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

newegg.com

[BaldingByMicrosoft]

http://www.newegg.com

Re:newegg.com

[Subaiku]

Mod this up. Best site ever for such things, its where i got all my parts for my new system and they were prompt and prfessional. Go with newegg.

Re:newegg.com

[ncc74656]

But newegg does not ship by weight. -- Their shipping cost is good on a per-item basis, but when buying multiple items it's pretty bad IMO.

If you're only buying one or two items, they charge a fixed shipping rate per item. If you're buying a bunch of stuff (like all the parts to build a computer, or close to it), you get a break in the shipping rates. I put an order in a couple of months ago for parts for a dual Athlon MP system I built at work...everything except the hard drive, monitor, keyboard, and mouse, which I had on hand. On a subtotal of about $950, shipping was about $45. This was for three boxes, including a fairly heavy Antec mid-tower case, that arrived the next day. (FedEx Express Saver is sold as a three-day service IIRC, but it usually gets stuff from California to Nevada the next day.) $45 seems reasonable enough to me.

Start with pricewatch

[Pyromage]

I start looking at pricewatch.com. They are a lister, they list prices of components.

Keep in mind shipping: its usually cheaper to order a proc & mobo & ram from one place, just to save on shipping.... (otherwise you pay $15 extra per component)...

I've done business with many companies listed there, and been happy every time.

Re:Start with pricewatch

[Rorschach1]

And with Pricewatch, be aware that a lot of companies manipulate their listings to make sure they're at the top of the list. Check shipping and handling charges and other sale terms carefully.

Re:Start with pricewatch

[karnal]

Another startling point -- do NOT rely on pricewatch for memory.

Let me re-phrase this. There is good memory, and there is cheap memory. Cheap memory sucks. I bought a few 256mb dimms off of pricewatch (and ebay... shiver) that weren't worth the reduced price over known brands (micron, crucial etc).

After having a fit, and thinking my year old system board was going flakey (it's had questionable memory from the start), I bought 512MB from a computer show (can't remember the vendor). The guy had a memory tester there, and allowed me to look at the testing and results.

Lesson of the day -- when using pricewatch for memory, look for known good vendors (which is why the article is here in the first place) or for known good manufacturers. Do not buy the cheap stuff..... :)

Parts

[ajakk]

Check out Newegg for a pretty good selection of stuff. They don't have the best return policies, but they are a pretty good place. I also suggest looking at Anandtech for the motherboard/memory/video roundups which give the best prices for certain components. The places he references are usually higher quality than the lowball offerings given on Pricewatch.

I buy from ncix.com

[JebusIsLord]

If you are in Canada (which i assume you are not) You should order from http://www.ncix.com They are out of Vancouver and have great prices / 2 day shipping. Hard to find good stuff online without paying duty from the US.

Use Pricewatch and ResellerRatings

[Anonymous Coward]

www.pricewatch.com will get you the best price. www.resellerratings.com will help you figure out whether you're about to buy from a crooked company or an honest one.

Some ideas...

[XBL]

I have built 3 computers. All three I have bought parts from different places. It all boils down to finding the best deals.

shopper.com has price comparisons from many places, and that can be useful. COMPONENT PRICES CAN VARY WILDLY FROM DIFFERENT VENDORS!

You should check out buy.com, as they have a components section, and are usually reasonable on prices. If you want to buy everything from the same place without a lot of hassle, they might be your best bet.

Check out the reseller first

[V. Mole]

Pricewatch is useful, but before you take the lowest price, check them out at Reseller Ratings. Sometimes it's better to spend the extra $10 and avoid the rip-off artists.

DIY Computer Construction

[mjlesko]

Advice: Don't unless you enjoy it and can accept a high-level of frustration. That said, two places to go for some good information about parts, prices and how-to.

1. Anandtech
2. Tom's Hardware

In my experience the following online vendors are good for parts because of their service and prices:

1. New Egg - parts (e.g. cases, cards, motherboards, etc...)
2. Crucial - memory

Generally speaking I try to buy the majority, if not all my parts from one or two vendors, because shipping can really make or break a deal.

What I did, basically

[wizarddc]

Roughly, when I built my home PC, I started here:

http://arstechnica.com/guide/system/index.html

They regularly update their 3 machine specifications: God Box, Hot Rod Box, and Budget Box, inorder or price and goodies, of course. But what they mostly include is advice on buying what parts, why to buy them, what to look for if you're not buying that exact part, and how to buy the parts you need for the best price. The last part is most important. You can buy the same piece of hardware you need at many places on the net. The key is getting it the cheapest. The price comparison places I've been using are:

http://www.pricegrabber.com/
http://www.mysimon.com/
http://www.pricescan.com/
http://www.dealtime.com/

Some other people said getting your cpu, mem, and mobo from one place. I'd like to say almost that. CPU and mobo, for sure. But I always buy my memory from

http://www.crucial.com

It's just not worth risking on something so cheap.

