By RPS on August 17th, 2009 at 1:01 pm.
Questions, questions, always questions. This week we want to know about your PC-building habits. Don’t build PCs? Tell us! Just use a laptop? We need to know. There are few questions below, so please do us a favour and fill them in. It’ll take mere seconds, and you’ll probably be reward in PC gaming heaven. Probably.
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I select components individually but have them assembled for me (for warranty reasons)
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Why would you not, at the very least, pay for the components individually?
Even in paying someone else to put them together, you save loads, and loads of money in doing so.
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The thought of someone else even TOUCHING the insides of my PC makes me queasy….
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I have purchased a graphic card in the last six months, but I had to return it to the shop and get my money back. Does that count?
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I can’t bother making my own computer really…
Bought a Dell and i just configured it the way I wanted.
It obviously isn’t the best but I’m just a little too lazy!
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Er, I tell the store which components I want and they cobble it together for free.
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I can’t bother making my own computer really…
Bought a Dell and i just configured it the way I wanted on the website.
It obviously isn’t the best but I’m just a little too lazy!
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Apart from the obvious money saving advantages one of the biggest advantages is troubleshooting. If you built it you have a massive advantage of fixing it if something goes wrong with the hardware.
Not to mention it’s fun!
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My current PC I got from my Uni (they give dyslexics free computers!), and stuck a graphics card in it myself. Would have probably built it myself otherwise.
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I’ve built the last 3 desktops I’ve had, but the last one was probably 2 or 3 years ago. Using my MBP with a keyboard and mouse at the moment. Not perfect, but good enough.
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I recently built my first PC. I was terrified about breaking it, frying it, touching it in the wrong place etc. and then you realise that it’s just Lego for adults. I remember wincing when having to push the pins in on my processor as the motherboard made evil noises. Then I realised that this thing was more likely to hurt me then I was to hurt it.
I’ll never buy a stock PC again.
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If you extended this back in time, you’d probably find that a lot of folks used to upgrade pretty regularly, maybe even build a new rig every 18 months or so, but now haven’t budged in 2 years or more. The market has nearly ground to a halt due to the stability current console cycle. This is a great time to build a PC from a price/performance standpoint, but the flip side is that a top-end PC from nearly 3 years ago (Core2 Duo, 8800 GTX) can still handle new games at top settings without skipping a beat. I can’t remember any other time in the last decade where mainstream games’ performance demands have changed so little over so long a period of time.
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I built most of my (3) gaming computers, but my most recent one I decided to get the motherboard/cpu/case pre-assembled from portatech. Its actually much easier than screwing the motherboard into the case, and at about a 20$ markup from the bare cost of the components. They actually assemble the computer with/without any number of parts you want.
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The last one seems to be missing something like “I have a non-gaming laptop”
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I’m with Howard on this. I build all my own PCs. I also insist that my office does not buy pre-built systems, the same goes for my friends or family. I got my first PC in 1995, this was a pre-built machine and the only one I’ve ever had. I subsequently upgraded it until it appeared fully rebuilt next to a new custom machine.
My job bought me a laptop last year so that I could play games while working overseas so long as I also did work at some point.
It just about manages to play Dawn of War II (albeit on low settings and without all the shinys) so that fills the void nicely while I’m travelling. I didn’t build that one myself. I’m perfectly happy to buy a pre-built laptop :P
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Not really an old neglected laptop, since it’s an Asus EEE 1000H. A lot of my old games and a fair amount of new indie games are installed on it, and I tend to use it more than my handbuilt Monstro Desktop because, frankly, I feel guilty activating the beast for anything other than scheduled TF2 matches. The EEE is power light, so I try to use it more.
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The only way I can guarantee quality in all the components is to choose them and assemble them myself, so I do. I’ve never seen a retail pc anywhere close to as quiet as my PCs; my 360 is approximately, without exaggeration, five times as loud as my media PC, to give you an idea.
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I have only one PC, I just upgrade it. Theres always “parts” (you can say the ghost in the shell) that make for a continuity, but often I need to change the motherboard, and wen you change the motherboard, theres very litte that say, maybe the hard disk, the box, not much else.
I upgrade the graphic card has often as make sense. If theres a cheap graphic card that will improve dramatically my FPS, I just buy it. Having a very good graphic card really helps have the better experience on most games.
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There should be an option for people who own a laptop but just don’t use it for gaming.
Also, I build my own PCs. I guess it’s because I get the best selection and price that way.
I admit every time I think of doing the ole upgrade/rebuild I seriously consider buying a pre-made machine. Yes, they’re significantly more expensive, but there is some peace of mind knowing that when it arrives you know it already had the bejeezus tested out of it and all the recent drivers installed. Whenever I build a PC for either myself or someone else, something invariably goes wrong so it takes way longer to finally put together then I had anticipated, and then there’s the 20% chance that one of the many parts will be defective in some way. Plus, if something goes wrong you have one 24/7 place to contact instead of some weird Taiwanese hotline for your ram or something.
I guess secretly I love building them, though, even with that frustration.
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The best way for beginners to learn how to upgrade PCs is to start off with a retail one, and upgrade that as go along. Before you know it, there’ll be nothing left of the original PC and you’ll realise “OMFG I’ve built a PC!”.
P.
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I play Dwarf Fortress in my eepc 701
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Like teo (first post) I select the components myself but let someone else put them together for me. The labour cost is minimal and if something gets fooked in the process you can rely on the warranty.
But I do know how to it myself, and frequently change parts around once the warranties end.
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I’m a bit puzzled by some of the above comments. Surely the whole point of a package PC is that you get a discount on what the individual parts cost? Sure I suppose you can get individual parts for cheaper elsewhere.
Maybe it’s a which-part-of-the-world-you-happen-to-be-in thing. In my part of the world, package deals cost less than the sum of the individual parts. Surely that’s the only way it makes sense. How would sellers stay in business otherwise?
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suibhne says:
“the flip side is that a top-end PC from nearly 3 years ago (Core2 Duo, 8800 GTX) can still handle new games at top settings without skipping a beat.”
I maxed out my motherboard early last year with 8gigs of RAM, still using the 5.2GHz AM2 chip from the year before on the same M2N2 Deluxe mobo from a few months before that again and with the 8800GTX from the same year. I put an extra soundcard in this year (that I won in that RPS GalCivII compo) because Vista doesn’t support the soundmax independent front panel audio on my onboard card. I’ve not needed to upgrade any component to suit game requirements since I got the 8800GTX.
I contemplated upgrading again this year out of boredom but decided to invest in some SCUBA gear instead.
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I had been going to build my own PC roughly now but unfortunately due to cashflow problems, and me needing money to eat, this has not happened. Maybe next year, if I get the money. Being a student when jobs are thin on the ground means saving up for the coming semester…
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What a coincidental poll.
I am currently waiting on a set of components to be posted to me so I can build my first ever PC. I’m up for it but the only thing is that I am terrified of ESD frying one of my components.
Hopefully it will go smoothly.
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My old PC I got back in 2002, and was a couple of years out of date then. I kept it until last September, with only tiny upgrades, when I treated myself to a completely whizz bang new one. I was gonna go ’boutique retail’ with one of those customisation shops, largely for warranty reasons and laziness.
But I then got an email from a lrage, online PC parts company for 10% my next order, which made the savings by buying the parts myself and putting it ogether myself too good to ignore. I now have a very nice PC which I’m very happy with.
