Build yourself vs buy direct?

katie279

katie279

katie279

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Hi all,

Just looking to build a couple of replacement base units to 'remodernise' two pcs in the house.

General question - probably looking to spend about £1000 per base unit - how much cheaper (if any) is it for me to buy components and build myself vs buying a pc pre-built?

Many thanks! Just trying to work out time vs saving options.
 
If you can build yourself then do so, gt exactly what you want and all the budget spent on the parts.
 
yeah, that's what I was meaning - ie not hard to put together myself, just not sure if I bought one 'off the shelf' from OCUK if it'd be about the same or less
 
Would prolly work out the same usually if they are pre built they have cut cost on some parts .. If you build yourself you can cherry pick the parts and you can't beat the feeling of turning on a pc you built yourself
 
Hmm yes, was just doing a test myself (ie picking one of the preconfigured PCs that OCUK sells and manually adding the same components to my cart)

Pretty much as you say - £923.98 prebuilt vs £919.85 components alone.

OCUK is pretty good in the level of customisation they let you have - pretty much everything you can pick/customise - hence I was just curious! Obviously this isn't like PC World et al, where they'll be shafting you for the quality of each component - ie 8gb of RAM from PC World is a looooong way away in terms of performance/quality than what you'd buy from OCUK!

Good to know - know what you mean about putting it together yourself -just am thinking as I'm plotting to get at least a couple of new pcs, it might get boring after the first... ;)

Of course, I'm needing to also save up for the monster I'll be buying at the end of the year to cater for my Valve HTC Vive room I'm looking to build.... !!
 
Depends on how much time you have and if you find building PCs fun.

You will get more out of your money building it yourself, but then obviously you take on full responsibility if things go wrong. Some people don't have the time nor patience to deal with all that.

If it was me I'd be building it myself.
 
I prefer Pre Built because i already broke 3 CPU's when trying to build a PC but if you have enough knowledge of building them yourself go for it but be warned that if you brake something its going to cost you more money.
 
VRMadness said:
I prefer Pre Built because i already broke 3 CPU's when trying to build a PC but if you have enough knowledge of building them yourself go for it but be warned that if you brake something its going to cost you more money.
Click to expand...

How did you manage to kill 3 CPUs during assembly?
They literally slot right in, unless you were ramming the wrong CPU into a motherboard?
I have dropped CPUs resulting in bent pins and they still worked!

'Building' a PC is not really the right term as the skill is in getting the correct bits, not from the assembly.
Get all the correct bits (which is easy as you post the contents of your basket on here for people to check and comment on) and then it literally all slots together easy peasy.
 
OpenToSuggestions said:
How did you manage to kill 3 CPUs during assembly?
They literally slot right in, unless you were ramming the wrong CPU into a motherboard?
I have dropped CPUs resulting in bent pins and they still worked!

'Building' a PC is not really the right term as the skill is in getting the correct bits, not from the assembly.
Get all the correct bits (which is easy as you post the contents of your basket on here for people to check and comment on) and then it literally all slots together easy peasy.
Click to expand...

Heavy handed. Small objects do not bode well in my clumsy hands and i have a bad habit of shaking also :(.
 
For me building is part of the experience, I love it - particularly difficult builds.

And the first press of the button like starting a car from an engine rebuild.

It's probably very daunting to some people though.
 
Yes, I've build loads of pcs over the years and it's my normal approach - I was just wondering if:

a) I was paying MORE for the privilege (ie lower economies of scale for retailers and thus cost increased)
b) it's pretty much the same price anyway and I'm just doing it for the fun
c) it's significantly cheaper - ie I'll save myself £50-100 each time
 
Building PC is very easy these days and works out cheaper however prebuilt normally has other things like guarantees that can make it worth the extra cost and you have the piece of mind that you wont accidently break anything
 
As stated above, you can pick all the parts and OCUK will build it for £60-ish.

The difference is £60, whether you want to part with £120 to have 2 PC's built for you or you'll pocket that and build yourself.
 
If I was buying a watercooled system, I'd gladly pay OCUK to assemble it because I don't know what I'm doing there. But I'd never pay anyone to build a normal system because I can do that myself.
 
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