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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?"
http://www.newegg.com
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.
I shop at Tiger Direct a lot. Just got my Casio PV-400plus second day air. I've never had a problem with them and they have GREAT prices. Another rout is to go buy a barebones system at your local computer shop and then go to Best Buy and get a HD and the other stuff you want.
This isn't worth your time anymore... you can buy a stripped down PC from dell for $450.
check out techbargains.com for the latest dell deals...
start your dell rants.
www.newegg.com
Good prices, good rep, good shipping!
I used to work for one, and they can probably get parts cheaper than you'll be able to through the web. There's always a markup to cover the not-inconsiderable expense of maintaining a storefront, but a competent, reputable local dealer is worth the cost especially if you're not comfortable troubleshooting and fixing problems yourself.
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.
Come play Heroes of Might and Magic Mini online.
However, they don't necessarily always have all the lowest stores listed. In particular, I often check at least newegg.com, but others may have their favorites as well.
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.
Jeremy
There is more to building your own PC than just the price.
Building your own PC gives you a lot more options, and it is fun! (if your a geek :-)
...interesting if true.
You can easily find prices for the components you want from tons of different places:
www.pricewatch.com
Once homebrew, always homebrew.
At least I know whats in side rather than some guy in a pink suit telling me.
Just avoid VIA and HiPoint.
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
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.
I have been using www.mwave.com for over 3 years! They have Pricewatch based pricing! they are a great company! They have a nice site that is easy to navigate and use. And they have all the major parts both oem and retail!
keanmarine.com
I've always built my own. Typically I find that it actually costs a little more then a mass market PC, but I get exactly the options (video card, PC card, etc) I want, and don't have to pay for any bundled stuff I didn't want.
I typically price all my parts through Pricewatch
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.
There is no sinlge best "place," but a good start is of course, pricewatch, which compares a large number of online retailers.
Computer shows in your area are also a good bet, as small outfits will put together a barebones for less than even pricewatch can most of the time.
Finally, try "hot deals" forums like anandtech and fatwallet. They have decent coupon/rebate deals you can use locally or online to snag some great cheap accesories.
Hope that helps!
wherever you buy, check them out here first.
...needless to say, i learned the hard way
I prefer to buy it by visiting the local computer shops here (Vancouver, BC, Canada).
They tend to be a bit cheaper, you don't have to worry about shipping... then again, there's the tax. For those of you living in large cities, they are often your best bet for the most common parts rather than trying to hunt through 100 different online vendors, dealing with damaged parcels, etc. Plus, with so many of them along the same road, it's easy to visit another shop if the one doesn't have what you want. And most are online so you can compare prices...
I use Pricewatch in conjuntion with ResellerRatings to find the best prices on hardware from reputable companies.
I'm looking for a HEPA media filter for my TV. I'm alergic to reality shows.
Do *not* find the lowest prices on eahc part and use that to spec your system. The absolute worst thing you can do is "cheap out" on parts like RAM, motherboard, and the case. You'll end up with a potentially buggy system that is hard to maintain.
Make sure you only buy *retail* packages and keep all receipts in a folder in case you need to RMA a bad part.
It may cost 10-20% more, but if you do these two simple things, your overall value goes way up for building your own system.
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
Building your own PC is not always the least expensive proposition. Most configurable, yes, but not least expensive. For starters, all of the prebuilt PC manufacturers get huge bulk discounts. If you want to go buy that P4, it may cost you well over $400 or even $500. These guys can buy in bulks of 10,000 or more, which means significant price drops. Same for the motherboards, cases, power supplies, RAM, ... You're not going to be able to match the prices these companies can get. On top of that, if you're building your own PC, you're probably going to want to put quality parts in it. Don't expect that from a prebuilt company. They skimp where they can (weaker powersupply, flimsy case, off-brand sound card, etc) so they can pass the savings on to you while still making some sort of profit. Nevermind the software you have to buy (assuming you want to run Windows or some other commercial OS and don't wish to steal it). You can sometimes get the OEM discounts on the software if you buy it in conjunction with a mobo or hard drive, but not always.
In short, if price is a concern, don't build it yourself. Oh, sure, with a little due dilligence you can keep the price down. It's just been my experience that that doesn't happen. If you're pinching pennies, buy from a respectable name brand. If you want the ultimate in configuration (and don't mind having no computer-wide warranty support), then build it yourself.
The same stores that sell those custom built white box pcs also sell parts. Unless you are looking for something hard to find, such as crucial ram (I had alot of trouble finding a store that stocked it, but finally did) then its just easier to get it from a store. If you have a defective product, you can simply bring it back. If you order a defective product, it might take you 6 weeks to get a replacement! By then, the hardware you ordered may have already become obsolete :)
GoatPigSheep, the 3 most important food groups
The biggest problem with building your own is that you're the only one that can troubleshoot it if the system is DOA when you put it together and power it on. Typically you will find that the various component vendors will blame each other, and it's really hard to troubleshoot when you don't have the ability to swap out components.
When you put your system together, remember that chip speed is not everything. I just bought a system with a 400 mhz bus (and two 1.2 ghz chips). Without the quick bus, I wouldn't be able to use the the quick chips. Be warned: the big name companies save there money here.
Also, the place I got my system from (ordered by my coworker, so I forget where it was) actually built the thing, even though we only ordered the components! Be sure to ask for a similar deal, if you use one company for everything...
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.
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.
- Anandtech
- Tom's Hardware
In my experience the following online vendors are good for parts because of their service and prices: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.
I love rolling my own, but now I limit myself to PCs contained in my house. In the past, I have put together for friends and collegues (with no profit for myself) and had problems. The biggest complaint: "too loud of fans". I've noticed that Dells sometimes make plastic ducts to redirect fans from the transformer to processor heatsink. Interesting if you could do that yourself.
Every single time I've constructed a system from scratch, the system was always more expensive than a store system configuration.
The reason being that when you start shopping for individual components, you start buying stuff that is alot more powerful than the stuff in full system configuration. Start spending a few extra bucks here and there and it quickly adds up.
In the end you have a high end system that is no where close to the specs of the premade system, and it is evident in the cost as well.
agreed. build your own if you really know what you're doing and -enjoy- building it. I still do that. however i'd be more than happy to buy a prebuilt or mostly prebuilt system for myself if i could find a whitebox vendor that uses the parts i want (easy access case, ultra quiet high quality power supply, and the motherboard + cpu that i want). i'd still buy the ram and possibly the hard drive from elsewhere as those are extreemly marked up by most vendors compared to the best raw price you can get for what you need elsewhere.
you save a -lot- of time and headaches and messy vs. nice cabling if you buy a prebuilt system from a decent whitebox or bigname vendor. [you can even get warranties and support which can be good depending on how you plan to use the computer]
I build a lot of custom systems for people because I promise high quality parts at a competitive costs to computer vendors.
What I basically find is you have two typical users. The Power Users and the Economy Users.
Your Power Users usually tend to want the latest and greatest parts with the top of the line hardware, all name brand, and want to be able to boast the parts they have in there (ie: VisionTek GeForce4, Asus Motherboard.. things of that nature). Custom machines fit this bill perfectly.
Economy Users are the people who just see the computer as a tool and plan on using it to prepair their taxes and reports for the next five years. Their main concern ? Warranty, Part Replacement and Technical Support. For people like this, you pretty much have no choice but to turn to companies like Dell, Gateway or even Compaq to have their major brand names behind the systems. I'm a big fan of Dell and their Warranty/Support.
This is of course if you don't wish to hand out your cell phone number or if you loath nagging for RMA's as much as I do.
If you're looking for a good site for computer part prices your #1 choice should be PriceWatch. This site is a database of the lowest hardware prices on the Internet.
Hope this Helped!
If you're in the UK, eBuyer are very good. Europeans generally get ripped off for PC components, with prices in pounds being the numeric equivalent in dollars! eBuyer is very cheap though, and the prices approach American levels. You can get all of the components for a respectable 1Ghz box for about £250.
However, an even better resource is uk.adverts.computer. There are some real bargains on there! Everyone deals one to one, and bad traders are ferreted out and shamed in the group. It's pretty safe, and the prices are even lower. You can also get good advice about components there.. or in uk.comp.homebuilt.
Computer fairs in the UK generally aren't as good value as they used to be, unless you're looking for black goods.
Buying prebuilt computers from small builders is also very cost effective now. Sure, it's more expensive than building your own, but with the warranties, it can work out better, and you don't have to cut your hands to bits.
I use OnlyPCs who are a local firm, but will supply a brand new 1Ghz machine with CDRW, monitor, etc.. for £450 inc VAT!
mogorific carpentry experiments
You might try http://www.computerpartsusa.com. They have competative pricing on everything you'd need as well as a knowledgable staff.
~.Evanrude
Around here (Norway), I saved about NOK 3000 (~ $250) by building my own system half a year ago, but that's a pretty high end system (was anyway). So for high end systems, you can, but for low-end boxes, there is no way to do that around here.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
One thing I've always noticed is that building your own box is much cheaper than purchasing one if you want a really high end box. For example, I have a dual 1GHz P3, 1GB RAM, SCSI RAID, and a bunch of other stuff on it. I priced a similar system from Dell, IBM, and a couple of other companies and the cheapest I found it for was $3500. I built it myself and it only cost $1700. BIG difference in price. For entry level machines, though, companies like Gateway and Dell offer much better values. As far as where to purchase components, I recommend buying a very good motherboard. Companies like Abit or Asus are what I would recommend. Other than that, you could use Pricewatch to locate the cheapest parts online. I'd go with brand names, but find the best deal you can. (i.e., look for names like Seagate, Western Digital for hard drives, etc. Not just any old name) If you do that, you'll get a great quality box at a great price. SN
You're definitely making the right choice. Store-bought PCs aren't all they're cracked up to be. When you build your own box, you get to research all the components and find out, for yourself, what the advantages and disadvantages of each component is. If you're going to run FreeBSD or Linux or whatever, you can select hardware that is supported by your software, so that you don't pay a bunch of money for something prebuilt where half the stuff in the box is unsupported, and is therefore shit produced by shitheads.
(Because only really stupid people make hardware that isn't supported by Linux or FreeBSD.)
We have several small shops that sell components cheap, usually about the same as pricewatch after you figure in sales tax, shipping, and all the other extras. I like buying from them because there is someone I can talk face-to-face with and return parts to. I can ask questions like "hey, how often do you get people returning brand X hard drives that are DOA".
Also, by taking my money to those shops I help make sure they stay in business, so as to not help those big shops that seem to get articles on slashdot a lot for various questionable business practices, as well as making sure the little shops are still around when I need a part "right now" not "in a few days, when we feel like sticking it in the mail".
Personally, i think it's a good idea to stay away from Western Digital for your HD. Do go with Asus for the mobo and to make sure to buy from a vendor that's out of state so you don't get stuck paying the shipping AS WELL as sales tax.
I use tccomputers.com for most of my stuff - they don't have bottom basement prices, but they are competitive and have good support (buy you MB & CPU from them, and they'll help you get it all running right if you have trouble)
Gotta get your memory from Crucial.com, they have Great prices, Great memory, and Free shipping (2nd day air).
For the remaining bits I either recycle from old PCs, use Pricewatch (with caution), or talk to friends who have parts I need.
Another thing to get in the habit of doing is buying lots of stuff when you find deals. I once got a bunch of IBM 10/100 Intel chip NICs for $15 a piece - I bought 5 of the suckers, and haven't had to buy a NIC since, even as my LAN has grown.
_sig_ is away
If you're building a server class machine, if you want stuff like redundant powersupplies, dual (or more) processors, built in highend SCSI... you're still going to pay a lot.
With a pretty good Dell going for $900, you've got to want to futz around inside the box to make building your own (with no real manufacturer support) worth your while.
A beginners' guide to Portland, OR?
NO NO NO
Please, avoid Tiger Direct if you want to avoid a headache. Their computers are junk (Think homebrew Packard Bell), and their service/support is virtually non-existant.
I went MicroPro.com earlier this year because they had low prices and most of the parts I wanted.
This is how they treated my order. Two computers, pretty much ripped apart into pieces because they didn't even bother TRYING to pack the parts properly. The photos show how laughable their efforts were. Laughable if it's not your order, that is.
While they did eventually replace all the parts, they (1) were hoping to get away with calling it UPS's fault, and (2) took a month to "find" the RMA parts so they could replace it.
It was only the day I threatened a BBB letter that the final RMA'd units were mysteriously "found" and replaced promptly.
[
I love building my own system...it's fun!
Anyway, my locally-owned non-chain computer store (Little Shop of Hardware in Baltimore) seems to have prices on par with what you can find online (but not quite as big a selection, obviously!). Plus, you don't have to pay for shipping, or deal with RMAs, and you get to support your local economy.
Liberal (adj.): Free from bigotry; open to progress; tolerant of others.
Noisecontrol here in Germany seems to make reasonable ones. Surely, you can get a supplier in US or elsewhere for their stuff.
Search ebay and those "opinion-sites" for some weeks to get a feeling of what is good and what is bad.
Never buy the cheapest.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Another advice is to try to combine 1-2 parts to be bought from the single retailer.