Now I have a better cash flow, I’ll likely be upgrading more often. Though I have an aversion to spending vast amounts of money on GPUs, memory etc. (especially, as is normally the case, there are games I still want to play which will play perfectly on my current specs, and I could just spend my money on a few of those rather than a new card…) I may get another card to go Crossfire with sometime next year if I feel it’s worth it.
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I’ve only bought one PC of my own and I’m ashamed to admit that I had it made by pcspecialist. Perhaps it was the suppliers that I browsed at the time but I found it was cheaper to have it made than buy the parts myself and doing so had the added advantage of a warranty and eliminated the possibility of me screwing it all up.
I’ve installed RAM, graphics cards, sound cards, network cards with no problem but I’ve always had a slight concern about installing CPUs (delicate pins, the analogue art of thermal paste application) as going wrong would be costly. I hope to have sufficiently manned up by the time I come to replace my current desktop as I do feel I’m letting the side down.
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Oh yes, I was going to say. I have upgraded the house PC and would have continued but the motherboard is so shockingly awful that it’s holding the system back now (I can’t even upgrade the processor). So that’s the next step, but that involves a new case and everything because it’s a Dell “motherboard size standards? what motherboard size standards?” home use thing.
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I bought my last PC in 1999. After that , I’ve essentially been upgrading the same machine until today. The keyboard is the only piece from that PC that is still part of my setup.
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I built my own pc and have a netbook for when I’m away to play all the games from the 90′s I feel I should have played
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The laptop question needs a simple “I don’t have a laptop or my laptop’s not primarily for gaming” option; a work laptop or netbook won’t cope with “new, 3D” games, but that doesn’t make them “rubbish”; just designed to do different things.
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I do the same as Tei. Various less time sensitive parts last longer, whilst other bits get upgraded quicker. I’ve had the same Antec p-150 case for a while now, with the same power supply that came with it.
A DVD drive held out the longest, even longer than the case. At least 5+ years, maybe hitting 8-10 years. It finally died about 12 months ago
My video card I upgraded recently (christmas), after an out of warranty failure. For first time however, instead of getting the bleeding edge of performance, I purchased at the “good value for performance” area – a Geforce 9800GT
Next parts that will need doing are the CPU (Still a Athlon 64 X2 3800+) and a new hard drive, only a 200GB drive which is not cutting it any more with 15+ GB installs.
As is usually the case, probably the new CPU will need a a new motherboard as whatever chipset/socket type I have now will be out of date. I have no idea though, I wont bother researching that until I get to upgrade time.
The other main thing I can do when building it myself, is select parts with a bias for low noise components. I’ve been using the same Zalman radial cooler for the last two CPUs, and usually a new GPU cooler as well. In this case the 9800GT isnt actually too bad, still using the stock fan and not too loud. (Louder than a proper cool fan, but tolerable)
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Those things you buy in retail stores…. i have nothing but contempt for their ‘maximised profit per unit’ asses. Either the CPU is weak or the GPU is weak…. or they both are and any ‘gaming’ PC is ridiculously over-priced when you can put together a better rig from components (with specific, “brand” parts) and off-the-shelf software.
Seriously though, i don’t really mind store-bought PCs (and i certainly understand them for laptops) but i wouldn’t buy one myself. I just don’t rate them. It’s the difference between buying a car or being able to build your own kit-car for racing….. to get the same performance it’s probably cheaper and ultimately quicker to start from scratch yourself.
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I’ve built and upgraded computers in the past, but depending on the spec the savings are minimal to non-existent. My last PC was a spec yourself pre-build and worked out a good £100 less than it would to spec and build myself.
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Always built me own. Don’t see the point the pre-built if you’re capable of doing it yourself. Forced into building the most recent one on a shoestring budget when the previous machine suffered compound failure of various components. Was quite chuffed with what I managed for £200.
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I used to buy compononents separately and compile them myself, but now I just select what I want and have the store put the parts together.
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My main gaming rig has been part of a rolling upgrade since about 1993. Of course, there’s not a single piece in there that has been there since the start, but as it always gets upgraded piecemeal, it’s always been the “same” PC as far as I’m concerned.
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Maybe a bit arrogant to think so, but even the thought of someone else building, or poking around inside, my computer makes me wince. Built my first computer about 8 years ago now, it’s been almost completely gutted for upgrades several times over the year. Rather behind at the moment though. Would really like to pretty much start from scratch and build myself something shiny and up to date, but I dont see it happening unless this one goes boom or something.
I always get roped into building and repairing computers for my parents, grandparents and brother too, though; the joys of being a techy, I guess..
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Stupid no edit function:
My graphics card is a 9800GT which I bought last September for 112€.
I hate laptops.
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I used to work in computer hardware, and then worked as a network engineer, so I’m very savvy with computers.
I buy them pre-built, and often never even open them up.
why?
Because my experience is that a VAST number of problems people have with PC’s is badly matched components, badly installed hardware, or conflicts between the installed hardware.
I buy a pre-built machine because I know that at the very least, on the day it ships, everything is working as it should, and can always be reverted to an image of it all working as it should.
I’ve owned this machine since vista was released and it has crashed precisely twice, and I think that was a bug in company of heroes (both times were during on-line games).
For a developer like me, having a stable system is more important than having a good value one, so this makes sense. It might make less sense to a relatively penniless student though :D
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I used to build my own PCs, but when my wife and I had the opportunity to buy new ones last year, we decided to go with pre-built ones with a lengthy warranty simply because we knew we wouldn’t be able to afford to replace parts that went wrong.
However they were from an online specialist and not from a brick and mortar store.
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I bought a PC from a dodgy retailer in Doncaster in 1998! I should have known better but it was cheap (at the time £720 I seem to recall). However it was all cheap parts and so I replaced many of the components to get it stable.
Since then I’ve always built systems and have a wide number of “children” that have cascaded out to a lot of friends and family members over the years.
A question for the UK chaps: What do you do with older components and kit. I can’t bring myself to chuck decent stuff and can’t be arsed (yet) to put it on eBay. Are there charities that will take old boards, CPUs, GPUs etc??
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I bought a “gaming laptop” a couple of years ago, and aside from put an extra gig of ram in its been the same, it was terrible when I bought it, its still terrible now, I’ve been saying I’ll buy a proper pc for the past year.
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@Petrushka
There is simply no way a pre-built can ever be cheaper than the parts. The only time pre-built PCs may look cheaper is because they are using shockingly poor/integrated parts. A PC you build yourself will ALWAYS be the cheaper option.
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@Richard Clayton
Pretty much no one will accept second hand electrical goods for insurance reasons. Best thing to do is just store up the parts as spares or to build systems with if a friend wants a very cheap, basic PC.
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Didn’t like the choices on that last one (gaming laptops).
How about a choice like “No, but I’m not opposed to the idea”, instead of either “Yes” or “No, their rubbish”?
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I have a gaming laptop, although seeing as I now have a job, I may have to buy a PC, because my faithful lappy barely survived last holiday season.
I’ve upgraded what I can though, RAM, HDD etc.
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I could use a laptop for work related stuff, coding, etc.
But never for gaming. I <3 my custom rig too much! ^^
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Of course I build my own machine. Why would I want to spend just as much (or a little more) for a lot lower quality and usually with proprietary upgrade restrictions?
