Build yourself vs buy direct?

katie279 · 29 Mar 2015 at 12:02

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.

katie279 · 29 Mar 2015 at 14:48

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

katie279 · 29 Mar 2015 at 15:48

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.... !!

katie279 · 3 Apr 2015 at 10:05

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