Advice 3: watch bargain web sites, especially http://www.techbargains.com/ and Anandtech Hot Deals forum.
My advice for various retailers:
- http://www.directron.com/
(great source for cases, and various mechanocal necessities and cables)
- Dell Peripherals, if you manage to catch the needed part (drives/etc...) during a good sale.
- Someone already mentioned http://www.newegg.com
- Another site i have found to have great price and service in the past is Z-Buy.com
These sites account for most of the insides and peripherals of my self-built Athlon 1.3G box.Hope this helps,
DVK
"The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it"-R.A.Heinlein
http://saveie6.com/
(And I'll throw in a "me-too" for those recommending Newegg. More often than not, they will have the lowest price, or be within a few percent of the lowest price.)
VIA motherboard and Shuttle all aluminum case....very low cost...very high quality.
http://www.shuttle.com/english/default.asp
Between the two of those site, you should be able to make a decision. Both don't have the greatest selection, but they do have good prices and decent service.
Domains for only $8.75/year! Transfer your domain for on
check http://resellerratings.com to see other customers opinions about the shop. Pricewatch may find you the cheapest prices, but bad service will cost you more pain and suffering in the long run than a couple of $$.
I've also had good luck with newegg (which many other people also pointed out) which receives a 9.41 rating!
Newegg.com keeps coming up a lot.
I built a new system; Aluminum case w/450w PS, window and flighting key, AMD XP2000+, MSI KT3 Ultra-ARU, 512 Mb PC2700, Lite-On CDRW, Lite-On DVD, MS Trackball, and Keyboard. I migrated the 2 30Gb drives, LAN and video cards from my old system. Total outlay = $720.00.
DVD and CDRW came from Newegg. Motherboard, CPU and RAM, case, KB and trackball came from Fry's Electronics.
I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.
For components, I usually shop Newegg.com or Mwave.com and I buy everything at the same time from either one.
But for memory I recommend Crucial.Com. Memory is one thing that you definitely do not want to buy the cheapest that you can find. Cheap memory is can be flaky memory which then leads to a flaky system. At Crucial prices are usually competitive, the service is very good, shipping is nearly always free, and they are very good on handling returns. Like others, I recommend getting all of the other components together from one vendor, but I would buy the memory separately from Crucial.Com unless the price difference is substantial.
As far as whether or not you save money by building your own... about the best aspect of it is that you can leave out the parts that you don't want. If you are running Linux, you don't have to buy a copy of Windows that you will never use. If you have pretty good speakers already, you don't have to buy another pair that will end up on the shelf gathering dust. Dell let's you customize a little, but building it yourself you can customize it completely and save money by not buying what you won't use/don't need.
(and no, I don't work for Crucial... I just like the place)
ATHALON! you don't deserve a computer if that's how you're going to spell it.
Anyway, depending on the software, that should be well under $3000(unless those are canadian dollars). I haven't seen any mainstream vendors lately that sell anything with AMDs and especially not dual proc. systems. Build your own, throw in a 17" LCD and you'll still be under three grand.
Unless you live in a really remote location, go to a local computer shop and either buy the parts from them or have them put together a system for you.
I've found the prices of the local "mom and pop" computer stores generally kick the shit out of the big chain stores and online stores, and there's no shipping to worry about. Plus you can actually go talk to somebody to get advice or if something goes wrong.
If you do this, buying the parts and building the system yourself is still probably your best bet, but sometimes shops have good deals on prebuilt systems that might (depending on what you need it for) be good enough.
So sure, you can like the other folks have already mentioned, use pricewatch, pricegrabber, even mysimon to find good prices on QUALITY components. But don't buy cheapie stuff--the best part of building your own system is that you can use quality parts and get it done for the same price as a system manufacturer might with cheap stuff!
But then you go to a store with a good reputation, such as Dell, NewEgg, Buy.com, etc. to buy all the stuff at a higher price. The best part is when you whip out the Amex Gold card to pay for it. Then you call American Express up and tell them that you found all these items for cheaper at other websites (referencing your searches above). They kindly cut you a check for the difference.
This way, you get the best price and the best service. Ahh how wonderful.
Details on doing Amex pricematching are here which is a link on www.xpbargains.com. XPBargains is a very cool site by the way.
Check out our infosecurity industry blog: http://securitymusings.com/
I personally use the same vendors most often but will use pricewatch to find deals when buying individual parts. my Fav vendors are:
parts list:
tyan tiger mother board + 2x 1800+ athlon MP + 2x coolermaster = $497 shipped from micropro.com
Geforce4 Ti 4600 128MB DDR = $302 shipped from fticomputer.com
black aluminum case = $83 from pccase.com
4x 256MB PC2100 Registered ECC RAM = $307 shipped from crucial.com
Antec 400W power supply = $72.55 shipped from cruxworks.com
Western Digital 100GB 8MB cache 7200RPM HDD = $160 from z-buy.com
Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum w/ live drive+remote = $157 from L-buy.com
Plextor 24x10x40 Plexwriter CDRW = $113 from z-buy.com
total = $1703.32
"dude, your getting some power"
pricewatch is the bible of our day. all hail the mysterious 'q' at the bottom of the results page.
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
Furthermore, even if the components are cheaper, it's difficult to find them all fomr the same place and cheaper. Once you start going to multiple places, the difference in price is quickly overcome by shipping charges.
MWave always accepts returns without a hassle. They are extremely fast about shipping in-stock items (I've been known to order after 6PM CST and they shipped it out that evening nearly every time--they're in California so it is after 4PM there, still impressive). And they are always polite and helpful whenever I've had to speak with them. Their prices aren't always the lowest, but they don't overcharge on shipping the way a lot of PriceWatch vendors do, so the bill comes out similar.
Anyway, I've learned that saving two dollars on a new motherboard just isn't worth the headaches of dealing with a bad vendor. I've been screwed out of $1100 because of idiotic return policies before (Googlegear.com, avoid those useless stumps at all costs), so I view MWave as the best value even if they aren't the cheapest price.
So, my suggestion:
MWave.com
They have nearly everything I ever buy...
Let this anecdote stand as a warning: my company was purchasing a big lot of equipment from a Swedish company a few years ago, and I went there to inspect their quality standards.
They showed me how they bought pre-tested parts from wholesalers, according to certain standards. They said they prefered to let others do the testing because, sometimes, reject rates were up to 40%. It wasn't that the parts didn't work, but they weren't up to the best standards, they were less reliable overall. The parts wholesaler could work perfectly well with those reject rates, I was told, because the parts that didn't pass the Swedish company standards were sold cheap to Chinese manufacturers.
The bottom line is, unfortunately, that cheap parts are always, by force of the economics involved, less reliable than similar parts bought at higher prices from the better manufacturers.
At the time of this posting, 3 of the 5 posts moderated over 4 have mentioned Newegg.com. That should tell you something, and I agree with the posters. Prices are good, and service is good too. I've done an address correction with them as well as a defective product return. With good timely results.
For other companies, check out www.resellerratings.com which is a user contributed site that ranks the quality of companies. I think they're using a 10 scale now, so I make it a rule only to order from companies ranked 8 and over.
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
I just did this in april. I had followed the same exact thought process. "Hmmm. Order a dell, and get support/service, but not exactly what I want. Build it myself, get no support but exactly what I want".
So I ordered from a few different places, pretty much depending on price. I got most of the componenets from newegg.com. NECX Direct could (amazingly> beat newegg.com in a couple of places so I got some componenets from there. I got my case and PS from Dump Computers because they had a case that I liked the looks of.
Everything I ordered came in a reasonable amount of time (the stuff from NECX and newegg came incredibly fast). The stuff from dump was a little slower, but then it was also the biggest (being a computer case) and only came UPS ground. All the parts were as advertised and came packaged well and worked! All in all, I'm very happy with my experience.
BTW - I don't work for any of these companies and get nothing in return for this review. I'm just calling it as I saw it.
Does this give you any idea on where is stand?
These days, big companies really have an edge in terms of how much they pay for parts, especially for the things you don't think of, like power supplies, cases, mice, kbs, modem/Ethernet cards, etc. When building a computer people tend to think 'CPU, mobo, ram, hd' and not look at the price of the other components.
You'll save money if you just want to swap out the mobo, cpu and hard drive of your current PC, but if your looking for a whole new machine you'll save money going with the big guys.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
- You get exactly what you want, e.g. stuff that you can be sure works and plays well with Linux. You can be sure you're not cutting corners with case or cooling.
- You can be sure that you're not paying the Microsoft Tax.
- There is a certain amount of satisfaction from doing it yourself, even if all you're doing is hooking together a few major subsystems.
Con:If you're so sure, why not give us a component rundown with prices so we can see for ourselves. I seriously doubt you could pull that off especialy from a regular consumer store like frys. don't forget the cost of the Case+PS, of the flopy drive, the keyboard, etc.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Try Reseller Ratings. When I used to buy individual parts routinely, I always checked out suppliers there first, to see how good they were for speed of delivery, customer service, and most importantly, returns.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
man is machine
When building a system from scratch I try to buy as much as I can from memman.com. Outstanding customer service, cheap prices, and flat-rate shipping. Lifetime warranty on RAM.
I ordered an Athlon XP and a low-end CPU cooler from them recently. They called me a short while later, and apologized for not having the heatsink I wanted in stock, and then offered to send a rather high-end solid copper cooler instead. No extra cost, of course.
Another time, there was some manner of trouble with the order, and I wasn't aware of it until the next day. It was sorted out quickly by the time I got a chance to call them, but after I hung up I felt a little bummed that the parts would be a day or three later in arriving.
Unbeknownst to me, they upgraded the shipping to 2-day FedEx instead of ground. The stuff showed up on Friday, instead of the next Monday or Tuesday like I expected.
This level of service seems to be par for them, and I've been giving them as much business as possible since I discovered them sometime in the mid-90s, with a cheesy ad in the back of Computer Shopper.
Contrast this with other online vendors, who will sit on your order for several days, silently, and have no idea who you are or what you want when you call to ask where your hardware is -- the people at memman.com seems genuinely interested in keeping customers happy, and are a joy to work with.
I'm beyond pleased with their level of service.
(Nope, I don't work there. I'm not a shareholder. They don't advertise on my porn site. So on, so forth.)
Kid-proof tablet..
Sheesh, ya gotta know I'd bite on that one.
Easy peasy.
--
Dual Athlon Workstation
CPU type: Dual Athlon MP 1900
Two AMD Athlon MP CPUs
Asus A7M266-D dual motherboard
IO port: 2 x USB, 1 x Parralel, 1 x Serial, 1 x PS2 keyboard, 1 x PS2 mouse
1024mb PC2100 DDR SDRAM, 2 DIMMs
WD 80gb Caviar ATA100 drive, 7200RPM
Toshiba SD-R1202 16x10x12x40 DVD/CD-RW combo drive, ATAPI
nVidia GeForce4 TI4400 graphics card, 128mb w/ DVI
ViewSonic PF790 19" monitor, flat
Teac 1.44mb floppy drive
Mid tower ATX case with 6 drive bays
Logitech 3 button mouse
IBM 104-key PS/2 keyboard
SoundBlaster Live! 5.1
Altec Lansing AVS500 5PC speaker system
MS Windows XP Professional installed for multi-boot, w/ CD/docs
Total = $2,950
Please note that I just used up as much of your 3k as I could, by upgrading the monitor, processor speed, speakers and giving you XP Pro.
Don't even mind giving the source.
http://www.swt.com/duala.html
I'd rather have a moderately-priced PC with high quality components than a cheap PC composed of bargain-bin parts. The manufacturers of the higher quality components are going to stand behind their product by continually updating and fixing drivers and firmware and promptly replacing the component if it goes bad. You just aren't going to get this from super cheap components.
The store I work at builds our own PCs using components from Asus, Toshiba, Intel, AMD, IBM, Nvidia, and Seagate. We never go for the cheapest product and we always watch for which companies will stand by their warranties and provide up to date driver support.
I've built and rebuilt/upgraded at least 20 computers for myself and maintain 7 computers in my home alone running various OSes and flavours of them. If you want a PC that will run any OS out there you need to build it yourself, because the big OEM builders won't check every item to make sure there's a Linux or *BSD driver available for it, not a chance.
Duris MUD - The best pkill MUD. Ever.
The problem with buying a full system is that you don't get all the options you want, and you're get stuck with extras you don't need. I'm ordering parts for a $1300 (+ $100 shipping)system from newegg.com. A similarly outfitted Dell 4500 would cost $1500, plus $200 shipping, probably from the non-optional OS, keyboard, mouse, and software. When I looked at other manufacturers, they had even less options, and seemed to cost more. It was also harder to find the specs for various parts, like the motherboard brand/features.
Building my own lets me know exactly what I'm getting. The lite-on cd-r will be able to make backups of protected games. The case is easy to get into and has a good power supply. The motherboard supports USB 2.
Prebuilts may be cheaper for low-end systems, but building your own is better if you want to make sure you get quality parts at reasonable prices.
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.
Th
BTW, he's been voted the most annoying person on God's green earth! Check it out! He's #1 on the annoying list!