I built my first machine when I was twelve years old in 1989 and have built everything ever since (except for Apple machines, of course).
The price advantage isn’t really there anymore, directly, but the quality of a built machine instead of bought is much greater.
As for ugprading? No. I upgraded my machines here and there when I was a kid, but I just build a whole new machine now. No sense just upgrading RAM or CPU or a video card when I can just rebuild something entirely from scratch. And with the quick cycle on new technology, the RAM for your board today may not even exist in a year. So…
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I must buy new 3D card because in older dies bios (no overclocking, no hard load). Just 10 days after warranty ends… :-(
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suibhne says:”If you extended this back in time, you’d probably find that a lot of folks used to upgrade pretty regularly, maybe even build a new rig every 18 months or so, but now haven’t budged in 2 years or more.”
That’s certainly my situation.
Cliffski – I check http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/forums/ before building anything. You’re right in what you say about mis-matched hardware, though that doesn’t seem to be as big a problem these days. But go to BYO and ask a few questions and you likely be given a shopping list of parts and where to get them. Just FYI.
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Ahh, the joy of Frankensteining a good old PC. I think I’m on my third build of my gaming machine, and like Trigger’s broom, I’ve replaced nearly everything at one point or another, and yet it still lives!
I suspect if more people understood how simple it really is to get computer components to fit together, more would try it. Getting them to work together is a dark and terrible magic.
Even now, any time I touch anything in my current box, it goes through a weird cycle of failed reboots for a couple of minutes. I have no idea why.
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I only play on a laptop because I emigrated recently! and have been surprise at how well it does. though I am lusting after a desktop…mmm dual graphics cards…mmm empire at descent rez…
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Have never built (too scared) but have upgraded PCs I’ve bought.
Haven’t bought a new graphics card in a while, but have some spare cash so am thinking of looking into buying a new pair (will probably ask for help from RPS boffins. :) for my desktop.
I have (or had, depending on whether Acer fix it or not) a laptop which I use for WoW and other lower-spec games.
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My first self-build was about four years ago now, at a point at which I had previously upgraded just RAM, and drives. Last May I did a major upgrade, and pretty much all the innards were replaced, and I only retained case and drives. Got an HD upgrade due soon, and am tempted to pick up a cheap optical drive at some point as my old IDE ones are getting a touch rattly.
I’ve also got a laptop, but as it is a netbook I don’t consider it a gaming system, although I do play the occasional old/low requirement games on it. Not tempted by gaming laptops.
Don’t think I’d buy an off the shelf system again, at least not for gaming, I like the control too much. Also, as long as you have enough space to work, building your own system is pretty simple, and indeed the biggest faff is having to be in for delivery.
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As I answered ‘other’ on the first question… my PCs are built from parts but not really by me. I don’t know much about hardware and specifications and I’m too bored by the subject to ever learn about it, so when time for an upgrade comes I ask my more tech-savvy friends to recommend me what to get. And if it’s a task that’s bigger than your usual standard part switcharoo, in an ideal case they do it for me though it’s usually me who slots the parts in. I’m a pretty big PC gamer but I never got into the whole hardware side of things :(.
And the only reason why I bought a graphics card in the last six months was because my computer had some severe heat issues earlier this year and the graphics card ended up being one of the affected ones.
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I use a Macbook for basically everything apart from gaming. Unix for the win.
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Queston “Do you use a laptop for playing new, 3D games? Aka: do you have a modern gaming laptop” needs answer: “Yes sometimes, but laptops are rubbish”.
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Always built my own in the past but I got my current one custom built. Cost maybe £20 more than building it myself but factor in the time/frustration saving and it was well worth it. Also they did a much tidier job than I would ever do.
I’ve since upgraded the memory, DVD drive, soundcard and GPU, and eventually will upgrade the CPU and mobo, which will leave just the HD and case from the original PC.
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I bought a PC from a custom PC retailer 3 years ago as I was at Uni and decided I didn’t have the time (or space) to build my own. I upgraded that one significantly (new CPU, new GPU, new RAM, TV card, extra HDD) in the next 2 and a bit years. During that time I built a PC for my brother (E6700/8800GTS). When I finally was forced to upgrade again by a broken motherboard I built mine from scratch. The CPU was still good however and I still had the GPU that was originally in my old PC so I used those (7600GT and an AMD X2 5600+) to build a web-browsing/light gaming PC for my parents to replace their ageing Packard Bell.
There is a clear price advantage to building your own if you are using performance parts but for a low spec PC you will not save any money (unless you have an old GPU/CPU to use), with a cheap PC it is still worth it for the quality though, and so you don’t get a windows installation that is full of crapware.
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From 1990 when I got my first PC (but not my first computer) and for the next 10 years, I’d always buy a new rig from a local computer shop and let them build the system for me. Though I would always pick the components.
But starting in 2000, I began to build the PCs myself. It was cheaper and gave me total control over exactly how the system was built. Since then, I haven’t looked back.
Like Freudian Trip said, it’s a lot like putting together a lego set. The most difficult part is researching which components you want, to get the best bang for the buck. Not assembling all the parts together.
I would upgrade by building new systems religiously every 2-3 years, for more than a decade. But after building a new system in 2002, I ended up breaking the cycle; waiting 5 years before upgrading again. I just didn’t see a compelling reason to upgrade, because the technology started to stagnate a bit during that time period.
My current system was built at the end of 2007 and is almost 2 years old now. I’m thinking about upgrading again, but it will be a parts replacement upgrade this time and not a totally new build.
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I custom order mine from eclipse and upgrade as necessary
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My current PC was bought as a complete build, but modified over time. (new GPU and Power Supply) It’s about time for a new one though, it’s about 4 years old now, and wasn’t exactly top end then. My next PC I probably will build myself, or atleast have a custom setup for.
A national internet store here allows you to pick and choose the bits you want in your PC and assembles it for you, without a significant additional charge. So that’s also an option for me.
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I have built machines in the past, but my latest rig is an off the shelf box (which I upgraded the graphics card on). I’ve had it for nearly two years now and it has served me very well so far, playing even the latest titles with resolutions and framerates which I am very happy with.
If I were spending inordinate amounts of money on an uber gaming rig then I would probably try and shave of as much as possible by taking the time to hunt down the best deals on bits and put them together myself. I have come to the conclusion that building such a rig is pointless when it’ll be obsolete almost before you’ve finished putting it together and keeping it at the cutting edge cost more in the long run. I’ve found that getting a slightly lower end machine off the shelf and upgrading bits as necessary works out far cheaper in the end and is generally more than adequate for running the games I want to play.
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I feel like buying desktop computers made as much sense as building them ten years ago, but today the components are just so much worse when you get a Dell or whatever. I built my first computer a year and a half ago (for my brother) and have built two more since. I’d never buy a pre-made computer, other than a laptop, again.
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I bought my current gaming laptop for university, but I’m regretting it now. The video memory has blown out twice in less than three years, and this second time the machine is out of warranty. I can’t replace the individual part so I’m just going to have to bite the bullet and build a whole new desktop (having sold my previous one off).
No more pre-built computers for me, no question about it.
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If by majority you mean “all of them” and by recent you mean “more than a decade”, then, yeah.
