extra for delivery to ship them separately. It took me the best part of 4 to 5 hours to assemble the whole lot together and get the OS loaded on and it up and running - although stupidly, I chose a full format of a 200Gb drive which took the best part of one and a bit hours.

Also you get exactly what you want when you build it yourself. You don't have to pay for extended warranties or coverplans, you don't have to pay for a ton of software you don't want, need or use and you don't have to use Windows XP Home if you don't want to.

[Alan Waddington]

I tend to go for pre-built for general office like use, since the cost is usually less then the sum of the parts. You usually get some bundled software (usually MS Works, although worksuite is better if available).

However if you are after a games machine to run Doom3, Thief Deadly Shadows or other graphics intensive titles, then the graphics card will almost certainly need replacing, and you probably want more memory & so are likely to have an old card & possibly old memory chips "left over" - so there might not be a great saving of prebuilt over self-build in this case.

Alan

[Mauldor]

Sorry I should have put more info in my main topic -- I fix computers for a living so have no problems with either building or supporting the machine for that angle. The reason why I looked at dell, was mainly this factory outlet thing, theory been a good-ish pc for a lot les money.

Now P4 vs Athlon 64 thing (another topic all on its own I know) - To me its horses for courses as some things a P4 is good (as it has HT) and others thing the athlon is better and so forth.

I think the best option as many have said - is probably price parts and see how much a good system would come to. For example the X300 in the dell machine is a very basic card and means sooner rather than later I would have to spend money again on a better card..

The point about what you get might be old is def a thing that stook in my head, it tells you nothing really on dell site as to what P4 it is, what motherboard and so forth, the only clue is the 400-512 ram, which i am guessing is 400Mhz DDR ram x 2 512 sticks which means its not the DDR2 ram etc.

Thanks for all the input - Ill go do some digging into which bits to buy (CPU etc), my only thougts were A-643400 (old core) vs A-643500 (new Core) but has half the cache...hmmm

Oh I'd go for self build every time but some one else will have to build it for me.

Seriously though I'm never going near any place like Time,Dixons,Currys or PC World ever again.I'll go to the local shop and talk to the very nice young man who works there and builds all their PC's.

[Matth]

Dell can be VERY weak on upgradeability - eg. system with onboard graphics and no slot - the motherboard is a Dell model of one that WOULD have an AGP slot, but the space for it is left blank!

A pre-built with standard, known components is not so bad - in fact perhaps the best kind of pre-built is a "stock components" one, where you start from a base model and select the parts yourself.

[Millay]

ahh. if you are doing this for a business as I do, then get a trade account with a good pc retailer. or someone like ingram micro.

Building PC's for a living is not cost effective. spending a few hours putting PC's together is expensive and you will not be competitive if you want to make some serious money, and when things go wrong it really eats into your bottom line.

well thats how i worked it. my hourly rate is worth much morre than the time to build a PC leave it to people with bulk buying and build power