LOL
Disclaimer: This comment was generated by a Flock of Trained Microsoft Programmers for Aqua_Geek.
Personally, I like pricewatch, which has already been mentioned several times. You won't find a single vendor that has good prices on everything, though. I usually end up ordering parts from 3 or 4 vendors every time I build a PC. Some vendors I like:
googlegear - If you really want to do the one-stop thing, this is who I suggest. They don't have the best prices, but they're usually close and they have a huge selection.
teamexcess - They have a great clearance section if you don't mind stuff with cosmetic blemishes. I've bought several "B-Grade" 20" and 21" monitors from them and have always been happy, especially since they've cost me under $200 each, including shipping.
There are more whose names I can't remember off the top of my head. I'll post them in a reply to this when I get home.
I've seen TigerDirect mentioned, but I'd avoid them since you're concerned about price. They carry just about everything, but even their super sale prices are pretty high.
I definately recomend building your own. After shipping and tax you really won't save that much, but you will know exactly what you have since you picked it yourself, hopefully with compatability in mind, which can be very valuable if you run anything other than Windows.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Support you local computer wholesalers and resalers. Use the yellow pages and find out where they are located, as they tend to clump. I get all my parts in a shopping center that has dozens of small wholesalers. I never buy from just one. I start at one end of the strip and price my parts at every store. In the end, I go back to the ones that gave me the best deals. In Miami, the strip is located near the airport in a warehouse district. That will probably be a common location for such stores.
t'nera semordnilap
Their prices are already waaaay lower than someplace like Future Shop, and they also handily beat out all the local dealers. I have no experience with Dell, so maybe their prices are good, but with NCIX's system packages there is no "mix-and-match" parts - they have these systems ready to go. Configure them if you want. I was on there the other day and to put together a bare bones, 850 Duron system was $400 CDN (minus monitor/keyboard). That's about $250 US!
It cost me less to get them to ship a samsung stick of ram (that's with an $11 CDN shipping charge) to where I live than it did to get it through local dealers.
Thus you have it all - prebuilt or configurability, good components that you want, and best of all cheap price. Oh, and they also have minimum 1 Year warranty (you can buy more). "Building" it yourself is definitely the way to go if you can find the right dealer.
One advantage to "doing it yourself" in building a computer is that you pick up the skills to understand how to work with the innards of a computer. It's become a lot easier these days with Plug and Play (or Plug and Pray as it may be) peripherals and such, but it's still an educational experience.
Building your own system will basically force you to research each, individual piece. Which CPU should I buy? Which motherboard? What kind of RAM does that motherboard take? Why should I go with Foo Company's video card over Baz Company's? What's the difference between IDE and SCSI? And so on.
Having this kind of knowledge will also come in handy when you want to upgrade your computer. It'll also come in handy when a friend of yours needs to have his/her computer upgraded as well.
"Teach a man how to fish and he won't go hungry" and all.
--
http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
- Pick the motherboard first. Your main board is without a doubt the most important part of the machine. Don't skimp - buy the best. Everything else is easily replaceable, and nothing sucks like a slow or buggy main board.
- Buy as much RAM as you can afford, and the slowest CPU your chosen motherboard will take. Then wait 'til CPU prices come down to upgrade. High-end CPUs are consistently the most over-priced component you'll buy.
- Spend some time picking a case. Buy one that's easy to work on and has lots of room.
- Shell out some dough for the best (not biggest) power supply you can. You don't want part of your shiny new system fragged by bad power.
- Buy a great monitor. My monitor has lasted me through 2 complete rebuilds of my box (3.5 years), and has another few years left. The monitor is the most expensive single component, and the only one that you can never upgrade.
- Unless you're ready for some pain, don't be a doof and try to overclock. The few % performance increase isn't worth frying a CPU, plus it means you don't need a $75 fan that sounds like a wind tunnel.
- Be prepared for a bit of a pain in the ass. Don't count on manufacturer tech support to help you much - they'll mostly point fingers at other components. This is the part that sucks compared with buying a Dell.
Buying advice:This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."
It seems like this company is well liked by /. readers. I wonder, does this company lets you buy stuff in person from it? Has anyone done this yet? I live near that city.
:)
Thank you in advance.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
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.
anandtech.com has a forum set aside for Hot-Deals. There many good deals regardng computer equipment. I check there first.
-THIS SPACE FOR RENT!
Step zero, figure out what you want to do with it. Do you want high-end sound? Gaming? Video capture? Entertainment system? Are you going to lug it around to LAN parties? This will help you trim things down.
First, go to TomsHardware.com, pick up a copy of MaximumPC, and hit other sites like ArsTechnica to read up on articles of importance to your project. You will need a rock-solid motherboard, don't get caught up in overclocking madness and other BS. If this is the first time you've built a machine you've got a lot of stuff to school yourself on without toasting a CPU or mobo. Wait until you know what you're doing. Baby steps. Check out compatibility issues, etc.
Second, don't do this to save money - you won't. Building a box isn't a way to save, it's to be assured that you'll get exactly what you want put together exactly how you want it. Also remember that you are your own warranty and that OEM equipment doesn't have the same warranty period as retail stuff in most cases. Also if you return stuff, there's usually a huge (20%+) restock fee, so make sure you're ordering what you think you're ordering. Caveat emptor.
Third, go to newegg.com or mwave.com and configure yourself up a box. Newegg will let you save your cart and whatnot, mwave is still stuck in 1997 in that regard. Anyway, poke, configure. Design your box around your specific wants and needs. Nip and tuck.
Certainly use pricewatch as a guide, but trust me - it's ALWAYS better to order your parts all from one place rather than be kept waiting for a CPU or couple of sticks of RAM to trickle in. Plus, there's less hassle if something's DOA.
Next, pick up a PC Upgrade & Repair book and a basic toolset. Read, read, read. Check your order to make damned sure that you didn't forget anything. If you're too squeamish to put the whole thing together yourself (you should put it together yourself, IMHO) you can get mwave or someone to prebuild it for your and tweak it when it comes in.
Anyway, if you decide to put it together yourself schedule a free weekend - yes, a whole weekend. Use common sense, a clean worktable without errant drinks or chips, anti-static gear, and a Zen-like ripose. Before you start tearing into your hardware READ THE MANUALS AND HOW-TOS FIRST.
Let me say that again: READ THE MANUALS AND HOW-TOS FIRST.
One more time, because since you're building it YOU are all the tech support you're ever going to get. READ THE MANUALS AND HOW-TOS FIRST. Check erratta online, grab the latest BIOS for your motherboard and drivers for your gear. All the drivers that come on your install CDs were out of date before the CDs were finished duplicating.
Having a running box and broadband handy to grab patches and do research while you construct is invaluable. So is the advice/help/EMT of a friendly geek buddy if you get stuck. Don't bug the crap out of your friend; I HATE being roped into a newbie install at 6:00PM on a Saturday night.
Anyway, make sure you have all your OS and application CDs laying around. Grab the latest ISOs of your favorite distro and make boot floppies.
There will be twists, turns, and headaches. But you'll get a sense of satisfaction and - over the years - invaluable experience with all kinds of wierd hardware and odd situations. Bask in pride as you fire up your very own custom box!
Best:
Newegg. Not the cheapest, but good and have never had a problem.
Axion Technologies Never had a problem, lots of interesting stuff in their surplus section - always worth a browse.
Computer Surplus Outlet Good for very cheap systems that you can tweak with a few extra bits, especially old P2-grade machines at ridiculously low prices and occasional weird stuff. Component prices aren't all that good, but they often have specials (I got a heap of P2 Xeon 400s from them, with heatsink, for $9.99 each.)
Worst:
CNet PC
They marked a delivery "no signature required" without telling me. When the package never arrived they just said "not our fault" and stopped replying to my emails.
Another piece of advice: if you're ordering from out-of-state to avoid sales tax, remember that it's going to be a lot harder - probably not worth your while - to take them to small claims court...
What would Lemmy do?
While I will not argue, for a second, that it use to be far cheaper to build your own PC, I must question whether this is still true.
In the past years I have built numerous systems for myself and friends, at considerable savings. But, more recently, the price of a pre-built PCs has plummeted. Prices have dropped to such a low level that I really wonder if you can still beat the price when building from parts.
Now, I mean the same parts, no substitutes. You can't compare the savings you got building your system from AMD processors WingDing Memory and NoName drives to a Compaq using an Intel with Samsung Memory and WesternDigital drives. Even if you can match or beat the price, is it enough to justify the trouble.
There are also other considerations. Warranty is one of them. But there are also support issues. I know that we "geeks never need help fixing our problems" but, there are sometimes issues with firmware or software conflicts that a large vendors help may prove to be invaluable. I guarantee that the component vendors will produce updated firmware and drivers for the Compaqs and Dells before they look to the white box users.
After all these years, the sub $1000 PC makes the point moot for me. For under $1000 it just isn't worth my effort to acquire and build from parts. It's much easier to just unbox and power on.
The price was great and the specs looked great compared to other similarly priced systems. When I got it, I found that everything inside was junk. Ultra cheap memory, crappy hard drive, no-name shit-bag mobo, ultra crappy video card, etc. Needless to say I was very disappointed. I believe things have improved in the "white box" deparment since then, but you still get what you pay for.
When you build your own you get a few benefits:
- You know exactly what's in there. No searching around for obscure drivers for no-name parts that no one has ever heard of.
- You get top quality in every part you use (up to your budget).
- Buy the "retail" version of a part and it will almost always come with a one year warranty.
- Personal satisfaction!
- No small time vendor to go out of business and not honor your warranty or provide service.
- A computer with better specs than the "white box" system for roughly the same price that is 2-3 times better in quality.
So while it may not be the cheapest option outright, I believe you get the most for your money in the long run. I build 5-10 computers a year now for family and friends (and occasionally myself...).Some tips when building your own:
- Beware of online retailers, some are reputable, some are not. When I built my first computer I bought at the lowest price I could find from all over the country. I got more than a few parts that were obviously returns from previous purchases. It cost money to return and some would not take back. Be careful who you buy from. (I found a local dealer who is as cheap or cheaper than what I can find online that I always buy from now.)
- Do your homework on parts. Visit tech sites like Tom's Hardware, anandtech and others to find out what parts match what you are looking for.
- Be careful of OEM buys. It usually means they come with no accessories (like cables, drivers, software bundles, connectors, etc). Often the price of the extra stuff will make up for the difference in price between retail and OEM.
- Also remember that retail boxed items usually come with a warranty. OEM usually does not.
- Tax often offsets shipping. Nowadays a lot of online retailers will charge tax even if they don't have to and pocket the money. Buying locally you pay tax yes, but it's often the same cost or cheaper than shipping.
- Make sure you know what you are doing. Building a pc is NOT rocket science, especially with jumperless motherboards, but there are often little details that you may never have heard of or considered that can cause damage or frustrating hours of downtime. (40 vs 80 pin IDE cables. Master vs. slave jumper settings on drive. AGP slot vs. card voltage, proper cooling fans, etc.)
- Stay the fuck away from Fry's!
One note here, when you add a monitor into the equation, things get a little trickier. It's often VERY hard to build a system with a monitor for the same price as one you buy "white box". I invested in a nice monitor a while ago and it's lasted me 5 years (still going strong). I figure with the frequency I would have to replace a "white box" system upgrading my monitor as I go, it paid for itself over time.For reference, I just put together a DAW with ASUS P4T mobo, 1.8GHz P4, 512MB RDRAM, 2x40GB EIDE 7200RPM hard drives, GeForce 440 MX video, DVD/CD, ethernet, case for under $1000. I don't think I could find something that REALLY compared for anywhere near that price.
Home-built is generally more expensive, not less.
You are paying full price, where Dell, etc get a huge discount because they purchase so many.
Also consider:
- misc component conflicts
- cheap, un-supported components
- BIOS issues
- no tech support for your specific configuration
To paraphrase: "homebuit machines are only cheaper if your time is worthless."
The Big Boys also hire people to test and document their various configurations, to create and update driver disks, etc.
Sure, you can absolutely do all that yourself, but why? You can built your own radio too, but why?
If it is for fun, do it. If it is to save money, don't.
=brian
After building for myself and various friends and family over the years, here's one point of view: 1. It's not cheaper to build. The bottom of the line PC's will always be cheaper than you can build DIY. This is likey due to the powers of mass purchasing and mass markets. On the other hand, if you are putting together a top of the line PC, the markup for a "brand name" is usually not justifiable. "Off brand" top of the line PCs usually have a reasonable price for the "I just want to buy one" types. 2. It's much better to build. The quality of parts that you put into the system are usually much higher than any manufacturer will use. Unless the manufacturer bothers to promote the video card/disk drive/memory/etc by stating the exact make and model, odds are it's a generic whitebox or built-into-the-motherboard. These guys are in a tough market, and they cut corners on the pieces inside to stay in business. 3. It's easier to expand after you build. With a little prior planning, you won't get a motherboard that lacks sufficent PCI/memory/whatever slots. Plus you can call the shots. Want SCSI?, plop it in. As long as you don't get an integrated motherboard, upgrading the sound/video/network card shouldn't be very difficult. 4. It's easier to reinstall after you build. You installed the OS the first time, so you can burn your system down to the ground and build it again. You know it will work the second time, as it was tested by the first install. Problems encountered: 1. Often you become your own support desk. Not always a problem unless you don't trust your knowledge about the OS you are running or about basic hardware setup. But if you are building this for someone else, remember they will be calling you to sort out their last failed install of XXX. 2. The first install can often be the cruelest. Didn't know that card YYY was unsupported? Plugged that IDE cable in backwards? You'll find out soon. 3. Bugs lurk in partially configured systems. You'll set up that network card driver later, like when you need it... sure you will! 4. Constant upgrades lead to piles of junk. Now that you know the ropes, it's so easy to drop in that latest video card. Never mind that you have no home for all the others you pulled out of your system.