Pricewatch Cautions

[Wanker]

I stopped shopping Pricewatch a while back since under such severe price pressures companies are forced to shave costs however they can. This means they will:

1) Offer no support
2) Send you broken items and charge a 25% "restocking" to return them
3) Not send anything at all and claim loss in shipping
4) Any number of other sleazy tactics

I suggest that you filter anyone you choose to buy from through Reseller Ratings. I rarely have problems when dealing with people high on their list.

As surprising as it might seem, letting that local shop order components for you and assemble it may actually be cheaper than buying the components yourself. The days of 50% markup over cost on PCs are long gone, now it's more like 2-5%. The shops can buy in volume and get better deals than you can. Come up with a spec on your PC and ask some of the local shops for a quote before buying the components yourself.

A couple more ...

[nosferatu-man]

Also excellent are

http://www.mwave.com

... and, for more esoteric case-related parts,

http://www.directron.com

There's no point in dealing with the hassles that other online retailers will subject you to.

'jfb

For the UK, try dabs.com or overclockers.co.uk

[ranulf]

Anyone who's in the UK should probably look at dabs.com. Everything is very slick, most stuff will be delivered next day even if you order at 6pm, and prices are almost as low as you get. They even do free delivery if the order's over £75 (though it used to be £40 :-( )

I reckon that between my own orders and those from companies I've worked and ordered for, I've placed about £13,000 of orders, of various sizes. Out of all that, everything has been perfect apart from one dead power supply which was replaced next day without returning the defective one, and they've even been happy to take back stuff that we ordered and then didn't want. I can really recommend them.

Another good place that's worth a look is overclockers.co.uk, though the bias is very much on what's en vogue in the gaming market. But they often have good prices on things, although you need quite a large order to offset post and packaging.

But often, I think you'll find that you'll end up spending more in the long run building a PC yourself, as you won't get a cheap OEM deal on Windows (assuming you don't want Linux), and when you realise how crap most of the components are in a pre-build "cheap" box, you'll want to buy higher quality bits for your own box.

Good luck!
Ralf

Ars Technica spec lists

[Otter]

I built my first PC last year, having installed drives and cards before, but generally knowing little about one piece of hardware versus another. The Ars Technica System Guides were extremely helpful. They have three model systems -- budget, power and obsessive -- and regularly update them with their current recommendations at each performance point. For someone who had no idea what an appropriate sound card was, it was a great starting point.

Since everyone else is listing favorite vendors, I had good results with The Chip Merchant (an Ars favorite) and Sunset Marketing. No connection to either other than satisfaction.

There was also a Kuro5hin story on this a few weeks ago. Too lazy to link it...

Also UK: CCL good, Jungle.com VERY BAD

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

You might also look at CCL, who I found very good. I bought a monitor through them when my old one died suddenly a few weeks ago. They have a plain but efficient web site, which appears to contain accurate current prices on their whole range. Those prices are pretty good, and they are often listed as the supplier in hardware tests by PC Pro magazine. You can order online (which got a 5% discount at the time I was ordering, but check that), or over the phone. When I did call to check a couple of details, there was no long wait to speak to someone and their staff were helpful and efficient. I value companies that give good service, so I offer this recommendation to others.

On the other hand, I wouldn't go anywhere near Jungle.com, who ripped me off completely. They failed to deliver a simple order for toner refills for weeks, completely misinformed me about the progress of the order, told me it was too late to cancel after a couple of days (we're on dubious legal grounds already), but then delivered the goods more than a month later and billed my credit card in spite of my explicit instructions not to do so (very dubious indeed). It then took several weeks of chasing them and Barclaycard to get my money refunded and a measly £5 compensation (which just about covered the interest I'd had on my Barclaycard as a result of not quite clearing it that month as a direct result of the incorrect debit by Jungle.com). I do not value this level of service, even from a web site that so carefully says "value - innovation - trust" in the header (ha!), so I pass on a warning to everyone else. May their pathetic service be the end of them.

A Quickie Measure for Comparison

[NeuroManson]

Recently I bought a prebuilt system, to be precise, a eMachines T4155, for $549 at Office Depot (a floor model discount on a clearance item, so at least I knew it was burned in for a considerable time)...

The reasons were simple, my car died on me some months back, so I needed to get something from a local retailer as opposed to running all over the Puget Sound looking for decent bargains, didn't feel like waiting a week for miscellaneous components purchased through PriceWatch, and didn't have a check card/credit card to make the purchase with otherwise... Considering the area the Puget Sound covers, I would have wasted a couple of days running about, which, if you prorated the time spent @around $10 an hour (because that is the minimum you would charge if you were building a system for someone else), then you're talking $160... And now the specs:

FIC VC31 motherboard - Usually around $90 on average...

Pentium 4, 1.5Ghz - Usually another $80-$100, depending on street prices at the time...

Maxtor 60 Gb ATA 100 - About $120 average...

LG CD-R/W, 12x8x32 - Usually about $50-$60...

Samsung 12 DVD ROM - Approximately $40-$50...

