Home-Built vs. Store-Bought PCs

Greg Searle asks: "I'm going to be in the market for another PC soon, and have been watching the prices drop and the power go up over the years. There are a lot of 'bargains' out there, but then I heard that the best and least expensive PC's are 'white box' systems that are custom build by small, local companies. This got me thinking, I know how to put together a PC from scratch, why don't I just do it? This should save me quite a few bucks, and I get the exact system I want. My question to you: Where is the best place to order the parts (case, MB, drives, etc.) over the web? I am familiar with sites that sell typical consumer products, but have no idea where to start to get raw parts. I'd prefer one site that sells everything, but wouldn't be surprised if there are some specialty sites that provide the most bang for the buck for a particular piece. What do you think?"

Comments

How about?

[Peridriga]

Does this give you any idea on where is stand?

Re:$450 from dell

[dexter riley]

>Will you get the satisfaction of pointing to your computer and saying "I built that", and have fun in the process? No.

But he WILL get the satisfaction of looking at the mainboard (or DIMM, or sound card, or whatever) sitting in the trash, and saying, "I fried that."

Re:$450 from dell

[bellings]

Yeah, except the dell comes with ethernet, sound card, video card, speakers, keyboard, mouse, monitor, operating system, tech support, and warranty. In the world I live in, those things cost money too. Maybe you're able to download speakers off the internet or something.

And, of course, if you get the Dell you don't have to dick around for five hours selecting and ordering the parts, finding drivers, putting everything together, and installing the OS. In the world I live in, my time is worth something. Maybe you're able to download time off the internet or something.

From scratch?

[newerbob]

I know how to put together a PC from scratch

Really? You'll have a hell of a time designing a 4-layer printed circuit board that won't fail at the memory bus speeds.

It would take many man-years to design the ASICs for the bus controllers, I/O, sound, and CPU support.

And all that fancy equipment you need to do wave soldering would take up a good chunk of you garage.

Back in the Apple ][ days, people still used to build computers from scratch, because they were still 100% off-the-shelf components. I've seen friends from the FSR show me Apple ][ clones they wire-wrapped, part by part, using some chinese clone 6502 chip as the CPU.

Today, of course, building a computer from scratch means only taking about 10 components and shoving them in a case.