Most vendors on Pricewatch (the first page or so of the lowest prices) are generally dishonest -- you'll get bad (or no) service if anything goes wrong, and they make up for their lower prices with overly high shipping costs ($40 or more for something that can be shipped for $10).
:)
So lookup each vendor you are considering in Reseller ratings -- and don't just look at the number, read the reviews.
It is generally not worthwhile to build a *whole* computer from scratch by yourself, unless you want:
a) the best components
b) to slowly upgrade it piece by piece over time.
Nowadays getting a computer from Dell or Gateway is cheaper (or just as cheap) as building it yourself (with the same components). You can also try walmart.com
Oh, and http://www.essencompu.com/ is pretty good -- they don't have the very best prices (but they are quite good), their shipping is actually in line with reality, and the service is excellent.
"You have the option of insanity. I do not. And that makes me crazy!" - Brian to Angela, My So-Called Life
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
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
There are three really good reasons for building it yourself. You touched on one -- the ultimate in configuration. If you build it you know exactly what goes into it and can get exactly the parts you want for the performance you want.
Second is the experience. What better way to learn how a computer is put together than to put one together?
Third is the sheer fun of it. Putting a computer together is easier than building a skyscraper out of Tinkertoys and when you're done you can surf the Internet (or whatever) on your finished product. Can't beat that!
Someone you trust is one of us.
Yes, I agree with you completelt. If you have a good feel of the market and components, you can save yourself a bundle, and have all name-brand and quality parts to boot.
In addition, you can save money by reusing non-obsolete parts like modems, sound cards, etc.
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
In any case, I dunno if Adamant counts as "mainstream", but their site lets you configurethe system you described (with a Tyan mobo, 2 gigs of PC2100 memory, 80 gig IBM drive, DVD/CD-RW combo, and el-cheapo floppy/sound/56k/100-baseT/kbd/mouse rings up under $2k. Add an extra hundred bucks for Windows if you want it; they'll also install Red Hat for $65.
I put my previous computer together from parts, and, as other posters have described, got raked over the coals on shipping. Plus, it was a pain to deal with all the little pieces you never think of:
After being around for all this, my roommate bought a bare-bones system from Adamant. (I have no other affiliation, just a satisfied customer-once-removed.) Worked fine, had all the aforementioned knick-knacks included, and not that much more money, compared to the time I wasted on treasure hunts.
Of course, even after all that, I built my current system from parts, too-- what'd'ya want, I'm a geek after all...
If you're thinking of buying cooling supplies, Silicon Valley Compucycle has good prices on case fans, CPU fans, thermal grease, and so on. They ship quite quickly, too.
--
http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
You just can't find these cases at places like Newegg
That's not necessarily true. You can find nice cases if you look around. The one I'm using now is a one-screw (thumbscrew) case that's very well put together, as nice as anything I've seen from Dell. Bought it from a little shop in San Francisco's SoMa district.
Granted, unless you go in a look at actual cases, and play with them in person, you're probably going to get stuck with one that's awkward or fragile or hacker-hostile. But just because most of the third-party cases are crap, that doesn't mean they all are. It's simply a feature that most people don't pay enough attention to.
To extend this question, is there anything I can buy that will let me convert an ATX PC into a rack mounted unit?
i'll keep this short and sweet.
d e_Index.htm is a must read for optimizing your bios. This can make the difference between a stable box and a box that crashes every 10 minutes.
//rant mode=on
:)
For parts, go to newegg.com and axiontech.com
I've ordered at least $20k in parts from both places in the past 2-3 years, and both are honest reliable places with decent rma policies. I hear mwave.com is decent too, though i've never dealt with them.
More importantly, you need some technical resources. www.pcguide.com covers a LOT of good overall system information. Spend a few hours there at least.
Also very important, and often overlooked by do it yourselfers......is bios setup. www.rojakpot.com/Speed_Demonz/BIOS_Guide/BIOS_Gui
Last thing, i want to go to
People who say dell, gateway, etc, are cheaper are ordering their parts from the wrong places. If you order all your stuff from axion or newegg, your gonna spend a lot less then a equalivent box from dell. Dont get me wrong, dell has great support (which is why i often point business or home users i dont want to support to dell). But if you feel you can take care of yourself, by all means do it yourself.
//rant mode=off
Good luck
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
I only bought one "main" brand PC, a Wang in the mid 80's. I've built my own since then (That thing lasted em for years). Although I DO have a Sun box, I don't count that. Besides that, it's white box all the way. I order my parts from http://www.mwave.com
If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
For the past 6 years, I buy all these parts mainly from Star Components (aka Star Computek). Their website is down for reconstruction, but they can be reached at 888-833-0833 (10330 Beach Blvd, Ste.D, Stanton CA 90680) Absolutely honest and upfront, and as good as their word on warranties.
Personally I see no point in buying Micron memory from Crucial when I can get Micron memory from Star for half the price. I have about 2.5 gigs of Star's memory sticks in use, of various brands, all 100% good. And they were happy to trade me different RAM when one fussy-assed machine wanted sticks matched by brand as well as type.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
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
You'll also see the list of components in advance, and if you want another video card, the substitution will only cost you the difference in price. If you want to add a tape drive or something, they can get it for you and install it when they put the computer together, and service it afterwards. Try this with CompUSA or other major retailer. YOU try it.
Your local reseller will also be using standard parts, meaning that repairs or upgrading isn't a problem. They will not be using proprietary parts which you're SOL on if the company tanks and get to pay a premium for if you need to replace out-of-warranty.
You might be able to save a few bucks by buying from Walmart... but if it goes back to the factory, you will either have to ship it yourself or take it back to Walmart, and either way, you wait. Most people here depend on their computers to make a living.
If you want an idea of what name brand buys these days, try HP... the people who make you beg for the privilege of PAYING for recovery disks. (see earlier slashdot thread) Or finding your motherboard can't be upgraded because you can't simply drop in an ATX motherboard.
Thanks for signing this, I will know to discount any further advice I see from you in future. Sorry about this, but you really put your foot in it this time. I know of no advantage that comes with buying a name brand.
This is for the individual or small business where it is less hassle to throw the CPU box in the car and head for your dealer. If you're purchasing for a large company, then it might be time to talk to Dell, etc., because if you're buying quantity 10K, you'll need to deal with a national company big enough to have a network of repair centers and probably one willing to send techs out to do onsite maintenance.
Tech Public Policy stuff
If you're going to the trouble of building your own piece, make sure it fulfills your needs uniquely, and isn't just a one-size-fits-all box that you might as well get prebuilt.
/. stories cover some superlatives, such as the quietest, smallest, or most overclockable boxes.
:P ). As a result, I usually pay extra for a top-of-the-line motherboard and skimp on the processor, knowing that the price on CPUs falls really fast. My plan is to spend a good $100 - $200 on the MB and maybe $50 on the CPU (usually the best performance/price ratio and probably close to the minimum that the MB can support). In about 2 years, the price of the fastest CPU that MB can support would have likely dropped from $300 to less than $100 .
:P
Several
I wanted max I/O, so I shelled out for a nice Tyan Tiger MPX SMP motherboard with 64bit 66Mhz PCI. I bought two hard disks so I could make a raid0 / raid1 in software, but perhaps someday I'll throw in a hardware EIDE / SCSI RAID card. I also went for two sticks of RAM so accesses could be interleaved. This is all stuff OEMs don't even bother with.
My upgrade cycle is pretty low (~3-5 years, well, high according to my wife
As far as isolating faulty parts, BE SURE to have geeky friends with similar equipment who will let you swap out components so you can figure out which part was DOA. Oh, and also time and patience.
Along the lines of time and patience, be prepared to spend lots of time at Tom's or Anandtech brushing up on the latest reviews of your components. Especially with video cards, where often times you can rip out a lot of hair trying to figure out whether it's worth $50-$100 in savings to get the cut-down MX or VE versions.
Make a checklist to make sure you don't leave anything out! It's a major bummer when you find that you're a cable short
Today's processors smoke themselves pretty fast if you run them without the heatsink/fan attached properly. (I forget how long the Athlon is supposed to take to burn up, but IIRC it's something like 10 or 15 seconds.)
To cope with that, there are some PC shops who will install the processor in the motherboard, power it up to test it, and them ship the assembled unit, often with some memory. You'll often see this advertised as a "bundle". Perhaps the best-known (though not always cheap) vendor is JNCS.
This is the approach one of my moderately-technical classmates took-- she was quite up for installing the OS, PCI cards, and drivers, but didn't trust herself to diagnose a machine that, say, wouldn't power-up initially.
As I recall, the reseller installed the mobo and CPU in a case, and she took it from there. That way she was able to spec out her own spiffy video-editing system without coping with the nail-biting parts. Not necessarily a bad approach for the first-time PC builder.
> The only thing to consider is where to get the monitor from,
> since it is so heavy, so shipping costs are high.
Yeah, I was thinking of going with a local vendor myself when I built my PC year before last. But I scoured eBay and found several places who specialize in monitors who list them there, and who have very high feedback ratings in the thousands. I looked around for a good buy and good return terms in case the monitor had defects after shipping, and ended up bidding on a big beautiful used 20-inch Apple ColorSync, an oldie but goodie from the days before candy-colored plastic that I remembered liking a lot back in college when we had one connected to a 7200 in the computer lab. They use those Mac connectors but come with VGA adapters. And of course hey have a Sony Trinitron tube instead of a shadow mask--don't buy cheap shadow mask CRTs, especially used...
So, I lay in wait and slipped in a bid of $251.55 right at the last minute, which is a good thing because a bid sniper tried to take it but his max bid was $250. Added $40 dollars shipping which was advertised by the vendor, and I got a nice pretty 20-incher for just under $300. Not bad considering how hard it is to find a real 20-incher even today compared to all the 19-inchers out there. And yes, you can see and enjoy the difference...
When I opened that huge box--those old 20-inch trinitrons have HUGE and heavy tubes--I carefully perched it onto my sturdy desk, hooked it up, and turned it on. There was a little red discoloration in one bottom corner--not good, so I e-mailed them and they said that monitors sometimes need a few days after being shipped to get back into perfect shape, since they've been jostled a bit; but there was a 30-day period in which I could send it back. I waited a week and the reddish area just went away, and for nearly 2 years this monitor has been running perfectly and impressing all my friends with their puny 19-inchers and 17-inchers.
So, I say at least look on eBay for some monitors you might want because of special features and such. If you can find a good price once the shipping is factored in on a monitor you can't get locally so cheaply, and the vendor has good return policies and a lot of positive feedback, it's worth a try.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Mwave has a nice advantage that they will, for $9.00, put together and test a motherboard bundle, not a bad deal if you are nervous about putting a cooler on an Athlon or buying cheap RAM.
Good places to start are anandtech and Tom's Hardware
Once you have decided what you want, you can do this for most of your items:
- Check Pricewatch for lowest prices. (they now include S&H in the total)
- Check the credibility of the companies with the lowest prices on pricewatch with ResellerRatings.com
.
Side note: Memmory.I cant emphasize this enough. THIS is the most important step.
The only Item I would recommend you go to a specific store for is memmory. This is very important if you're looking to overclock and are going to be running at higher FSB's. Even if you're not, it can save you a lot of headaches to be sure your memmory is good.
I'd recommend Mushkin or Corsair memmory, they always come out tops in every review I've read. Also, every stick I've bought of these have been of the best quality and can usually be run above spec.
Other stuff:
You may be interested in special items, like a modded case, or a watercooling setup, these you have to look into yourself and you won't find them on pricewatch. Not necessary to build a computer.
Liberty.
- First get an idea of how much you can afford to spend.
- Think a bit about what sort of tasks you want the computer to do. Do you want high end video for gaming? Do you want to build a PVR? Do you want to build a small server to host web/ftp/email services over a broadband connection?
- Go online and do some research to see what's out there to fulfill the role you envision for the machine. arstechnica, tom's hardware, anandtech, storage review, and other sites usually have good information on recent and upcoming technologies. I do a lot of looking to see what's out there and what's around the corner, then go back and revise my budget accordingly.
- Decide what you need to buy. I don't generally go for the biggest, fastest, best, because it's generally twice as expensive (or more) as it will be in just a few months. I don't buy the cheapest stuff either, as it's usually of inferior quality, obsolete, or will give inferior performance compared to spending a small amount more on something better. I look at the price/performance curve, and generally buy in the "knee-bend" of the curve. The only exception is if there's something dirt cheap available for a non-critical component that doesn't make much of a difference (like a floppy drive, NIC, or keyboard) or an absolutely critical high-priority component that the system *needs* in order to perform its role adequately (like a GeForce card for a gaming station) or a SCSI controller for a file server.