Even if you find a nice, fast, pre-assembled PC these days for a competitive price without one to three rubbish components in it to rip off the idiots (which, when I bothered to look, has been almost never) it’s usually some “OMG, GAMING!”-screaming abomination in a juvenile case with LEDs, window and such crap. Way too much of that around.. what happened to understated & stylish, like this sleek brushed aluminium Lian Li case right here? Haven’t seen a pre-assembled “gaming” PC like that in virtually FOREVER, it’s all in your face bling-bling you’re-going-blind-from-all-the-LEDs poser garbage so the other 14 year olds can admire it twice a year on a LAN, and on by mobile phone taken blurry pictures of it spammed in every other forum… seriously, what the fuck.
I usually order parts from a couple of different sellers, because even with shipping it’s often cheaper that way.. thus ordering all of them at a single one and letting that one assemble it would be perceptibly more expensive than the 2 hours or so it takes to get everything running myself.
And although it’s been 18 months or so since I bought the last graphics card, this 9600GT I got then as a cheap placeholder and my 30+ months or so antique e6600 (even at 350MHz FSB) are slowly but surely getting to their knees (didn’t expect them to last that long in the first place, I blame multiplatform-mania for the slowed progress).. so it’ll probably be this autumn that I’ll get something new – at least a new graphics card, albeit not exceeding a medium-priced one.
So, yeah, I buy parts for a complete PC about every 3-5 years, I guess. Otherwise it’s a few parts upgrade here and there at a time only, with most of the outdated stuff going into my second PC. There’s some relics in the current main one dating back probably near half a dozen years, too (drives/non-OS HDDs, mainly).
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Mac user here, representing.
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It’s no overclocked monster but I save lots of notes building and upgrading my own.
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Assembling PCs has gotten easier over the years. It used to be there were any number of cables that, if inserted in the wrong direction, would not work or break something. (moving back further still, the PETs from the late 1970s would blow their tape drive chip if you unplugged said tape drive while the PC was on)
Now they’ve got everything unidirectional, power-on warning lights, and even guide mounts for all those case LEDs and buttons.
Of course, they have new challenges too, like the god-awful Socket 775 fan mounts.
That said, the last one I assembled failed the smoke test when I connected power. Turns out one of the 10 USB ports on the board (none were connected to anything) cooked off. I couldn’t get the MB replaced even for an obvious factory defect like this (although nearly three years later, “Sparky” is still quite stable), so there’s another reason to get assembly if it’s offerred for a reasonable price (it isn’t here).
Prebuilt can be cheaper, by the way, if: A. The builder gets a better rate on Windows than you can. B. The builder takes enough money in exchange for bloatware. C. The builder makes most of the profit on add-on services.
Then all you need to do is reinstall windows and stop answering the phone.
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I use an overclocked Smithfield chip and a 7950 GTX and have done for around 3 years or more, adding more memory when necessary. When I get a new system, I’ll be going the whole hog again, find the best bang for buck that’s over-clockable and upgradeable.
My system before this had a Ti4200, so it lasted me ages too! Build PCs to last!
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Build my own, have for the last 10 years + (so since I was a young teenager). Find them cheaper, faster and more stable than any brand PCs I’ve come across.
As for Laptop gaming – I do play old stuff like XCOM, Civ II etc on my lightweight laptops. But whenver I can, play on my full desktop.
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Q1 other: I choose the separate parts wot makes up the machine from a single website, but the website also builds it for me before sending.
As an aside I had to fiddle around with some of the internal connections after delivery had dislodged them, this has probably given me the confidence to build it myself next time as it was easy-peasy.
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Q4: other – I have a laptop for (mostly) work purposes, so gaming happens on my (homebuilt) desktop.
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Usually, me and my partner work it this way – she knows loads about what components are what, which ratings are good, which cards/processors/stuff to avoid, and then buys them. Then, when they all arrive, I actually put the thing together. I know nothing of how a processor works, or what makes a good one, but I know how to install one (and all other components) successfully. Save for those fucking push pin screws you mount the fan and heat sink on for an intel processor. She does that, the last time I had to do that, after the 90,000th time the pins wouldn’t stick in, I broke down crying. As far as laptops go, my gods. We -tried- to buy a laptop that at least wouldn’t embarass itself for games, but the graphics card bottlenecks it so hard and can’t be replaced that we essentially vowed ‘never again’ (it, for example, struggles on call of duty 1. it has 4gb of RAM and a decent dual core processor. Yeah.) and have since started work on putting together a second desktop so we can actually game together. Desktops just make sense unless you have a ridiculous amount of money. Which we don’t.
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Laptops for gamming blow ass, they pick up so much heat you can cook things under them, the battery lasts half a minute, their cost is pure BS, fixing it can cost you your left ball,the current trend of “must be online” DRM will prevent the games from being used on it, they are incredible heavy and youll never feel confortable gamming with the onboard keyboard, pad and monitor (so youll need to carry a mouse or a gamepad around)
also i live in south america and pulling a 10k laptop on the bus is like painting a target on your ass but you guys might not care about that :p
imho laptops are just for doing office work and maybe playing half an hour of something simple like world of goo or plants vs zombies and some emulators (snes or scumvm or even psx) they should be light and cheap
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When buying a new gaming rig, I usually order all parts at the same hybrid online/physical store and ask them to do the assembly for a minor fee. I’m ofcourse fully capable of building my own pc. But I prefer to pay the shop to do it because that way, the hardware gets tested.
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I buy the components when deciding what computer hardware I want then I get a good friend of mine to build it for me and double check if it all fits together.
If I had more confidence (and more money) I would built my own computer a long time ago. But I do know how to upgrade the RAM or GFX card if needed.
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oh, as for desktop pcs, i build them myself mainly because in my country (and im guessing everywhere else) when they make a “retail” pc they throw in all the parts they will never sell separately, shitty mobos (particulary those that have everything integrated so you cant upgrade the vidcard), sata1 hds, useless 3d cards (or even worse, integrated, eww), crappy ram and so on, also its actually cheaper to just choose the parts yourself, i remember when i assembled this dual core 2 duo, i paid 800 bucks while retail boxes were 1.5 to 3k and they had worse hardware than mine (i did reuse some parts from my old one tho, dvdrw drive and stuff which you cant do if you buy retail)
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Recently I’ve been upgrading a fairly decent spec family PC, give it some new RAM and a 4850 but I’d like to make a PC from scratch within the next 6 months. I’d love to make a good desktop from scratch, monitor and keyboard included that can play games at the highest settings without framerate dips.
PC Gamer had a pretty good article on building a PC recently, the only bit that still makes me nervous is the guesswork of thermal paste
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If you can’t build your own gaming PC then honestly I think you should get a Mac. If your too lazy then well you should buy a treadmill and loose some weight. If you just have too much money.. then well I hate you.
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I upgrade my PCs quite often, but don’t build from scratch. I don’t really want the stress of messing around with processors and thermal grease and heatsinks, or installing operating systems on brand new systems, or troubleshooting systems that won’t boot.
I just bought a new PC from Mesh, where I specified what I wanted and they saved me the hassle of putting it together.
I’ll do the same with that as I did with the last system I had: over time I’ll upgrade it as far as the motherboard will go, in terms of RAM, Video cards, etc. It’ll serve me for 5-6 years, and then I’ll start again with a new base system.
