Home PC, build or buy?

[peten2toms]

I am currently running 4-6 tables plus from AP, PT, PaHUD, AIM, surfing web and sometimes Camtasia all simultaneously. All on my compaq laptop which the fan never shuts off when it is on. It isnt horribly slow but I think its time for an upgrade. I currently have a 20" Samsung its the syncmaster 204b. I would like to possibly get a second monitor as well. I am looking to spend the least possible for the best results but I am not against spending a little more for the super machine I want. I am thinking somewhere from 500-1000. Basically I want it to be capable of running all those programs with no lag and more. Also I think I need a good amount of storage space for music and PT data as with ample space I will be datamining 24/7. I am leaning towards building a comp of my own with a little help from a friend or finding a site online that can build one for me. Is this the better way to go then simply buying a tower from say dell or HP? All and any suggestions are appreciated, thanks a lot.

[MrWookie]

If you have some balls and some technical know-how, I'd lean towards building it yourself. You should be able to pick out a relatively inexpensive video card that has dual DVI out for <$100 that'll give you great visuals on a dual monitor setup. I tend to prefer dual DVI to DVI/VGA since LCDs tend to look better on DVI. This might be less common in prebuilt systems. Another thing to consider if you have some guts is your own personal RAID 5 array. Some motherboards support RAID 5 natively nowadays, and while they're not as fast as a RAID controller (they use the CPU), it's pretty nice to have some redundancy for your data. That will be rare/expensive in a prebuilt system, but if you DIY, it's basically the cost of 3-4 hard drives (HDs are dirt cheap nowadays) and maybe spending an extra $20 on the mobo.

[random50]

I'm both clumsy and not particularly tech savvy and I have successfully built 3 computers. It felt like going all-in with the 2nd nut hand when you're not certain you're ahead, but it wasn't actually at all difficult. If I can do it, so can anyone!

That said, I don't think it's all that hard any more to find a company that will build to order for not much more than DIYing so I'd look around for them first. Don't expect to get that kind of service from the well known brands though (at least without paying through the nose!)

[Beavis68]

if you dont have a monitor and you dont have a copy of windows to use, I think you save money buying.

I am building a RAID system at work on Friday and will be building one at home in the next few weeks, but I got the processor for free from work and I got the OS for $5.

[LuckyTxGuy]

Interesting question. Let me first say that for the average home/business user I highly recommend not building your own machine. They can be bought fully customized to your specs from Dell way too cheap.

When it comes to gamers or people who need high end machines for high performance and specific needs, I think building your own still makes sense. However, I have to admit I'm actually torn now days when it comes to the option of build your own vs. buy a custom build machine for people who are in the middle. And in my opinion, you are in the middle.

I'm going to throw out some random thoughts here.

24/7 datamining means lots of HD space. HDs are super cheap. Sticking a 500GB drive in a pre-built machine is easy.

I'm a big fan of Vista and use it on a daily basis, but I'd advise XP for now. I've had some trouble with FT, PS and PAHUD on Vista. I actually have them all working just fine now, but I still run into a few bugs every once in awhile.

If you go with XP, 2 GB of RAM should do handle it. A normal user can get by with 512 MB, 1 GB makes it MUCH faster and 2 GB will make it hum. More than 2 GB in XP tends to be a waste. Here is a good video from a respected tech geek explaining how much RAM is advised for XP. YouTube Link

With the 2 GB of RAM out of the way, obviously an Intel Core 2 Duo is advised. Bigger is better, but I'm not sure you'd see alot of benefit from spending a ton of money on one of the fastest processors.

All that being said, I would just price everything out and see what a pre-built computer costs compared to a DIY job. Also, most pre-built computers like Dells will come with a flat panel monitor. Even if you don't need the monitor it is something that you could easily Ebay or sell to a friend and recoop a little money...something to factor in. Also, I'd go ahead and plan on adding the bigger hard drives yourself because it will probably be much cheaper than paying Dell/HP etc for them.

I just did a little pricing around and a Dell desktop with a 19"-20" monitor (included in the price), 2 GB of RAM, a very fast 2+ GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, a CD-RW/DVD-RW, a basic video card and about an 80-120 GB HD will cost you in the neighbor of $700-$750. The one I just priced out included a 256 MB dual DVI video card.