- Shop around. You can try pricewatch.com to get an idea what stuff is going for these days. But I find that shipping makes finding a real bargain somewhat difficult. That's especially true if you buy from more than one vendor. I try to go through one vendor, for simplicity's sake, and right now my choice is Newegg.com. They have very good service and their prices are often near the top of the pricewatch search results anyway. You can try local stores, too. Stay away from chains like CompUSA and Best Buy, and support small local businesses run by knowledgable, competant people. Their prices will generally be about twice the lowest you'll find on pricewatch, but you may find the convenience of not paying for shipping, not having to wait for delivery, and having someone to go to for questions and advice useful. If you're more experienced, you probably don't need that, but few people know everything about everything, and everyone you talk to can potentially teach you something.
- Put it together. There's plenty of guides out there on the web that will go into detailed instructions on how to put a PC together if you need help. PC Mechanic is a good example, and there are many others out there. Read the instructions a few times until you know what you're doing, then do it.
Good luck.You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I see a lot of people recommending Crucial. That's fine; I'm sure they make great stuff. I just wanna point out that Mushkin has inspired similar loyalty.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
- Purchase extra sensitive components such as motherboards and RAM from a mom&pop store. I've seen motherboards shipped in tiny cardboard boxes with no padding whatsoever. I've also seen motherboards shipped in gigantic boxes with only one or two of those air pillows for padding.
- Other things such as hard drives and video cards are typically padded well, so they're pretty safe for shipping.
- Unless you're buying in bulk or a number of things from one supplier, buy the cheap things like floppy drives and keyboards locally. The shipping charges frequently aren't worth it.
- Even if you're not going to buy from the local stores, talk with the builders there. Ask them their opinion on various hardware; pros and cons, issues to watch out for, that sort of thing. Get several viewpoints if you can. While they'll try to pump their products, the people who work there are less corporate drones than the Best Buy type people, so they'll be more willing to let you know of caveats, and they'll probably be more knowledgable.
- Don't skimp on the power supply, no matter how tempting the price difference between, say, a 250W and 350W PS. You'd be amazed the kind of difference in stability you can see between even a 250W and a 300W, in certain situations.
- Always check out the return policy and RMA procedures. Local shops will often have decent warranties on their stock, even if they don't build your system for you. Also, some manufacturers have excellent return policies. Western Digital typically has a 3yr warranty, All Components has a lifetime warranty on their RAM, and it's ridiculously easy to get a defective 3Com card replaced. I've replaced stuff free and clear from each of those three vendors after a poor PS blew a computer. Few questions asked.
- Last, don't skimp on the case. There are a lot of $7 cases out there, but do you really want to coat the inside of yours with your blood after cutting an artery on a sharp edge? Once you build a machine yourself, you'd be surprised how often you end up going back inside that case... just to look around, or to add stuff.
- If you're looking to mod your box, you'll probably have to purchase online. I haven't seen a lot of local shops supplying light and window kits. That could just be my area, though.
- Finally, though it goes without saying I'm going to say it, be very conscientious about whether or not you're really getting a good deal by buying online as opposed to locally. If you can get that pimpin' mobo for $3 online, it's still not worth it if it arrives damaged with no return policy after paying $25 shipping and handling.
- Speaking of which, you might want to check out various resources like Tom's Hardware Guide to see the reliability of the products you want to purchase. Several years ago I purchased an ABit IT5H motherboard and had to send it back twice. I found out much later that this board in particular had a 50% dead on arrival rate! Had I known that at the outset, I would've selected a different one, or purchased from a local shop so I could get an immediate return.
That's all I can think of at the moment. Hope this helps.- Jonathan
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...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
*shrug* I wish I could agree with you, but I don't.
I have generally been able to get massive savings and a huge increase in quality and power by building up my own machines. It helps that I usually buy the best power/price stuff (AMD CPUs usually) and carefully balance my systems to have no bottlenecks.
What can I say? YMMV, but I have been building my own machines since the XT, and I've won out every time. I don't buy from any particular place. I just keep my eyes open. I never buy the latest and greatest, but I put together mean machines.
---
I am not convinced that building your own PC is really going to save you a lot of money.
The PC market is very competitive. Big manufacturers like Dell get excellent deals on parts and keep their overhead low with tight supply chains.
Small dealers keep prices low by operating on slim margins and favorable terms with suppliers.
You will save a bit on labor+ markup by assembling yourself though.
The real advantage is that you get exactly what you want. Mail order vendors, like Dell create unbalanced configurations to either make you think you are getting more than you are getting, or forcing you to get a more expensive machine in order to bring a certain feature up to the level you desire.
One example, they may use a big but slow hard disk. If you were building it your self, you could opt for a smaller (but still) huge disk with a higher spindle speed instead. Rather than having to choose the next model up, which may only be available with an excessive sound card.
There are really only 3 major wholesale companies, Ingram Micro, Merisel, and Tech Data. Most of the mom/pop shops are buying from them.
Im lucky, in Seattle, we have such a cut throat market, we can get good "pricewatch" type prices. And you can barter down. I like to buy from hard drives northwest and Computer Stop. Theres a small russian shop up the street Compu$ave Inc that has tons of oem motherboards, and cases
I check pricewatch, compare with Computer Source, a local computer magazine that has all the local stores and ads. Then I see which has the best deal. If taxes are the same as shipping, I goto a local shop. Makes it easier if I get a bad part.
-
There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey. - John Ruskin (1819 - 1900)
I was going to point out the same thing: the motherboard is the FOUNDATION of the system. Other internal components can be skimped now and upgraded later, but ONLY if you buy a motherboard that can support the upgrades.
:)
The other thing to NOT SKIMP, is the case and power supply. It's a helluva lot easier to work inside a good case (mid-tower at least, not a mini). And you'd be amazed how much flaky behaviour is due to a cheap power supply or a short in the case wiring harness.
You make many other good points as well. The only one I'd disagree with is the hassle factor. Yeah, once in a while you'll get some manufacturer who gives you the finger instead of making good on their components warranty (this is why it's important to buy CPUs only as retail box!!) But in general with a DIY, it's easier to find drivers, easier to get later component upgrades to play nice together, etc.
And if a component dies, just yank and replace on the spot; no need to ship the entire unit back to South Dakota or Texas or wherever (where they may well wipe your hard disk in the process of "fixing" the video card). I've heard DOA rates on shipping whole units as high as 30% -- too scary for me!
Check out local clone shops -- many will put together exactly what you want, without you having to chase down all the parts, for the same or less than it would cost to do all the legwork yourself. They have better suppliers and contacts, and can get better prices than someone buying single parts. Most will also sell you the individual parts, if you prefer to assemble it yourself, but it's often easier to let them do the burn-in chores, and that way you get a whole-system warranty (usually for one year, often longer, and many mfgrs, frex ATI, will still honour their normal extended warranty on cloneshop or DIY boxes too).
And stay the fuck away from TigerDirect as well!!
My longest upgrade trail, still living in the same high-end case, went from a 486DX2-66 to a P3-550. Since AT is now dead the motherboard can't be upgraded further (tho I've heard this board can support up to P3-800MHz, so when CPU prices fall enough, maybe I'll try it), and it's maxed out at 1 gig of RAM... but I can still upgrade the video card, the hard disk capacity, the sound card, the CDRW, etc. So even after 8 years and two major system upgrades, this box is a long way from retirement.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Antec has some fairly decent cases at good prices...one of 'em here at work has a latch to hold the side panel on, another latch inside holding the 3.5" drive cage in place, and rails for 5.25" drives (with unused rails stored in the bottom of the case). I have a couple of Chieftec cases at home that are of similar design. Two of 'em were bought through Newegg; one of the Chieftec cases came from PC Club.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
I always home build all home systems, but there are tradeoffs.
Pluses of retail is that it doesn't require as much knowledge, research, considerartion, and you get support for your system so they'll fix it if it breaks...They warrant the whole system so they can't blame other compnents and claim no responisibilty....
Now I don't need the support, and when something breaks I can tell and have yet to be stonewalled for long by support claiming another compnent is at fault. Plus, you can fine tune the warranty depending on the component. With a standard PC, you often get about a year warranty, where with a home built it ins't too hard to get three years on most components.
Plus, you can hand select every little component. With retail PCs, you often find only the 'marketable' stats being hi. For example, a high end P4 with 128 Megs of RAM and crappy video card, and no-name motherboard. Of course this means you should research every little thing to get the best deal and this can take a bit of time.
Personally I have had good expereince with newegg.com in providing parts, but never rely on any positive reviews on their site, since those reviews are selected. The negative ones that are put through are usually worth reading, but it is important to find a less biased review site.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
They're a pretty good shop, never had a problem returning anything. Everything is always well packaged and usually arrives undamaged by the package destroyers(UPS).
Shop around of course, just wanted to point out bunta since no one else has yet.
Good luck
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The good thing about building your own is that you don't have to buy each and every component brand new all at once. You can recycle much of it... nic, video card, harddrive(s), floppy drive(s), cdrom(s), cdburner, etc. etc. etc. Unless you're totally starting from scratch, which is silly. Whenever I rebuild my computer, I usually just get new mb/cpu/ram, the rest from my current computer... except maybe a new case, if need be.
"Would it kill you to put down the toilet seat?" -- Maya Angelou
Disclaimer: I have never bought or used an Alienware system.
but... they sell them at Best Buy, so they HAVE to be good!
Computergate usually has very low prices, but you need to know what you're getting. For instance for a brand name motherboard you'll do fine, and returns have never been a problem in my experience. They do have some no-brand cards and memory and cases that I've generally had good luck with - but not perfect luck.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
The Chip Merchant is a very good retailer from my personal experience. I have purchased a lot of stuff from them without a problem.
Another place to check out is The Computer Geeks if you don't mind not-quite-new parts.
Keep in mind that building your own computer isn't always as easy as it seems. YOU are the tech support. When stuff goes bad, you're the one fixing them. If stuff fails, you've got to track down the manufacturer (not always easy) for warrantee claims.
My friends and I use scan.co.uk. They are the cheapest I've found, delivery is fast, and they refund your money with absolutely no quibble if you return it (even if it's not faulty). They also do dozens of special offers every day, at TodayOnly. No connection to them, just my friends and I are satisfied customers. Recommended.
Building your own computer is probably cheaper, but the major benefit is that you can make sure you have an ideal fit for your money of the best component parts. I remember one major UK store headlining the cheapest P4 system available, but independent tests showed a cheap motherboard crippled the speed to well below an equivalent P3 system. Computers these days are so much like lego blocks my friend built his in under 1hr on his first attempt.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Build your own computer. It's a worthwhile endevor, and you'll probably end up liking your product better than anyone elses.
There are a few things you should pay attention to when building your own computer.
1) Expect to pay more.
You can save money over a name-brand or white box, but if you do it right (by buying the highest quality components you can) you'll pay more.
This doesn't mean getting only 2.53Ghz P4's and nVidia Geforce4's. This means researching each component and selecting the best. If you've only got $50 for a CPU, do you get a 1.2Ghz Duron, or a 900Mhz Athlon?
2) If you buy online, don't use more than two merchants.
More than two merchants to get all your components, and any money that might've been considered a savings can be kissed goodbye in shipping charges.
Likewise, shipping monitors is expensive, and I find the price difference from local vs online to be negligable (YMMV).
3) Pay attention to what resllerratings.com has to say about a merchant.
These guys will save you a ton of headache.
Give preference to shops that have had plenty of reviews thrown at them and still maintain a decent rating (6.5+), and lower preference shops that only have a one or two reviews.
If you buy from an online shop, supply a honest review to resellerratings.com about your experience with a merchant.
4) Buy components that are known to work well with your favorite flavor of *BSD.
Why? Because if you do, you'll know your box will probably work nicely with pretty much any OS you throw on it, and will steer you away from things like Winmodems.
5) Overclock everything.
This is the sweet creamy center that is the oreo cookie of building your own computer.
Eek out the extra performance as you can only do with a computer that you built. Mild to wild, it's up to you, but definately squeeze out some extra power.
I was setting up a machine as a gift for a relative, and I ended up purchasing one via the "Dell@Home" discount program offered by my employer.
I was able to configure the machine exactly as I chose, including de-selecting the included WinModem, and increasing RAM+HD storage. Final price, after free shipping and a rebate, was less than I would have paid to buy the parts separately.
Another advantage to buying from a big commercial vendor, when I move out of state, my relative won't have to call me long distance or wait for me to visit in order to get technical support.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
But I rely on Directron, NewEgg, and CyberGuys for all of my PC parts needs.
I built my first PC about a year and a half ago, and upgraded it often enough that with the purchase of a cheap case and mobo, I could build a second PC from the spare parts.
~Philly
Actually, Fry's matches prices on local advirtisements. That means I get to pick up my local ComputerEdge and head down to fries. I look up the cheapest parts on the components and Fry's matches the [very very cheap] price. It's a win-win situation, because Fry's gets a sale and I get a cheap priced components that I can return without worrying about any return policy (no restocking fee, 30 days return perios). And also Fry's accept credit cards, unlike some warehouse offerings.