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I needed a laptop so mine is storebought, and it’s not that awful despite being a year old; I played far cry 2 on it, no problems. It helps that i boosted the RAM in it; the graphics card can borrow up to a gig as well as 256 internal so i guess that’s how it copes.
My major complaint is heat issues, i need to invest in a cooling pad. Any recommendations for one that isn’t snake oil powered?
I don’t have to carry my laptop around a lot but i do have to get it to and from uni many times a year and it’s not just the size and weight of the unit; it’s making space for a monitor to travel safely in the car, and a keyboard, and a surprising size/weight of cabling that you never really think about. Plus i use it for music stuff so have to be able to get it to band practices sometimes.
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Always build my own. As for warranty, that usually goes out of the window the moment I start overclocking the stuff (Which isn’t all that difficult if you go after the manufacturer’s engineering specifications instead of some dodgy forum post)…
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Took the first tentative step of upgrading an old retail system a couple of years ago. Never looked back.
I can’t comprehend not building your own PC.. The only reason I can think of is not understanding quite how simple the process is. If that applies to anyone reading this: google it. You shall profit from it.
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Oh man, putting computers together. I’m so afraid of static shocking my money dollars away, or having the parts be incompatible with each other.
But my 3? year old laptop was falling apart! It’s poor gig of ram, lanky CPU and ATI x700 just couldn’t cut it anymore. Also the hinges broke so I had to have it lean against a wall. I put a new power supply and a graphics card in my prebuilt desktop and used that for a few months, but an embarrassing turn of events led my windows installation to break completely. And then the harddrive failed some SMART test. And there was some file missing in the BIOS. I really don’t know what happened there.
After enduring that laptop again for a couple more months, I asked a friend for a list of parts! He linked me to a barebones kit and I bought that. And then after three days of electronic toil and power supply nuzzling I had it put together! I also killed my thumbs getting that heatsink on, and I forgot to get a DVD drive, but my old desktop was still good for something.
If I can put together a computer, then anyone here can! It was a good learning experience, if not a bit terrifying.
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xD
sorry but i gotta post these… totally gotta think about them whenever i see this topic pop up anywhere ^^
http://megatokyo.com/strips/0650.gif
http://megatokyo.com/strips/0653.gif
http://megatokyo.com/strips/0660.gif
i’ve always Built my own PCs… Ok i gotta correct, my 386 was preassembled… but after that… woha! ^^
Just built another new system about 6 Month ago from scratch… saved a lot of money and has only carfully selected high quality parts in it.
And yes, i ordered the parts in like 8 different webshops… even with those shipping costs i still saved more money than the parts would have cost in one single shop…
and well… i work in IT, and i’ve seen guys working in PC stores and how they handle the hardware… believe me, it’s better and safer if noone except me touches my machines intestines ;)
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@wat
I don’t have to carry my laptop around a lot but i do have to get it to and from uni many times a year and it’s not just the size and weight of the unit; it’s making space for a monitor to travel safely in the car, and a keyboard, and a surprising size/weight of cabling that you never really think about.
I’m managing alright carting my desktop back and fore uni.. I just take fewer clothes to make the space!
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Similar to others I bought a pre-built/customised PC from cyberpower pc last year, been pretty solid despite some RAID problems. Have built PCs before, but with the last one felt I could justify the expense as, A) I could afford it for once and 2) working full time does limit the time needed to research, research and research, then purchase the parts, take days off work for the various deliveries (or pay through the nose for saturday deliveries), then spend frantic hours wondering why the whole thing doesn’t work once you’ve put it all together, because you didn’t do enough research.
But I would be happy upgrading it, maybe some more RAM and a new harddrive may be on the cards soonish
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Self builder here. Have been since getting depressed with my awful awful off the shelf HP back in ’99. I’ve built at least 3 PC’s myself and it’s been a worthwhile experience if just for the knowledge and practice and getting what you want. Antec cases are the grown up choice. Mmm, brushed aluminium monoliths. :)
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I voted ‘Other’ because I used to build my own PCs and have done for, oh… since my Pentium 90.
That was back when I had time to a) build them, but also, more importantly, b) stay up to date with the latest technologies.
These days I have less time and more money, so I will outsource my PC building to an expert (like Beast Computers, from whom I bought a water-cooled system two and a half years ago that still runs new releases in high-everything very smoothly).
Oh, and that might well have to last me a while longer, too. I don’t have the money to spend on my favourite hobby like I used to. Now I have to buy house stuff and girlfriend stuff instead :(
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I built my first PC aged 12 (would have been 1995) and I was working for a local computer firm by the time I was 15, building and fixing machines for a full-time job during school holidays.
I’d never, ever buy a pre-built desktop machine – I don’t want someone else putting their dirty little fingers in my pies private places circuit boards.
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I was long overdue a new build and put together my 3rd PC on Thursday.
I spent about 2-3 months researching all the bits, and made sure I was getting the best performance for price.
It’s a nightmare deciding between components sometimes, especially when you find conflicting information on the internet.
But come Thursday morning it was all worth it.
It was like my own personal mini Christmas, boxes and packaging everywhere.
It’s always a bit nerve wracking when you go to press the power button for the first time though.
But very satisfying when it all works.
And even better, now I get to play through all those amazing games I’ve been putting off until this very moment.
Although trying to stay away from spoilers for all that time can be quite a test.
So, anyone want to buy a P4 system? ;)
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Hmm, apparently I should have used “strike” not “s” for
strikethroughoh well!report
I’ve found you typically get better warranties on individual parts. Most of my parts have 3 year jobbies. Buy a prebuild one and it’s usually 1 year unless you upgrade it.
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I’ve always build my own pc.
I don’t trust those shops to build my own pc especially since I’ve worked at such places myself.
In my experience they tend to do it rubbish and then have the guts to overcharge customers, Of course most of the customers don’t know that.
I certainly need to upgrade my PC more often I can’t really play the new games any more. (such has GTA4 and Prototype)
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I used to build my own desktop machines, but I’ve become more mobile and switched to fairly competend Laptops a few years ago. Plays source stuff perfectly, manages STALKER and Fallout 3 in acceptable quality. Good enough for me.
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I was a little worried about my response for the GFX card question – I’ve not actually ‘bought’ a graphics card for five years, but I won my current one in a competition just under two years ago.
OK, so not really that worried, as I definitely would have bought a new one by now but, yeah ¬_¬ Saying that, I don’t see anything on the horizon yet that will cause me to upgrade my GFX card in the next twelve months – I can still run most things on their highest resolution and highest details without much problem, so this one (a 8800GTX 756mb) may last me quite a while.
As for building, well of the four computers I’ve ever owned, only the very first one was pre built and bought for me when I was 12. Ever since then I’ve always built. I dare say that in fact every PC after that first one is in fact the same PC, just upgraded gradually in a sort of evolution, but I’ve gone through at least three different motherboards by which I count as an ‘iteration’ of a PC, so when people ask I say I’ve had four computers.
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Laptop gaming i’ve found is always a game of compromise. Yes you can have a blistering-hot desktop, then water cool it to hell, as well as the biggest monitor, etc, etc. But with a laptop you have to balance the portability, heat, battery life, and hard-drive space, so you simply can’t get the same kind of spec or gaming clout. But if you’re prepared to make some compromises as espy hinted at you can still get some solid gaming on the go.
