If you’re considering building your own PC, to save a few dollars and get better performance this vid pretty much sums up the advantages and disadvantages of both options.
I’m totally a DIY guy. Give me a non-proprietary ASUS mobo, upgradeable to the biggest and best processors on the market (AMD if you like to overclock), and I’m a happy guy.
However, some of you reading this very likely haven’t yet dipped your toes into the water, maybe never even cracked the case on your current prebuilt Dell or HP.
Let me tell you, despite the lure of warranties, support, discounted Window’s licenses, and all that jazz — prebuilts are still just over-priced and under-powered.
Sure, most ready-made personal computers allow you to put a big bad video and sound card in them, and upgrade your LAN or wireless card via expansion slots. That’s nice. But when it comes time to tweak the bios (overclocking, etc.), that’s where the proprietary units really suck. The motherboards really suck for options, limiting the processor chip and RAM upgrades you can make.
It’s really not that hard to build your own PC. Best, when you learn how everything goes together, identifying and fixing problems becomes a breeze too. Money being the one limiting factor, of course!
And seriously: how many people have struggled to get something they’ve bought covered under warranty. It’s like pulling teeth. Or getting support with the language barrier that exists with most major manufacturers and their phone queues?
The only advantage I see with a prebuilt is that you:
- Pay more for less.
- Don’t have to do any work.
- You get to show off to all your other non-computer-literate friends saying things like “I’ve got an Alienware 17” or “My XPS 13 rig is sweet!”