But I also run Linux and I spec out my components so that I won't have a problem getting everything to work under the OS. I also tend to go for higher performance or quality than you'll get from a off the shelf PC. I pay more, but I get what I want.
A lot of the time those off the shelf PCs have a bunch of junk integrated onto the motherboard and a limited number of card slots. Don't even get me started about memory slots. So one of the things you want to look at is the difficulty of incrementally upgrading the store bought PC versus one you can build.
If you want to tinker with the hardware yourself, you also need to look at the case. Those desktop PCs give you no room to work and often come with razor sharp bits of metal in odd places. Unfortunately most salesmen will be hesitant to pop the cover so youc an look under the hood.
Store bought is a good solution these days, but not for me. I like to fix and upgrade my own hardware and I spec it all out right down to the power supply. It pretty much works down to how much money you have to spend and whether or not you're a hardware hacker.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
As a software developer, I have wasted a lot of time tracking down problems with home-built PCs. The problem is usually that the builder goes for the "too good to be true" parts, getting things that are not all that reliable, or they don't do enough reading to avoid common mistakes. One oddball issue I've seen again and again is certain types of hard drive adapters coupled with some sound cards can cause sporadic lockups in some games that transfer data in specific ways. It sounds weird, I know, but it happens, and it can be traced back to the type of hard drive connection people with the sound card are using. So do some reading and get some good diagnostic programs.
I often go the upgrade route - upgrade a few components at a time until I eventually end up with two functioning machines. This is not cheaper than buying a new Dell (or whatever) but it does spread the cost out. Obviously it doesn't work if you need two machines now.
Server class machines are never cheaper from the likes of Dell, Compaq, IBM etc. You can often save a bundle building one from components. Provided you're willing to give up the easy warranty of course.
"This should save me quite a few bucks, and I get the exact system I want."
I think you need to ask yourself a few questions before you determine that building a computer yourself is actually saving you money.
----- How much is your time worth to you?
Do you have the time to sit down and troubleshoot issues? Do you have the time to pull apart your computer and fix it if need be? Could you be spending the time involved in maintaing your computer with your family? On work? @ Play?
--- Can you live with downtime?
What if you don't have the $ when a component goes dead to replace it? I was in a position a few years ago at university where my harddrive died with all my notes on a week before finals - Micron came through and I had a new harddrive inside of a few business days - but I as a student would not have had the money to replace it had i built it myself.
----- Are you prepared to have to deal with EACH individual hardware manufacturer of each individual peripheral in your computer?
Some sites you buy from a better than others and will act as intermediaries in the warranty process - but if not - YOU are personally responsible with dealing each manufacturer of each component. My friend recently lost a CPU (no not overclocking - Heatsink fastners on the ZIF socket BROKE and HSF assembly fell off the cpu) AMD did cover the replacement of his CPU but MSI would not replace his motherboard. He was without his Processor for a few weeks till AMD shipped him his replacement.
If you get an onsite warranty from whatever manufacturer you purchase your computer from you are saving yourself tons of time and headaches.
Purchasing from a local computer store vs a brand name? - If its a local computer store that has been around for a very long time and you do not plan on moving fine. But remember that most independant stores would require you to ship it to them if you moved somewhere else - for warranty coverage.
Personally I build my own computers. I've done tech support, sales, and its my hobby. I'm a university student and I do not mind spending my time maintaining my machine. Once I get a real job and get out of school Alienware here I come so that someone else can worry about my comp. Because at that point - It will no longer be worth my time.
Any of the better clone shops around Los Angeles can beat that. Here's one pretty close to your specs:
Asus A7M 266D motherboard
Dual AMD MP-2000+
512mb DDR
80GB HD
GeF4 TI 4400 128mb
16x DVD drive
Plextor 40x CDRW
onboard sound card
subwoofer speakers
ATX mid-tower (I believe they use those good Antek cases)
10/100 ethernet adapter
keyboard & mouse
WinXP Pro
1 yr parts/labour warranty (includes free tech support)
[monitor not included]
Are you ready for the price? Are you sitting down??
Total price, including assembly and 72 hour burn-in: $1699.00
(add 512mb DDR for $129)
(with a mere MP-1600+, total is $1499)
This happens to be from PC Buzz (cuz it was the first ComputerUser ad I came to with the right specs), but PC-Club and some other shops that I know and deal with myself offer very similar systems at about the same price.
I'd hate to think what such a box would cost from Dell or GW2K.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Yes, pricewatch rocks, and it's an invaluable tool. The second invaluable site is resellerratings.com. These two sites together rock! I've built about 15 machines so far using these sites, and so far no horror stories.
Like others have mentioned, I've been using newegg a lot lately - they have great prices and great service in my experience.
A friend's joystick died, so he asked to borrow mine. Once he smelled smoke, he realized that he'd plugged it into the AUI port of an Ethernet card.
I walked into the used computer store in my town and bought a IBM IntelliStation for $200. Top-quality HW, 90-day warrantee, cash-and-carry.
- SWM
I generally select the pieces I want go to a local shop and buy them, their prices can be comparable to online retailers, and if you buy the whole system they may assemble it for free (cables and such).
If you have to assemble it yourself, you might want a skilled friend. But I generally lean to having someone else do it for me, I'm lazy, and they might even get it built by the time I'm off work if I drop off a deposit the day before.
At least for me it is. I can't compete on price with any of the big chain stores. I guess I _could_ put together some box with the lowest price parts in it but I don't build _my_ boxes that way. I use quality parts and that makes my boxes more expensive than dell or whoever.
:)
Of course, once you have a good base, it's not that expensive if you upgrade it all the time.
I use pricewatch.com when i'm ready to buy.. i've used a few of the companies that come up tops in price for cpu's and tyan, asus, abit motherboards.
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.
--
Ask the Ya-Hoot Oracle Anything!
I've bought a case and other parts from directron.com and recently orchestrated a large purchase for a school computer systems lab from mwave. Both were excellent in service, price, and speed. I would highly recommend either.
Personally, for my uses, I'm use the computer for the latter purpose and have been quite happy running Linux on a cheap Cyrix 300 MHz system. I do lot of surfing, writing, and spreadsheet analysis with StarOffice (actually, I've just upgraded to OpenOffice 1.0). However, I have built a number of systems in the past and have found these links are a must:
Pricegrabber
Pricewatch
CNET's price comparison site
Techbargains (if you are patient enough to wait for that perfect machine to be affordable)
Your time is really worth the money, and when it comes down to it, those cheap systems from Dell, Compgeeks, or Walmart are actually worth the heartache that you may encounter later when you find out that the motherboard you bought has spotty USB support in Windows 98. And if you add up how much you'd spend to make a comparable system, you'll find out that you're only saving a miniscule amount, if that. But again, if you wanted a high-end machine, then building your own will definitely be worth the time and effort to find the right parts and putting them together.
Linux at home
Be careful, but don't exclude local shops. As a techie, I "talk shop" with the owner and technician and interview them about their systems.
:) or you should have the option of excluding the traditional OEM "value pack" to save a few bucks.
Here's what I look for:
1) What do you recommend for cases? I prefer heavier cases, I personally like enlight. They are sturdy and quiet.
2) Power supply - what do they use? Are they any different? Truth is, they are different: L&C are junk and might fry your MB (I've seen it before). I like the Powmax 6100 with dual fans.
3) Which Motherboards? I like ASUS - I've used them for years and never had problems. I hear positive things about tyan, supermicro, abit. I hear not-so-good about pcchips and epox which sell very cheap boards with all built-in functions (lan, sound, video, etc.)
4) Memory? OEM vs. name brand is a religious debate, I personally spend the extra few bucks for the namebrand stuff. I've had OEM memory partially go out after a few months. In fact, I had a 1/2 blown 256M SIMM used in a Linux workstation by specifying the bad memory blocks...but I digress...
5) Hard Drive? I've personally had Seagate and Western Digital both go out over the last 8 years. Quantum and Maxtor always had bad reps, but I hear they are better these days. Today I stick with Seagate, WD, and IBM drives (although IBM is out of the HD business, I hear)
6) Monitor? I spend the extra few bucks for the larger size because you will eventually grow into it, and can never add it on later. 19" are pretty cheap now. Look at LCD if that works for you.
7) Software? It should include Windows (or Linux
Ask about their references - my local shop has dozens of "thank you" notes from local businesses and residents posted in his shop. Make sure you get along with the owner and trust your feelings. Shop around, don't be afraid to drive a little while to find a good store. After I moved to Florida recently, I called 9 stores before I found the one I like. After we talked for 20 minutes or so, he now offers me a professional courtesy discount (only 5%, but hey, it's nice).
I will often buy parts and upgrade myself, but when I need a box built I use a local shop. Check reviews at tomshardware.com then check prices at shopper.com and pricewatch.com.
Good luck!
Suncoast Linux - Sarasota, FL
I hope you get all the way down to reading this one.
1) Checkout pricewatch. Look for shops with your area code, IF there is one in your area you can sometimes sweet talk them into giving you there pricewatch price without paying for shipping!
2) Don't buy a CompUSA case!
Lastly a question - Are you installing Linux or already have a Windows license to use?
IF NOT, you might want to consider Dell (www.abscomputer.com or pick up a Computer Shopper), as the cost of OS and other software will typically outpace any homebuilt savings from having to buy Windows.
---- Smokin' another sig.
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...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I found canadacomputers.com to be a much better place to shop. Have had some problems with NCIX.
Willy
I was thinking actual links, not just stuff off the top of your head. Anyway, you still need: a mouse, keyboard, and speakers. And where can you get a case with a power supply for $25 new?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
First, it has been stated by the maintainers of /. that /. is a US centric site. They are awar they have an international readership, but the site still remains US centric.
/. to be a major news site, perhaps you should readjust your perspective. Nothing (at least very little) here is reported as news directly. This is more of a meta-news site and discussion forum, reporting on stories that others have written.
As for your other major news sites, they often carry local or insignificant stories that are of no interest to me. For instance, Israel and Palesine... I live 5000 miles away, I'm not a decendent of those places, nor do I subscribe to their religions: what to I care what a couple of countries smaller than some of our states do to each other?
What did I care that some cuban kid was being deported? Yet Elian Gonzales was on the world news for weeks... it was nothing more than a family squabble.
Some little kid gets murdered or kidnapped? Again, local story... doesn't affect me, or 99.99999% of the population, yet there are several on the nationl news now.
Lastly, if you consider
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
You are not truely a geek until you let the smoke out of an expensive piece of hardware. I learned to build systems at the end of the 486/dawn of the Pentium age, and the best mistakes that I learned from were usually the costly ones. You know, the hard drive dropped on the concrete floor, the AT power supply switch that I wired wrong (now that REALLY was a smoker!), the motherboard that flexed too much while installing an old ISA sound card in a case with brackets that didn't line up....I could go on and on. Just build it yourself, and don't be afraid to scan the hardware newsgroups and ask questions if you can't find the answers you need. Oh and one last bit of advice....brass threaded stand-offs for mounting the motherboard...these are your friends!
They aren't always the cheapest, but because they're in a different province, the 8% savings on PST often makes up for the difference.
Another neat feature of NCIX is that they often have Overclocked packages for sale. I think the current one is P4 1.6A + mobo +256DDR, and guaranteed to run at 2.1GHz.
If you live in the Toronto area, CanadaComputers.COM is a good place to get deals on hardware. Unfortunately they don't have an online store, but the prices get updated almost daily. Of course, one of their stores is just a stone throw my from home so it's not a problem for me.
Debit cards and credit cards have different chargeback systems. It is much easier to get a chargeback on a credit card.
Although, the debit cards have been upgraded somewhat lately.
Gentoo Sucks
Let me give a big fat plug for Directron.com. I'm a pretty picky and fussy buyer, but I was able to find everything I needed on their site, and for a small fee (something like $30) they assemble it all for you (worth it to avoid the hassle). Plus you can pay extra little fees for all sorts of goodies: case mods, paint jobs (wide selection), case badges (free for orders over $100 I believe), wire ties, etc.. If you go to their specials section you can find all sorts of coupons and extras. They also have specials and coupons almost daily that they send out in an opt-in list. A lot of their parts have discounts for bundling with another related part. I can't say enough good things about Directron. It sure beats wasting your whole damn life searching for the best deal on every little part and then paying shipping seperately and assembling the mess yourself, when you can get people who do this day in and day out to assemble (and optionally test) it for you.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
I don't even bother shopping in the US unless it's something I can't get in Canada (rare). The Former Megadepot.COM used to be really cheap, especially with their weekly coupons. So cheap in fact they probably didn't make any profits and is now out of business. Buy.COM is much of the same so now they've stopped servicing Canadians.
Now the only two sites in Canada I do online shopping is NCIX.COM and ZINGPC.COM. They don't always have the lowest prices, but because they're in a different provinces teh PST savings usually makes up for the difference + shipping.
I've tried to buy PC components everywhere, and there are a few places that just don't make sense.