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I have a “gaming laptop” but I hate it with a burning passion, and really wish that I could just haul my desktop into work. Unfortunately, I’m a lazy bastard waaaay before I am a craftsman or electrician, so I can’t rig up some sort of compact compromise out of my arse.
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I recently bought a new computer. This was the first new computer I’d had in 5 years. I spent ages looking at all the bits and different options of purchase — fully made off the shelf, choose the bits and get them to make it, choose the bits and make it myself.
I went with the latter. Why? About £100 cheaper than option 2 for the same PC (I chose to put that £100 back into the PC to make it even better) and option 1 was a joke as I could never find out exactly which particular componenets the systems used, etc.
Aside from a bit of strife installing my dock-off heatsink (:() and the stupid case putting the psu at the bottom, no problems to be had.
also, all this shit about warranty:
The shops offer 1 or 2 years. So do the pick and choose guys. Strangely a lot of my individual componenets go up to 5 years (the corsair PSU and RAM, for example). Infact all the _individual_ componenets all have a warranty of at least 2 years. And this way I avoid any “open the case to void warranty” bollocks.
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If I’m going to spend 1500-2000 on a product, I sure as hell want to choose which components are inside. I’ve never seen a single machine with all the components i’m looking for, in a decent case. Even pre-built gaming machines, they have a gaudy alienware style case, or any other type of case with lights and huge plastic bits. Hideous.
Eventually I hope gamers develop a little taste for aesthetics, and stop buying cases with stupid perspex and aerofoils and LEDs. It’s the equivalent of having neons and tinted windows on your car. It probably looked flash and cool for 20 minutes in 1999.
Back on topic. When I spend that kind of money on something, I want it to be perfect, and the only way to get that, is to do it myself.
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I’m totally typical! Whooo!
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Also: I dislike the questions. It implies we’re all a member of that section of gaming that likes to buy new PC parts every 6 days, and for them to be the latest in cosumer technology, come with stupid LEDS all over them, cost a tonne, and for us top us the word “rig” to describe what is precisily a “computer”.
angry much?
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besides my very first PC (pentium 90) i build all my Pcs by myself. selected the best components for the little money i have and built it on my own. always done it that way, always will. this way i know what i got, know what i can do with the hardware.
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It’s a mix, for me. My most recent PC was purchased, but with custom components. The only reason I went that way is that I fancied a watercooled system but have no experience installing one and didn’t feel like taking the risk. And I have to admit, the cabling is a lot tidier than it would have been if I’d done it. I’ve since upgraded several components (and done some maintenance on the watercooler). I built my previous desktop from scratch (although that was a long time ago – I was relying on a laptop while at university).
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Currently, and for the last 4 years, been using my laptop as my main and gaming pc. It’s a little old now but still runs TF2 fairly well. My server upstairs, that I built as a gaming rig about the time a 1ghz amd was the dogs.
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I’m a bit of a laptop convert. I used to hate the idea of them, but I recently aquired a Samsung netbook. It’s quite low in CPU power, but it’s made me go back 10 years to all the games I missed (I recently completed Full Throttle, and installed System Shock 2 last week, although it still scares the crap out of me, so I probably won’t play it for a while). I’m also playing games like Ben There Dan That, which I would have otherwise played once and not returned to if playing on my desktop.
I do still have my ‘big’ PC, but it gets turned on about twice a week at best now. I will get around to building a new PC at some point (I’ve been planning that for ages) but right now I’m completely happy with my netbook. My Xbox 360 has also fallen victim to this new found love of laptops, and is sitting there neglected with a red ring of death, and will probably be never used again. Aww.
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Everything myself. I became better at it!
Applying new coolers is the worst job of all. Especially if they’re big passive sinks that tend to fall off, along with the RAM heatsinks that never stick.
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I recently bought a new gaming system and plumbed for a pre-build laptop. I need a laptop for easy portability to LAN parties and moving around campus when I go to university this September.
I went for pre-built because I don’t trust myself to safely construct a laptop system without frying the components or resulting in reduced functionality.
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For the first poll – other:
I’ve build one desktop PC from scratch, bought one second-hand and mix-and-matched some of the bits and my latest (only 2 months ago) I part-build, part-recycled.
So… yeah. Like that.
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Mixed feelings. Been building PCs since the late 80′s.
With regards to work, I use a corporate laptop, and stand by the philosophy that standardization and predictability of configuration is way too important to have customized machines. The number of custom machines in our environment has dropped to virtually zero.
At home, the motivation to build my own is partly performance, partly economics (a lot easier to upgrade to the trailing performance leader, as another poster said, I’ll get the $80 Nvidia 9800GT today, not the $250 bleeding edge. I also would typically buy a motherboard with cutting-edge memory tech., but only partially populate it, then get that same cutting-edge memory a year later at a steep discount.
The cycle time that used to be around a year now seems to be more like 2-3.
The other side of home is my wife: laptops are required. Originally I maintained a homebuilt for her, but no more. Standardization here is important too. Good to revert to a previous image of the build when things start going wrong.
The next step will be children, my toddler isn’t old enough yet, but I see a Classmate PC in her future.
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I will see what components online outlets are using for their machines and copy as best I can for my BYO rig.
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I’ve built my latest 2 computers that I’ve owned and I will continue to do so. I like knowing exactly what components are in my computer and that I can pick those myself. Most of my current components are quite old but can’t afford anything new right now. Don’t think I’ll ever use a laptop for gaming.
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Been building my own rigs for about 7 years now, and managed to only have the deaths of 2 motherboards on my hands in that time, self taught. Not bad, could have been far more corpses. One was from bending a mobo too hard to get a 3rd party fan on, the other mobo was sat onto of the TV for a while… i didn’t put it there, i’m assuming static from the TV was the downfall there.
Graphics card, about 12 months ago… 9800GTX.
Laptop, i have one for uni with integrated graphics. The best it can play (graphics wise) is World of Warcraft, so i just tend to stick older games or indie games on it. Constructor, Age of Empires, Lugaru, Mount & Blade, Trials… that sort of thing. Makes a nice change from play the more modern games/FPS titles on my PC.
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I have been building and upgrading my own PC’s fro about 4 years – after a friend showed me how. I suggest to all my friends and family that they should upgrade their own, but many of them are still too scared to build from scratch.
One tip for Laptop buyers out there. Don’t buy them online. Retail stores like Office Max, Staples, and Best Buy are always trying to get rid of their older stock to make room for the new – something online retailers don’t have to do as much. This forces the price down quicker and allows you to get mid-range laptops for much cheaper than online sites like Newegg and Dell.
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JKJoker’s right about “Gaming Laptops”: I’ve had a couple that could qualify as such in my time. The problem is heat. You can’t have anything capable of running today’s games without consuming considerable wattage. Heat cooks the battery very quickly. Then it starts to brak stuff down on the mother board. And all the static energy attracts dust. Laptop case fans cannot possibly be quiet, and they get multiplied too. The result is a heavy, loud, expensive machine that will give you 1 1/2 to 2 years of decent service before it starts to have serious problems. Game on a laptop? Get a netbook and play old games.
Oh and blinking, glowing “boy toys”: I have enough trouble passing off to visitors my twin screens and stack of electronics (Cable Modem, Router, NAS) in the corner to worry about flashing lights, LED readouts on my memory, and stupid stuff like that. That said, conservative parents take note: Fast-and-Furious PCs are a very effective means to ensure your male children practice an abstinence lifestyle. Rest assured that while that thing is blinking and whirring, no woman or man will want to sleep with little Johnny.