You'd need to buy your own extra big HDs for your data mining and such and probably install another video card for dual monitors, unless you snagged a deal like I quoted above. I just checked Newegg.com the standard price for a good 500 GB HD seems to be around $110 and a dual VGA and DVI video card can be bought for around $50.

I'd just price everything out if you were going to build your own and see how much money it would cost. Again, for most people I rarely advise building your own anymore, but if you want certain specific parts, then that is a totally different story and building your own might be the way to go.

Ok, I've gone on long enough. I hope this info helps and if you have more questions, feel free to ask.

[MrWookie]

Lucky,

I do agree that for low end systems, buying is probably cheaper than building, esp. when you consider that the hassle for building any system is comparable until you get up to the bleeding edge w/ overclocking and whatnot. Even if building a cheap system was slightly cheaper than buying one outright, it wouldn't be by all that much, so it's probably not worth the hassle. As you get to better performance, the price gap between building and buying widens, and it becomes more worth your while. Even for a mid range system, it might be worthwhile to build, though.

One thing to bear in mind is that pre-built systems tend to gouge you if you go for more RAM or bigger/more hard drives. One thing this does allow you to do is do a hybrid build/buy: buy a built system, but skimp on the HD and the RAM. Then buy those two things and add them yourself. That's a third option to consider.

[LuckyTxGuy]

Totally agree with ya MrWookie. The hybrid buy/build system is what I'm really thinking is his best option. Like I mentioned towards the end of my post, upgrading to a bigger HD and possibly a better video card are almost always going to be tons cheaper if you do it yourself, plus it is super easy.

One thing that I think is worth mentioning is the warranty. If you buy the parts yourself and build your own system, most parts come with a one year warranty. When something goes wrong and you finally figure out what part it is...have fun getting the part warrantied. First you'll have to find your receipt, then find a number to contact the manufacturer, then send in the part, wait for them to determine it's bad, wait for the slow ground shipping back to you and on and on. While Dell, HP etc might make you talk to someone in India, they are usually very good about replacing their parts under warranty and next day shipping is usually part of the deal. I've found that dealing with Dell or HP on a warranty problem is usually better than trying to deal directly with the manufacturer. That is just one more little thing to consider when it comes to building a machine vs. buying. Not a huge issue, but worth considering.

[happywhere]

I agree with what LuckyTxGuy said: If you buy the parts yourself and build your own system, most parts come with a one year warranty. You will feel hard to fix it if part of the pc break down.I think it is better to buy one. Right now the new brand computer is just so cheap. Sometimes it will be cheaper than building your own. Lately one of my friend bought a Dell Dimension E521. It is AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ Processor, 2 GB Dual Channel DDR2, 320GB, but it is 19 inch SE198WFP Widescreen Flat Panel Monitor, you can change to a 20 inch if you want. This one is great, she like it very much. She find this deal with pretty price at a deal site. If you are interested in this deal, you can check it out.
http://dealstudio.com/searchdeals.php?deal_id=57836
hope this helps.

[Rick Nebiolo]

I've had to rebuild computers and hope to build my next one this fall. On You Tube you will find tutorials for much of it including how to properly apply thermal paste between the CPU and fan/heat sink.

You won't save money but you will be able to get the computer you want and avoid all the bloatware you don't want along with some companies propriety parts. The Intel duel core also overclocks easily so you can have some fun there (buy a decent $40-$60 fan/heat sink combo though) rather than the stock fan.

I plan to build a much faster version of what I have now and hand mine down to a friend. I like my arrangement - a two internal hard disk machine with multiple partitions and set it up so data is separated from the Vista and programs partition as much as possible and backed up on boot. A big data (music and pictures only) partition on the second drive is backed up to an external hard disk (I put hard disks from old computers in cheap cases and use these for external drives).

The only data I've ever lost are the ratings of songs in my 70 gigish iTunes library. I didn't realize that iTunes does not keep that info in the mp3 or .m4a files. That's been fixed as I now make automatic backups of the necessary files to a folder in My Documents which is then backed up to the other hard disk. Some people use scripts to do these things; I like Syncback SE.

As an aside I use Norton Ghost 2003 to image the Vista and Programs partition from a floppy to the second internal drive. A motherboard has to be super fried not to be able to access the floppy and several utilities are floppy based (like the free Memtest 86).

~ Rick

[MrWookie]

Yeah, I do agree that avoiding bloatware is a nice perk.