Onlines stores are not bad, as long as they are a big name. Newegg is pretty good, but honestly, if you don't know what you are doing, and end up getting a defective part, or just but parts that are plain incompatible, then the return process just destroyed the whole point of the online cheapness.
I started buying locally, and I still do, the prices are only slightly higher then online (you have to hunt for the right store, just like online), and I can return a part no hassle, just with a drive or walk to the store. No days worth of shipping, no misorders, shipping fees, etc.
The only good point of buying online is saving tax money here. But if I have to cross the border from the US to Canada, it is the biggest rip off yet, since they charge you all the tax at the border, plus their outrageous service fee.
I still do occasionally buy special parts online, that most stores, and most online stores won't carry.
Don't go to a retail store, the prices are disgusting, even if they offer their lowest price guarantee, $60 higher per part is not uncommon, they just know how ignorant 99% of people are, and if it says its the lowest price, it must be, right?
Overall... buy local, a small store, tucked in a corner somewhere, they will have many resellers working out of there, oem customers, and they will order almost anything you want if they don't have it. Their prices are better then most webstores, but not as good as newegg, but then again, you can see what you are buying, not some generic jpg that really isn't what they are selling, because I see that a lot.
White-box builder tend to skimp seriously on the quality of component. If you are like me, you won't be able to make the compromise that will make you home-built system as cheap as these white-box. For 20 more $, the case can be so much better, and another 256 MB of RAM would cost only 40$, etc ad nauseum.
On the other hand, you will *choose* the compromise made. For example, I like to buy the lowest-end possible CPU just before they become unavailable. I like it since you pay 25% of the cost will getting 50% of the performance of the higher-end CPU. Wait 6 month to a year and you can afford the previously top-of-line for less than the difference between the actual lowest and higher-end. Anyway, just an example.
Compromise I don't make :
- Motherboard. It can outlive many CPU if choosed carefully, and this is the most annoying thing to troubleshoot if unstable.
- I buy retail CPU. They come with a right-size fan of good quality that are relatively quiet. A retail will cost you less than an OEM and a good HSF.
- Case design. Good-looking and functionnal make it so much more enjoyable.
To have all your questions on choice of component answered by real maniac of that particuliar field, try the different forum of ArsTechnica at http://arstechnica.infopop.net
:wq
Especially if you ever plan to upgrade. . .
s /u pgrade3_01_01.asp
Dell, on virtually every machine manufactured since '98,use non-standard pinouts on their atx power supplies and mobos.
IF YOU SWITCH A DELL POWER SUPPLY WITH A "NORMAL" ATX PS, YOU WILL KILL BOTH THE BOARD AND THE PS.
This "killing" is usually rather spectacular, dell power supply to an atx board = flames out the back of the ps.
http://www.upgradingandrepairingpcs.com/article
http://inquirerinside.com/19040209.htm
1q2w3e4r5t6y7u8i9o0pqawsedrftgthyjukilo;p'azsxdcf
When selecting parts, I usually head over to groups.google.com and see if there are any complaints or common problems with the part.
That being said, I also wouldn't skimp on motherboard or memory. Low end motherboars create unstable systems. Right now, where I work, we are sticking to Tyans and Gigabytes, which are only a few bucks (about $20) more then the competition, but make up for it with higher quality systems. Also, try to buy a real modem, winmodems suck when you switch over to linux. Buy a creative sound card, they're usually compatable. And remember, good quality ram. Lots of it. You don't want to swap if you can help it.
In my opinion, the prebuilt $500 OEM systems are crap. Yes, they might be a P4 2000 or an Athlon XP 2100+. But are they using CAS2 memory? Is the video card integrated? Is the sound card just an AMR? How about that cheap winmodem that can't connect worth a damn. Or the 5200 RPM hard drive with long seek times. Processor speed alone does not make a system fast. Motherboard, Hard Drives, Memory, and Video Card play crucial roles for the speed of a machine. Also, think of upgrading - the minitowers (especially the HP ones) are a pain to work with, with little room, and often are propriatary enough to prevent swapping out mbs in the future. Not to mention erratic driver support for some components.
Just my $.02
Unless you really know what you are doing I don't recommend building your own. What I can recommend is finding a computer shop that is willing to build to order. There are many reasons that you may not have thought of
Whether you build yourself or have a prebuilt system, here are some things to look out for:
First and foremost, have an adaquate power supply. Don't go buy the CompUSA special. CompUSA here actually does sell an Antec P/S and the specs on it are good. Don't ever go by the wattage. The Antec 330W supply outputs more current on every voltage line than the CompUSA 400W. Shop around, read the detailed specs, make sure you are getting plenty of current especially on 3.3 and 5 volt lines.
Secondly, you'll want a good motherboard. ASUS generally has a great name, although I have recently had to return an ASUS (possibly due to my violation of rule #1 though, but at least they did replace it). I have had really good luck with Gigabyte and know others who have. Gigabytes are also a bit cheaper than ASUS, I think you are paying a little bit for the ASUS name sometimes.
The CPU is now days probably the least important component in the system. AMD makes plenty of cheap processors that certainly perform very well. Intel makes some damn pricey processors that also perform well. Your choice.
Memory is another item you want to be rock solid. Don't skimp and buy the generic whatever the hell RAM. It's like $10 more for a name brand manufacturer's RAM with a warranty, get that.
Floppy.. they're about $15-$20 for the drive usually.... you'll probably want one for one reason or another, if for nothing else than Linux boot disks :-)
Optical drives (CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, CD-R(/W), DVD-R(/W)): It used to be I'd recommend to get a DVD drive for use as your primary CD-ROM and then get a CD-R/W for writing CDs only. Of course now with the advent of the DVD-R(/W) drives it makes more sense just to get one of these that can handle it all. However, if budget is tight then I guess you go with either DVD or CD-R/W... it's a shame too if that's the case because you really do want both.
Hard drive... Dunno what to say here. Lately I've been using Maxtors... although recently I purchased an 80GB model and noticed that it was really a quantum drive. I remember the deal with Quantum bigfoots being probably the worst hard drive ever made, but I think that their regular 3.5" drives were just fine. Western Digital used to be my favorite way back in the day, but I did have a lot of those crash which prompted the switch to Maxtor. Of course that is my experience, I'm sure someone is bound to have an opposite story. Again, though it may seem like a moot point since if your HD crashes you lose ALL your data (unless you keep backups) you still want to have a good 3yr warranty on the HD. All the WDs I had that crashed were replaced under warranty so at least I didn't lose all the data AND have to shell out cash for a new one.
There are other things like soundcards, modems, ethernet, whatever. I recommend buying a MB with ethernet port on it if possible, or buying an ethernet card with the system. Integrated sound generally sucks but does make configuration easier. Oh, BTW, don't turn on legacy audio support if you are installing Win2k... it causes hardware detection to cause an NMI (non-maskable interrupt).
Hope that helps you or someone else a bit
I agree with you that a local white-box builder is an optimal choice in that situation, but there are some advantages to buying dell, micron or gateway...the support is generally excellent, the cost isn't extremely out of whack (anymore), and if a part dies, you can usually have a replacement within 7-10 business days, more if you pay for some shipping, I think. You can also go to places like the Gateway country stores and get parts sometimes, if you've called tech support already.
Definitely not a preferential thing for a home user that is considering building one, but there are still a few advantages there, if minor...
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Non one on the web can beat the prices those wogs & Asians (mostly Taiwanese) charge at the markets.
Here in Sydney & regional NSW there are 2 groups that move about having markets in different areas on different dates, just pick a storeholder that warehouses his stuff in a a suburb near your home or business, in case something needs to be returned.
CFA
CFNSW
There's still quite a lot of high class bits and pieces from exploding dot.bom companies and the downturn generally whizzing past on ebay. I got quite a nice new scsi drive and video card at sensible prices off there. Both still working well after six months.
You cannot beat pricewatch. However, be smart about it.
You will find companies that must be selling at a break-even point or even at a loss, leading certain categories. While many believe that part of their scam is to make it back in shipping (it's probably not, calculating exact shipping costs is often a lot of work, many just charge a ballpark), the real purpose is to get you looking at their site so that perhaps you'll buy other products which have sweeter margins. Buyers are often inclined to do just this to cut down the shipping costs.
Add up the numbers using that method, and then go back to pricewatch and pick the absolute lowest price in each category of parts you need. Even if they're not from the same company (you'll notice that no one company leads all of the categories, not even close). Even with shipping costs from so many individual vendors, you'll probably find the price to be far less than if you had gotten more parts from fewer vendors.
Having just built a high end graphics workstation for my sister, the end quotes differed by as much as $300 (it was $1500 and $1200, including shipping). Shop wisely.
I think it was at crucial.com where I saw this explaination. Apparently, when the major brands make RAM, they put it through a lot of stress testing, and ensure that it works well past the required specifications. Supposedly chips that pass this testing have a 99% chance or so of never failing. If the chip doesn't make it through the full testing, then tell sell it off to other companies, who are required to sell it without the brand name on it. That's what generic RAM is. So some generic RAM will work fine, provided you don't try to overclock the hell out of it or anything. Other times you'll get a chip that'll barely work at all. I'm pretty sure they throw out the chips that don't pass the minimum testing, but even so, you're buying parts that won't work if you go a little off spec. So I'd say buying brand name RAM is well worth the added price, as you tend to get better warrenty terms, plus you know it's passed every test they've thrown at it.
Two problems here. .
1. You actually CAN"T buy a "pretty good system" for the same price as it would cost to build your own PC, because all those bargain systems cut corners like crazy, using the absolute cheapest parts possible; somebody was buying up all those shoddy, low RPM Indian hard drives three years back, and it certainly wasn't the build-it-yourselfers!
You might spend about the same money building your own system, but you won't be using crap components. This is a big consideration.
2. As for the giant retailers getting discounts for buying OEM products in bulk and passing on the savings. . , well, guess where computer parts shots get their stuff? --Where I live, in Toronto, (which I understand, is in fact one of the best places on the planet for buying computer parts cheaply), the small computer shops will band together to purchase whole shipping palates of hardware at the manufacturer's discount. --Plus, they have a limited staff compliment so their operations are often about as expensive to opperate in the long run.
3. Warranty is not so big a deal. Your busted CD Burner, by virtue of your having bought it, comes with some kind of support. If your computer breaks down and you drag it into the place you purchased it to have it repaired, (And thank goodness you bought that $70 warranty!), all the technicians do is pull out the broken part and ship it to the manufacturer to have it replaced or refunded. If they're nice, they'll put in a new working part and send you home then and there, or otherwise, they'll wait until the replacement part ships back to them. One way or another, though, they're just taking you $70 to do exactly what you could do for yourself, minus the fifteen bucks to UPS a CD Burner to its maker. Granted, this is a hassle, but you can certainly do it yourself if things break.
Indeed, all of this stuff is fairly easy to do on your own. Plus, for some, building computers and various projects like that is FUN! I know that I enjoy it very much. There's nothing like tweeking your own system. (And if you put together a box which doesn't work, you can always haul it into a repair place and have them make it go for about $20)
The final thing comes from Carlos Castaneda. .
Carlos was taught by his master to be a hunter before he was taken on to more advanced studies. A hunter always has more power than a normal man; he need not fear where regular people do, because no matter what happens, he knows he can always return to the land and live there with ease and grace.
If you are in the position to build your own computer and learn/exercise your skills, then you will become more powerful than the next guy who cannot do these things. --If you apply this practice to more aspects of life than just computers; if you use it not as an escape but rather as a means to building yourself, then you are not a geek; you are a more whole man.
-Fantastic Lad
Seems to work now.
I say visit you local computer show. You'll get better prices then you'd find on Pricewatch, and the ease of being able to return parts that need to be returned. But before you go, what you need to do it get an idea in your head what you want the computer for and how much you're willing to spend. And then make sure to be ready to pay cash. All the venders will knock some off for cash.
Here is a basic shopping list:
MOTHERBOARD (It can be anything from ASUS to PC-Chips, it all depends on what you want to spend.)
A lot of boards have the following on board, which you can choose to look for or expect to buy seperatly.
CPU <- Whether you want INTEL or AMD, you'll find that the latest and greatest have nice prices tags and if you want to save a littl eyou can get a LOT of power cheap.
MEMORY <- You should get what you can aford but if you're planning on running a M$ Win9x OS then limit yourself to 512 MB to be safe.
HARD DRIVE <- This is a great time to get a hard drive and while you're at it go ahead an dget as much as you can afford. With gigs less than a dollar each, I'm sure you can find something to fill up your drive with. Especially with M$ Bloatware(TM).
CD-ROM <- Do you want just the basics or how about a CD-RW or DVD both are about the same price.
FLOPPY <- Don't forget to get one, I did once and was kicking myself. Choose either a cheap 3½ or even better get yourself a zip drive.
CASE <- This is more of a personal choice. Get one you'll like; unless you want a micro ATX case that requires a extremly small form factor, most ATX cases will accept any motherboard. The only thing to really look for is at least a 300 WATT power supply.
