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Ask Slashdot: Buy Or Build a High End Gaming PC?

Posted by timothy on from the time-to-stalk-craigslist-for-the-discards dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Looking at some Black Friday ads, I'm seeing some good deals on Alienware and other gaming rigs that would be cheaper than building them from scratch. If you built or were to build a high end gaming rig, what would you suggest? Or would you just get a prebuilt system and customize it to your needs? I'm not looking for cheap, I want best quality and performance, but not overkill that would rival supercomputers and at the same time break my bank account. It would be a Windows system to keep my family happy, but possibly dual boot with Linux to keep me happy. It will be located in the livingroom hooked up to a regular monitor and the big screen TV, replacing a budget PC that's in there now.

10 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. Build one by Z00L00K · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The only good way to get what you want is to build one.

    It's also a good exercise.

    --
    If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    1. Re:Build one by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You always feel better after building your own system.

      At least, I've never met anyone who didn't feel good afterwards.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    2. Re:Build one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Probably people who made mistakes.

    3. Re:Build one by rtb61 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Option three is of course missing, the option I tend to lean to now and have done so in the past. Get to know your local store, and have one assembled out of the parts they stock eg http://www.itwarehouse.com.au/ (local to me, find a similar styled store near you).

      This gets you a reasonable set of parts, generally at a reasonable price (stocked items discounted rather than ordered in full price) and if you have any problems, well you can annoy the people who actually put you box together. I always prefer buying locally sourced, any problems and customer service a support is one easy short drive away, rather than a call to a foreign service centre there to fob you off, rather than provide a service.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    4. Re: Build one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why do all laptops have to suck nowadays? I'll take one that's a centimeter thicker if that means it can run flat out at 100% without ever throttling and also without burning my privates. And if it has a decent keyboard. At least they've started putting decent resolution screens in them again. The dark days of 1366x768 seems to be coming to an end, though the glossy trend needs to stop.

      I guess we can all thank Apple for this shit.

    5. Re:Build one by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 3, Insightful

      i would also go for that now. i've always built mine but when your computer starts freezing for no reason and you don't know if it's bad RAM or MOBO or CPU or GPU or PSU, you're stuck unless you have a spare RAM/MOBO/CPU/GPU/PSU to test with.

      you cannot return the whole computer for the seller to diagnose, because you didn't buy it as a computer but as a set of components. figuring out which component to return is therefore up to you. having gone through this a week ago (again), my next computer will be bought as a single unit. i'd rather spend time with my children and have somebody else tear their hair out in the meantime.

  2. BUILD by zenlessyank · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Next question.

    1. Re:BUILD by gnupun · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And what if a pre-assembled PC is cheaper than your custom built PC by $300-$400 provided certain minor things are inferior to your custom PC? Businesses can buy components in bulk, at a far cheaper rate than the huge markup a typical customer gives to component makers when he buys individual components. You also don't have to deal with malfunctioning parts because the pre-assembled PC has been tested.

      So it's not all black and white.

  3. Re:Depends if you want to support it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Did you not advise your friend, instead, that dropping $6k (let alone $9k) on a desktop/gaming rig is completely idiotic?

  4. If you can't afford two computers... by ZeroPly · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ... then you can't afford a "high end" gaming rig.

    Dual-boot is NOT where you want to go with a gaming machine, you'll be fighting drivers on the Linux side every time you get a fresh-off-the-shelf expensive hardware component. If you care enough about gaming performance to even consider building a machine from scratch, then commit to that - rather than trying to make it a jack of all trades.

    I've been using Linux since 1992, Windows a few years longer. In that time, I've built up dozens of machines. My suggestion: build a Linux box with components that you know will work with Linux - for example, I stay clear of nVidia because many of those cards are a nightmare on Linux. On my gaming machine I run a $300 nVidia card, etc etc.

    Hardware is cheap. What's your time worth?

    --
    Support microSD: in a post 9/11 world, it is unwise to carry your data on media that you cannot comfortably swallow.