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Used to be and still sort of am a PC builder fan but I’ve grown tired of it & dread have to take things apart now. I would buy a pre-built PC but most just don’t have the flexibility of a self built PC’s that I’ve become accustomed to over the years.
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Even if you don’t buy the notion that parting out a rig is less cash than buying prebuilt, the big advantage for me is that I can reuse components. I dropped a chunk of change on a big aluminum case by Thermaltake, and that kind of expenditure only makes sense (imo) if you use it for several rigs in a row. I also reuse hard drives and when possible, and I typically use a sound card for multiple computers as well; my old Audigy 2ZS lasted through at least two rigs, and my current HT Omega card will be used in my next build as well.
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As gaming rigs go, the preassembled == cheaper argument is a myth, as many have said before.
The first time I unscrewed my box open with that glint of determination and fear in my eyes was when I upgraded the hdd on my trusty AMD K6. Being asked the cost of the HDD as an extra installation fee was what did it.
I’ve been building cases for myself and friends regularly since. The same manufacturer warranty applies for components in preassembled as it does for the components themselves, so I see no point.
The fact that when it comes to my gear, I prove my “I void warranties” t-shirt right only helps with decisions. Still, even if it weren’t for the sum of the money ‘ve saved building myself, I’d still do it for the sheer satisfaction of pushing a little fellow like my c2d e4300 from 1.8 to 3Ghz 5 minutes after I’m done assembling the box, and enjoying stable, top notch performance that’s comparable with stock options 3 years after building. ( of course, complimenting it with a decent and much more expensive graphics card helped :P).
The stability in hardware combinations concerns are pretty much a thing of the past now, if you do your homework before buying. Which, with all the forums and user input, is rather easy nowadays.
Total control over specs and performance, and as others have said, noone else touching my precious, precious components and data.
To anyone hesitating, try it. Start with an upgrade even, but make sure you give it a shot. You’ll have more respect both towards yourself, and the box you built ;)
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I stopped building PCs because I got fed up with components refusing to work together, or SATA drivers for the motherboard refusing to work, or the design of the motherboard being such that the graphics card covers the only SATA slots on the thing which actually do work.
I feel like I’m getting too old to deal with that kind of nonsense. I just want things to work, dammit.
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I build my own, often from parts I scavenge from my brother and cousin (who are more concerned than I am about being ahead of the hardware curve). Works for me.
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I still purchase my PCs, but the last one was an entirely custom build–I picked out the parts, they did the assembly. I do my own maintenance/upgrades, though.
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I either build all my PCs myself (since I was 15 or so at any rate, yes I did indeed buy them myself, took all my savings) or at least I decide on exactly which components that should be included in a build.
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laptop section needed an answer along the lines of “i don’t have a laptop I play new 3D games on but the likes of nethack / stronghold / quake 3 etc. sometimes get played on it”
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I AM LAPTOP MAN! So, no building for me. On the other hand, if good games start straining the ol’ girl (not-quite-top specs for moderate power 18 months ago!) I’m poised to build my first desktop.
Or just have a cup of tea. Time will tell.
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What? No option for “I use my laptop for work, chumpy?”
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I did have a gaming laptop for a while, but it was so heavy, and had such a short battery life, that it could really only be described as a portable desktop. This time round I ploughed the money into a pre-built Core i7 PC instead – it has a rubbish graphics card by default (a Geforce 9500 GT 256mb, anyone?), but that’s getting replaced once the DirectX 11 cards start appearing.
I also game on my netbook. Was amazed that Guild Wars is playable, and it runs Deus Ex and No One Lives Forever fine.
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I used to love building my own PCs from scratch, but nowdays I’d rather buy a pre-built one and just tinker with it.
Less headaches and I still end up with a machine that satisfy my wants and needs.
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I “upgrade” my PCs and haven’t actually ever bought one shop built. However, since I only upgrade about once every 5 years I don’t really count as a “normal” pc user (I’m guessing the average upgrade cycle is about every 2-3 years). I built my last PC in January though, so for the purposes of these polls I come across as some kind of early adopter… which amuses me somewhat
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I don’t think laptops are rubbish, I just don’t own one as I already have a desktop. No answer for the last question then.
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My current PC is the first time I’ve built my own, though the previous one was from a website that allowed you to select all the componants and built it for you. Think building yourself gives you a satisfying – if unhealthily nerdy – attachment to your rig.
Might be why I’m always referring to my PC as my Life Partner…
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Hah! Like Gulag, my PC is also the computer hardware equivalent of Trigger’s broom. I’ve incrementally upgraded the same PC since 2000, yet not one single component of the original 2000 build can be found in the current build. Yet it’s the same PC!
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Like Teo said, I buy customized PCs from specific, trustworthy companies, just because I find having a warranty to be invaluable.
I have a gaming laptop – maybe by the time I buy my next one, some two years or more from now, the “bang for buck” ratio to desktops will be slightly less ludicrous.
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I build my own, but loathe the CPU+cooler part of the process. Would never use a laptop for 3D gaming – for that you need a big screen which makes it too heavy and cumbersome.
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I build all of my desktops from scratch. I use a combination of NewEgg and Fry’s (outpost.com) for getting all of my individual components. I am fairly meticulous about each and every component and piece of software installed though, so I don’t think anyone else could build them but me. Well, they might be able to, but not without being driven within a millimeter of their sanity like some Lovecraftian overlord. I fully acknowledge my irrational and overwhelming compulsion to have everything done in precisely the way I think it should be.
The fiancee also acknowledges this, and sticks to her own sloppy, haphazard, and quite horrifyingly cluttered computer which I do not even walk near for fear of its disorganization spreading to my machines like an airborne virus that not only kills you, but installs crap software while it is at it.
My laptop is for my consulting and coding work though, and I bought that from Dell. It’s a Latitude something or other. There isn’t a single game installed on it simply because I don’t want distractions when it is time to get things done.
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I simply hate retail PCs. They are so extremelly crappy, outdated and expensive.
I’m also surprised to see how much people upgraded their videocards 5 years ago. I though I was one of the few. I’m even more surprised how well my GeForce 6600GT still can keep up with (some) modern games.
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Long ago I used to build all my PCs myself. I used to be a PC technician and was very familiar with it and up to date on the latest stuff. Now, I’m a programmer, and even for my gaming rig, I bought a stock Dell with a couple of upgrades. Since my gaming proclivities have turned away from graphics card stressing FPSs and the latest realistic RPGs, and toward my Xbox 360 for many game, I may never buy a new PC again. Though, I may invest in a netbook for working while I travel…
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Build my own PCs, upgrade them, keep my graphics cards updated (with midrange cards, which tend to be able to run just about anything more than a year old at full settings, and new games on high), and would never use a laptop for any kind of serious gaming, regardless.
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I buy a new, high-end motherboard every two or three years. I reuse the old case and power supply if possible. And I buy a midrange CPU and GPU to save money and energy. When the “hot new” CPUs and cards come down in price and manufacturing process, I upgrade those and sell my old components. Actually it’s avery economical way to game on the PC, and I can usually play new games at decent framerates for very little money.