KEYBOARD & MOUSE <- I have to say that this is were I like shows the best. You can litterally go around and test each keyboard before you decide to buy. Don't buy a keyboard because of name or looks alone. Try it out and make sure that it's comfortable for you. (And the Logotech Wireless Freedom Pro with it's Wireless keyboard and optical mouse is a nice extravegance.)
MONITOR <- Here is a case of what you plan to do with the computer. If you are using the computer to run office and surf the web, you'd like a small form factor, then by all means get a LCD Monitor. If you plan to do any gaming (LCD monitors don't refresh fast enoug) or cost is an object then you can get a 17" monitor for about $99. Also you might find it cheaper to actually to buy your monitor at your local Office Depot or similar, that way if a couple of months down the road you have a lovely shade of green going on you can take it in that day.
OS <- If you;ve got a nice size drive, I'd suggest dual booting. It's easy and it allows you to see the best of both worlds. But if you want to run the dark side, then XP is the way to go. I have to say (as one who wanted to hate it) that it has been an easily the most stable, troublefree OS to come from Redmond. For the other choices, look at Mandrake 8 (8.1 & 8.2 haven't impressed me too much) and Redhat 7.3, and be prepared to be impressed with SuSE 8. But you probably won't find too many problems with the hardware.
You will find that shows are a great place to save money, but realize that you'll need to know ahead of time roughly what you need. Make suree to get reciepts and find out what the exchage policy is.
Patrick Havens (Mr. 573333 to you.) Graphic Artist / Coder / Father / Journeler
I recommend building the PC yourself and I say this not just because it is "cool" but because of the experience. You learn so much by building computers no matter what kind or specifications. I have built several systems so far and don't think I am ever going to buy a complete system in the future.
:)
One thing that has to certainly be considered is the support. I am moving to about 2 hours away from where I live now and all of my family and even my girlfriend are staying here. When it was time for my girlfriend's folks to look into getting a new PC I didn't even think twice about building one for them. I went straight to Dell (yeah I know, no company is perfect) and ordered them one off there for a great price for what they do (Internet, Email, Word processing).
I didn't consider building them one due to the fact that I will be 2 hours away and the 1st day I am gone I can hear the phone ringing with something wrong with the computer like a cable unplugged. Dell has a full-featured support plan and I feel safe trusting that for them. So you really need to consider that issue.
About buying the parts, I like others will of course recommend a place like pricewatch.com except just making sure you watch those horrible shipping prices! Pricewatch has been improving their interface lately and now for most dealers include a total including shipping right on the search results page which makes it convient.
So my rambling aside, again I recommend building your PC if you are capable and will be around to tend to any problems with it (no systems are perfect).
-Scott
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!
My life is one big siesta in which I'm dreaming I wished my life was one big siesta.
I put together this old computer about three years ago, all from online orders. Of course, that was during the christmas season when all the merchants were offering free shipping.
Here are my experiences. Please not that many of these stores are under new ownership or defunct.
TC Computers: Top Notch. Great Selection, Competitive pricing, and sent me a free heat sink and fan when I forgot to order one with my OEM CPU.
Outpost: Strangely, they had the best hard drive prices. Now owned by Fry's
NECX: Now owned by Gateway. They had good selection and very good choices.
Egghead: A nightmare. They sent me a monitor with a cracked case. I returned it.
If I had to do it all over again, I'd probably buy everything from TC Computers, since I had the best experience with them, and they are affiliated with Insight, which is a pretty trustworthy company.
Keep in mind that a lot of resellers are just middlemen for a nameless wholesaler, who actually is responsible for fulfilling the order.
Spending a couple of extra bucks is worth it if it gives you peace of mind.
Also, now that free shipping days are over, I would be more likely to do business with a local computer specialty store.
evanchik.net
... is to go to one of the small local companies and buy the bits there. Get to know the techies at the local computer shop - they'll tell you what they've got that's a good buy, and what to avoid. Plus, you get to try out all sorts of goodies before buying them.
Do it for the experiance.
Odds are against you saving enough money to really make cost the deciding factor.
As a tech in computers with 26 years experiance I can guarentee problems.
No matter how many reviews you read, no matter how many opinions you get, even if you build a machine with identical brand and model components as your trusted buddy next door... things change.
Even the best of companies have bad production runs from time to time.
Components have minor revisions even during a production run.
The result is a special kind of chaos that must be experianced to be appreciated.
Have fun
Expect problems
For me the issue is what video card to get, and what CD-RW, and DID drive? I want to buy a RH 7.3 compatible machine to install linux on.
Rich...
Ignore Alien Orders
For me the issue is what video card to get, and what CD-RW, and DVD drive? I want to buy a RH 7.3 compatible machine to install linux on. Rich...
Ignore Alien Orders
It's been a few years since I last built a computer, but JDR was always a good place for computer parts (and general electronics as well). It sells mostly no-name made-in-Taiwan parts for a little higher price than you'd expect, but they've got a lab that actually builds up computers and verifies sample parts work before they market them - and their tech support is the best I've ever dealt with.
at least not from scratch. You'll find you'll probably save yourself a lot of frustration by buying a barebones system (case, power supply, motherboard, and CPU), and going from there. I did a build it from scratch earlier this year and it was a nightmare. The place where the heatsink clips onto the CPU socket broke off, and I had to get a replacement motherboard. On top of which, the pieces came at different times, and in the end, I didn't really save any money.
On the other hand, for $200 or so, I bought and Athlon 1700 on e-bay, with motherboard, case, power supply, CPU w/fan, etc). I then bought a hard drive and memory, and used an existing DVD drive (who needs a floppy these days?). It was a fourth computer that plugged into a KVM switch, so that was pretty much all I needed.
For a total of about $400, I had an Athlon 1700 that works quite well. I consider that a good bargain, and on the day the machine arrived, in less than an hour, I had it up and running. Painless.
Just my personal experience.
that's true, as you CANT buy a pre-built computer to meet your specs...
ASUS motherboard? not available from dell,gateway,compaq,etc...
SCSI drives instead of the toy IDE?
gateway cannot.
Dell will for HUge price increases.
compaq will not unless you select a professional workstation model
firewire? gateway=no
dell yes for 3 times the price of a good firewire card.
compaq=no
quality components instead of the el-cheapo?
gateway=no
dell=no
compaq=no unless you purchase the professional workstation line or servers.
so if you just want a throwaway junk pc. go for it. MY hideously old P-III 866 with a antec case asus mobo, santa cruz sound and a geforce2 Ti (oh gawd, such a slow video card! PUKE....)and all Scsi U160, kicks the pants off of 90% of what can be purchased today right now from dell, compaq, sony, gateway or the other pre-builts.
and I know, as I always have a crowd staring at my computer duting lan parties... not only because I run linux and play most every game they are, but because I kick their arses in perfoemance on a 3 year old computer.
you want fast and good? you HAVE to build it yourself. you want something that works? buy the cheap prebuilt...
the same thing goes for cars, houses and home theatre/stereo. crappy=prebuilt. Excellent=you built it.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Let me offer a tip here for those of you who will be building your PCs for the first time.
Never buy generic memory. Ever.
Stick to trusted name brands like Kingston, Crucial, Corsair, or whatever your brand of choice may be. I haven't found a "best breed" memory manufacturer out there yet, but using name brands lately has certainly reduced my costs both at home and at work (I build all the PCs and servers we use at our 100 person company).
Yeah, I know, the "real" name brand memory costs 10%-50% more depending on the name and the capacity. Just pay it. It's better than buying new memory later to replace bad chips, and dealing with downtime.
Generic memory is the devil. Our older of PCs at work here are using standard, off the shelf kinds of generic memory, no names on the chips. It tends to work for between 3 months and 2 years... at which time you begin getting segfaults, kernel panics, BSODs, and random application problems on all platforms.
If you buy name brand... YMMV but I've had much better luck. I've yet to have a single name brand memory chip fail and some of them here are as old as five years.
Don't skimp prices on memory or motherboard... and for the love of god please use a static guard when installing any of the memory. A static discharge you can't even feel is more than enough to shorten a memory module's lifespan by half.
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
I had a friend once who loved British motorcycles. He had some Nortons and Triumphs. British bikes were at that time notorious for requiring constant maintenence (they may still be). His feeling was that British bikes are great, for people who enjoy fixing bikes. For anyone else, Japanese. Best bang for the buck, totally reliable, just like cars. Its the same way with boxes as with bikes.
I build all my own systems, but when others ask me for a recommendation, I usually tell them to buy Dell. Because if they need to ask me to recommend an overall system, they don't have sufficient interest to deal with the headaches of rolling your own. And there are headaches.
In my experience, getting the right parts together and installed is easy. Its getting them all to play nice afterwards that is the challenge. To get really intimate with your OS, install some cutting edge hardware. You will learn things about Windows and Linux that Bill and Linus do not know.
There is also a middle way. Many of your local strip mall OEM type places will build a box for you, more or less to your specifications. Depending on the OS you want, they may be able to set it up and test it as well. That can eliminate some of the more interesting issues you run into with self-assembly.
Last, I suggest using a local retailer over online suppliers. You can build a relationship, they remember your name, returns are simple and when you get a fever for a certain part, you can have it in hours rather than days.
Ever dream you could fly? Get up from the Flight Sim. I Fly
Au contraire, mon frere. Building an IBM-style PC, while not rocket science, is also not completely trivial. At the very least you get to learn what goes where so you can do your own hardware repairs, rather than taking it to the shop and paying $50 an hour so those screwdriver monkeys can get their $8.
As for putting your own computer together in the days before the IBM PC, there were those that did so (I think the Altair shipped as a kit). However the vast majority of computer users used TRS-80s, Apple IIs, Commodore PETs and the like, all of which required even less configuration than the IBM PC.
Someone you trust is one of us.
I've seen a fair amount of discussion about where to buy, and how to buy, but its always good to talk over some experiences with hardware, too.
/. who thinks he knows more than he does :P
If you're really looking for a homebuilt system for cheap gaming, I'd have to recomend an Athlon with a motherboard built around the nForce chipset.
First of all, while the top-end P4s are marginally faster than the top-end AthlonXPs, dollar for dollar AMD is still kicking Intel's ass. If you're not planning on spending the absolute maximum for the absolute best machine absolutely possible, then you're going to be making some compromises. So once you come down into the price-range that AMD sells their chips, theirs will always be the better performers.
The nVidia nForce chipset is pretty cool for those building a machine on a budget. For about $100 you get a motherboard with integrated 10/100 ethernet, a reasonably full-featured audio capability, and a GeForce2MX video GPU. If you had to get all those components separately, it'd probably cost a fair amount more, although of course you could also get better gear. Still, it leaves room for upgrading, as you can always add a better 3D card later once you've got some more cash. That and some more RAM would probably breathe enough life into an aging machine to keep it going another year.
You can put together everything for that from the case up with an AthlonXP 1800+ for around $600 if you shop around.
A CDR burner rather than a CDROM drive is always a good addition, but unless you're planning on watching movies on your PC, a DVD-ROM drive doesn't make a lot of sense. I've had one for two years and haven't run across anybody using DVD-ROMs for software or data that I'd be interested in, although we use DVD+RWs at work (with datasets that are over 650MB after compression). The DVD-R/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM/DVD+R/DVD+RW products still seem pretty fragmented, and media are pretty expensive. So unless you've got an application that needs it, I'd save my money.
One more bit of info that might be useful. Crucial is one of the better names in memory out there, and if you go to crucial.com, they ship 2nd day air for free, with prices comparable to Kingston memory from other online places.
As always, these opinions are those of some random jackass on
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
However many PC manufacturers do that kind of thing, especially at the budget end. Then they can claim the machine is "fast" without having to spend lots of money.
DIY lets you balance the performance of the various components to meet your requirements instead of the marketing dept.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
and it made me want to poke around a bit. eventually i found this:
So what happens to the parts that failed testing? Some get thrown out, but many are re-tested and graded to lesser speeds and/or conditions (i.e. without guardbands). Others aren't even re-tested (even though they might not have gone through burn-in). Yes, these lower-grade modules will probably work today, but they're more prone to marginal performance and failures, especially over time. DRAM manufacturers often sell this memory to third party vendors who then re-label them with their own brand name. Third party vendors are often required to remove the original DRAM manufacturer's name from the chips. This memory is typically referred to as "generic memory."
-- john
than I would have if I'd have bought it off the shelf.
On the other hand, I've always gotten exactly what I wanted under the hood, and I wouldn't have if I'd've bought off the shelf. I'd've wound up with a chassis-of-the-week instead of my nicely cooling one, who knows what CAS latency on the RAM, whoever's motherboard-of-the-week...
Instead, what I've got cost me more, but it's what I wanted.
-JDF
The problem is, those cheap OEM systems are just that - cheap. They're crap. They're cheap because the OEM cuts lots of corners. If you want a disposable comp, go for it. If you want something that will perform half decently and last, you'll still have to ante up.
You can build a decent, high quality box for 800 bucks. And you won't get stuck with an HSP Micromodem and shared memory onboard video. The components will be good, and the box will stand up. The average person doesn't want to buy a new computer every two years. If you build your own, it may cost a bit more, but I've found it to be worth the extra cost by a longshot.
Derek
Offtopic? Come on, that is a funny post! Someone moderate parent as funny!