Build or by Pre-Built

Dead and Gone

Dead and Gone

Dead and Gone

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Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
666
Location
Monmouth
Hi there,
I'm about to be ordering a new system and all my life I've built my own and had that worry of fitting the CPU and not breaking it in doing so (so far I haven't :) anyways this time round I'm wondering if I should get a pre-built or at least bundle system or build my own?

How much of a saving do you get by building your own system? Any pro's and con's anyones come across?

Thanks for any input :)
 
To honest, so long as you are careful it is unlikely you will damage anything when installing the CPU. I recently watched a friend install an i7 920 CPU into a CPU socket in a manner I would consider "rougher" than I would ever consider doing - but it still all worked perfectly fine.

Once you get past that stage of installing the CPU, applying the thermal paste and locking down the CPU cooler then the pressure is mainly off.

As for the financial saving you make - it really depends on the specification level of the PC (as margins tend to be higher for higher-spec prebuilt kit), but I think it's fair to say you will usually save at least £50 - since it is your labour, not someone else's.

The main pro's for building your own PC I have found are:

- slightly lower cost
- you get to chose the exact components you want
- you can build upgradability into your system
- warranties are usually longer, since each part has it's own individual warranty
- if something goes wrong then you usually just need to send off that part for an RMA, not the entire system (this usually means you are back up and running faster - or immediately if you have access to a backup component)
- it's fun to do

As for cons:

- it takes a fair bit of effort to research the right components and assemble them into a working PC.
- if something goes wrong you need to identify which particular component is to blame before you can send it off for an RMA
- If you damage something during installation then you may be stuffed (unless you take out some form of insurance)
 
The main advantage of a pre-built system is the warranty that comes with it, if anything goes wrong or is broken then all you have to do is ship the whole thing back to OcUk, no fiddling around to work out which part is faulty.
 
I am similar to yourself in as much that I have always built my own systems albeit on quite an infrequent basis. This means that I have to re learn and research the current technology each time I decide to build (generally every 2-3 years). My latest build was in Nov 2011 with all bits from OCUK. When researching I found that the help available on this forum was excellent. The main benefit for me is that:
- I know exactly what is in my system - so if a bit goes down I can replace it and be up and running quite quickly without having to suffer the inconvenience of shipping the whole thing off for repair
- The bits chosen will generally be higher spec than pre built systems for the same money

With my last build I was pleasantly surprised at the general high standard and compatibility of the components. Everything went together very well and it was the easiest build I have ever done.

My recommendation would be to continue to build your own:)
 
build your own. Much cheaper, so much fun and you get so much pride from finishing it and knowing you added all your touches to it
 
I'm looking at getting the ivy either i5 or i7 with a 680 graphics cards and then all the trimmings to make it a decent gaming system. Already have a M4 drive as I got it when they had special on...

The biggest thing for me is fitting the heatsink to be honest as the last system I built was a Q6600 and then before that were cpu's that had no protective cover on so fit the heatsink badly and you chip the core cpu :(

I take it that fitting the heatsink is a lot easyer these days then :)
 
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