256 MB PC133 SDRAM - $30-$40...

Reference Geforce2 MX card - $40...

Micro ATX case/PS - $30 for a good run of the mill case...

Since most who buy their hardware also have to go to several different retailers to pinch every penny, lets assume each one, if you pick the cheapest rates, charges you about $8-$12 for UPS ground, leaving you waiting about a week for you to recieve your components... Total would come to about $30-$50

Total cost (based on average street price): $490, add shipping and you have almost the same price I paid for the prebuilt model, which for all intents and purposes uses the cheapest "passable" hardware...

Sure, some can build for cheaper, with better components, but you probably would wind up spending more (unless you know where I can get a nice Geforce4 card for under $50, which I doubt)...

However, for a starting foundation, it's more than adequate... In either case, it's a tossup, between convenient and quick, and marginal savings VS inconvenient waits...

The bottom line for PC hardware has finally reached bottom, you can't really get it any cheaper, unless the company that made it is going to declare Chapter 13 and vanish off the face of the earth...

My 2c

[TheCrunch]

Well everyone else is suggesting stuff so I figure I will too. I'm looking to buy a PC in the UK sometime soon and for the past couple of months I've kept my eye on the prices. Here's my contribution:

Dabs.com
Tried and trusted. I've bought plenty of stuff from these guys in the past with 100% satisfaction. Their site is a little annoying but they have the widest selection of stock by far. Their prices are very good if not the best. Product information (when available) is not terribly informative so you should know what you're looking for before you arrive.

Aria.co.uk
Only bought a couple of things from these people and had no problems. Less stock than dabs but their prices are good. Specifically, they've got the best prices on Athlon XPs (1800 - 2100). And their CPU coolers & PSUs are cheap too. Product info on this site is poor and the design isn't much better.

Overclockers.co.uk
Bought one thing from here and again no problems. Not a great deal of stock but the stuff they do have is top notch (in most cases). Their prices are slightly off-par, however they've currently got the best price on some CDRWs, HDDs and sound cards. Good product info available. These guys know their stuff. Their site design leaves to be desired.

Overclock.co.uk
Not bought anything from here yet. Their product info is good but have pretty limited stock, mainly geared towards.. well.. you guessed it.. overclocking. Some of their prices are good while others are quite off-par. Their site is navigable but heavily image-laden.

Overclockingstore.co.uk
Not bought anything from here yet. Their prices are reasonable but I've not found anything I wanted cheaper here. A large selection of overclocking stuff available and a pretty poor selection of regular components. Good looking site.

Tekheads.co.uk
Bought stuff from here without any problems. Their site is good and prices vary. Mostly reasonable and sometimes better than dabs. They've currently got best prices on sound cards. Product info available is ok.

Kustom.co.uk
Nasty site but they have a selection of stuff you'll have a hard time finding elsewhere. Mainly oriented towards cases and accessories. Bought a couple of things from these guys, again, without any problems.

Crucial.com/uk
OK, this isn't a retail site, but Crucial sell their RAM online at price up to £30 cheaper than elsewhere. If you're looking for ECC Registered 512MB PC2100 DDR chips like me, then you'll appreciate the £119.69 price tag.

CCLComputers.co.uk
Not bought anything from here yet but I certainly plan to. Simplistic site but very navigable. A good selection of stock and they've got the best prices on some CDRWs, AIW Radeons and the sweet sweet Iiyama Pro 452.

EBuyer.com
Not bought anything from here either. Not too keen on their site but they're one of the few who offer Antec PSUs, with a reasonable price too.

Scan.co.uk
Found this thanks to other posts in this discussion. Have to say I'm very impressed. A tasteful cut-to-the-chase design with decent product information. I was surprised to see just how wide a selection of stock they have. Not as large as dabs but they stock some decent stuff. I was surprised to find the dual Athlon Gigabyte mobo on there. Their selection of hard drives leaves to be desired but the rest is OK. Best prices on Enermax PSUs.

There are other sites out there too, such as Simply.co.uk, Action.com, Globaldirect.co.uk, Dcsplc.co.uk, Stuff-uk.net, Insight.com and Jungle.com but I've yet to be impressed. In particular, Jungle.com is probably worth avoiding. I've heard some horror stories.

So to wrap things up I'd have to say that if you can build your own PC it's definately worth doing so. The pre-built systems you can get may be cheaper and may have an amazing "2GHz P4, 60GB HDD DVD, Scanner etc.. etc..", but on the inside the components will be from Happy Shopper or Value Land and you'll get about as much performance out of your system as a frightened donkey.

However, if you're going to build your own PC you need to know exactly which components you need/want beforehand. These sites will have the stock you want but in most cases won't give you accurate or useful product information. It's a lengthy process but it's worth consulting newsgroups and/or online reviews. Storagereview.com, for example, has a leaderboard where you can get up to date on the decent and not-so-decent hard drives.

There are countless hardware review sites out there. It's worth searching for the product comparisons. Tomshardware.com and Anandtech.com are popular sites worth a look.

Good luck!