Is it really worth it to build your own system?

[fullmetaltony]

I built my own with zero experience, I followed greywolf's excellent guide stickied on this forum http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18046396
It's very easy to follow and points out all the areas you need to be careful with (though there aren't many).
In fact, it went so well that I built a rig for my son too, with him involved. I can't express how much of a great a bonding experience that was, and we now get to play together on machines that we've built ourselves. It feels awesome
As long as you get specced by the guys on here, and follow the guide, you can't go wrong.

 

[ttaskmaster]

The absolute best part about building your own system is that you actually learn what stuff is, how it works and so on. Part of that is simply researching different components and talking to the lovely peeps here.

I now know my IDE from Molex, I know what socket my board has, I can buy SATA devices and know I have (some) free headers for them, I spent two hours carefully planning and routing my cables tidily, and I better understand what my options are when I want to add/upgrade stuff.
I also learned NOT to plug the 1394 connector into a USB header before I made the same mistake that has cost people their motherboards, heh heh!!

 

[traveyb]

I've always built my own however the only thing I would buy pre built is one of the overclocked bundles to guarantee a nice overclock. I've lost the silicon lottery a few times