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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.

7 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.
  2. BUILD by zenlessyank · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Next question.

    1. Re:BUILD by ranton · · Score: 5, Informative

      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?

      This never happens. Not for a high end gaming PC anyway. For budget computers that are sold for a few hundred dollars that may be true but not for anything that will accommodate high end gaming. It is in fact the other way around, where a custom built PC can be up to and above $1000 cheaper than a pre-assembled one.

      Take a simple example of an Alienware Area-51 PC with an i7-5930K, 16 GB 2133MHz DDR4 RAM, GTX 970, and 512 GB SSD. Not top of the line but certainly a great gaming PC. It costs $2750. Going to Newegg, I can get the processor (460), motherboard($150), ram (100), video card (350), intel 480 GB ssd (270), a high endcoolermaster case w/850W PS (280), and OS(100) for $1710. That is a $1000 difference. When looking for a higher end machine with 32 GB RAM and dual GTX 980 the difference came to almost $1250. That is pretty extreme.

      --
      -- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
  3. Be sure they really are cheaper by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I would recommend checking out the reddit forum for building PCs. They often know of deals and resources that can be helpful. People there will also be willing to help you spec out a PC and pick parts / find the cheapest prices.

    Also pcpartspicker.com is a great resource.

    That said, I've built pretty much all of my PCs for the last 20 years until this week. I found a good deal on an Asus G11 Desktop with an i7-6700 and a GTX 980. I could have saved a little building myself, but I decided to go the pre-built route this time and it's been great so far. Ultimately it comes down to what you prefer. The price is usually upgradability. In my case if I want to add additional components, there's only two PCIe 1x slots on the board that are open, so I'd probably need to get a new motherboard and case if I wanted to do anything other than swap out parts or add hard drives. So consider if you're ok with that before you buy.

  4. Build! And skip SLI. by sheetsda · · Score: 5, Informative

    As other posters have said - Build!

    What I haven't seen noted yet - Skip SLI graphics cards. I went SLI on the gaming machine I built in 2005. What I found was that a top end graphics cards can play games at high settings for a while, and that the extra $450 would've been more effective if spent 50% of the way through the life of the PC (i.e. 2 years later) on another high end card of the next generation.

  5. It sure is. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's also a good exercise.

    I do three sets of ten computers three times a week. And I cross train by laying fiber optic cable - it's for cardio. Cat 6 when I'm bored or overtrained.

  6. 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.