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Bespoke all the way (many out of habit). I generally put a couple of hundred into new parts every year or so to keep the rig up to date, and cycle the upgrades. Last time I bought a 9800 GTX, suitable PSU & Coolmaster case. I expect next year I’ll switch up to an i7 processor, MB & DDR 3 Ram set. I find it a lot easier to justify that than going whole hog every 2-3 years.
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Don’t build my own, but shop from a retailer which lets you customize which parts go in to a near-ludicrous degree. For me, that’s the best intersection of ‘exactly what I want’, ‘backed by warranty’ and price.
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I used to build my own, but lately I’ve been custom ordering systems. That is, I select the components, they put it together. It’s handy from a warranty standpoint, and saves me a fair bit of time and trouble for very little money. I do my own upgrades, of course.
I bought a new graphics card 2 weeks ago because my earlier one had apparently been damaged by my previous computer (which had power supply issues).
I bought a new laptop back in October and splurged a bit, figuring I wouldn’t be buying a new one for a long time. As a result, by modern standards, it’s fairly impressive for portable hardware.
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I’d build my own if I had some magic guarantee that it’d work. I feel bad for buying pre-built PCs, as I know I could probably get the same thing cheaper (and more expandable) if I picked the components myself. I’m just not brave enough to take the plunge.
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No, never – laptops are rubbish.
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The toughest part of building one’s own PC is just figuring out what parts to buy in the first place. After that, it’s just slotting chips and connecting cables. Maybe turning a screw here or there. Considering the massive savings and the ability to build a PC that directly addresses my needs and not what the PC manufacturer -thought- I would need (and most of them are aiming at clueless techphobes, so are -way- off), I can’t imagine ever going prebuilt. This is also one reason why I would never run a laptop as my primary or gaming computer. (The other is that laptops are either ridiculously underpowered for gaming – and get more so quickly – or cost ridiculous amounts of money and still aren’t really up to desktop standards.) I also just plain don’t think they’re portable enough to be useful in that regard. If I find myself in need of portable computing, I’ll get a netbook. Cheap, small enough to be usable on the go, and enough power to do anything productive I might need.
Of course, I only whole-hog built my system once, back in 2001 or so. It’s been a steady cycle of upgrades since then.
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I have built my last 2 PCs and build my dads last PC and gotten all my friends to build their own and helped most of them build the first time, many are now on their second self-built. Financially more sensible since if you know what you’re doing the components will usually last for years.
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Addendum: Also, I really wish I could build my own Mac. I much prefer day to day operations in that OS, but I’m having trouble even justifying the purchase of a low-rung one to replace my PowerMac G4 (from 2000), which still runs fine but is too underpowered to run new iterations of the OS, much less anything else at all fancy. They’re just so expensive next to what I’m doing on my PC.
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My current, and in fact only, PC was originally built by a family friend and I only had a small hand in selecting the components. Over the years it has substantially morphed through component failure and minor upgrades such that only three original components remain (CPU, soundcard and the case). The next system will probably be a complete self-build though.
@ Richard Clayton:
I volunteer for a local charity which, among other activities, re-uses and recycles old computers, so they do exist. As far as I’m aware charities/nonprofits of this sort tend to be fairly local so your best bet is probably to keep an eye out for one in your area.
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I selected and purchased the individual parts of my computer but I had never built a computer before and didn’t really have any sort of guide so I decided that I would let a local computer store build it. They did a shit job with the software side (bluescreens related to drivers that took FOREVER to fix) so next time I’m just gonna do it myself.
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Thanks Howard and ManRaisedByPuffins. I’d read about these charities sending out PCs to Schools in Africa etc. but don’t know how to contact them (not have I tried to find out as yet) or whether they build from components. I’ll have a look later and see what I can dig up.
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Laptop’s the option for me, though it’s more a desktop replacement than laptop.
Since i’m still at uni and don’t know where i’ll end up next (if, as is likely i start a PHD then I’ll have stayed for various lenghts of time in about 5 different locations over a five year period) it’s much easier to have a laptop.
Once i settle down I’ll get a desktop but I’ll most likely buy that from retail or get a friend to build it – I’m too lazy to do it myself.
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Built it myself.
Although next time I might let the guys from the shop do it. But in any case, I want to handpick the components.
Can pick the components you really want. Medium to good processsor, good (well around €200) gpu card, lots of ram and a huge HD. Still only cost me around €700 last year. And no, no need for crappy wireless on board cards, tv cards, card readers or a radio in my PC.
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I have 4 PCs at home, three homebuilt, one netbook. Probably the only major component I upgrade is the graphics card, other than that I tend to build an entirely new PC every 18 months to 2 years. My old PC gets passed to my son, and his PC to my daughter, so I always have a couple of PCs capable of running recent games, just in case my main PC goes down. My Asus EEE 1000H occasionally gets used for emulators, half-life or peggle.
I really enjoy building new machines, but it is quite tense when I turn them on for the first time.
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I built my current pc back in Christmas 2006, and quite honestly I can’t recall having the same pc for so long. I’ve upgraded the graphics card once in that time frame, along with adding an extra 2gb of ram but the main components are still the same.
It’s still going strong at this point, but I’m starting to get itchy feet for an upgrade! The Problem is i’ve not been able to rationalise it, as what I mainly play (wow, tf2, etc) still runs fine at near enough max everything.
I’ll build my next one myself again but I would probably consider buying a custom built pc from a reputable source, if the benefits of doing so were worth it.
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My laptop is an eee PC, so I said it was old and neglected. That’s a lie though, but it’s the closest. I use it to play Q3A, HL1 and EVE, but I intentionally bought a weaker smaller computer so it would be easier to assert my dominance over it! Yeah, I’m still my desktop’s bitch…
Anyways, it would be nice to have another category on the laptop question.
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I used to build all my pc’s. Then I got a decent job and didn’t have a screwdriver after moving countries. Silly I know, but I bought a dell for not much more then if I’d made it myself. It was soo much less hassle I don’t think I’ll ever bother to build one again. I’m sure as hell never building another one for my family.
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I used to mess with every component of my systems, but that was back in the late 486 days, when CPUs didn’t even have heat sinks, and when I could pick up used machines for $50 and play with the parts to my heart’s content without worrying about breakage.
Those days faded, and I was left for the longest time in a state of being fairly confident when popping PCI/AGP cards and RAM in and out as needed, but unwilling to go any further (e.g. messing with heat sinks), and I had shops do all my initial assembly for me.
It’s been very liberating to get back into full system assembly and realise that for all my fussing and worries that the system will never actually boot, it inevitably does anyway. My best success story was getting my CPU down from 65C (stock cooler gone bad) to a max of 35C (awesome heat tower with near-silent 120mm fans everywhere).
I still sometimes let the shop do the bare-bones assembly (mobo + CPU + stock cooler), but only because it’s free and comes with a warranty. I wouldn’t want them doing anything that involves wiring, because the Antec P182 has taught me the magic of proper wire management, all nicely tucked away behind the motherboard.
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Built my PC myself and have done so for about ten years. Most pre-built computers here in Sweden are expensive and underpowered, or simply expensive. Besides, putting a pc together is fun, and not nearly as difficult as some people seem to think.
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@malkav11
True that. The golden rule in my book is to buy a decent motherboard over everything else. An ok Processor you can always overclock, and Ram you can always replace or double up on, but a barebones motherboard will always hold you back.
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I got my first PC at a local computer shop, and it was pretty lousy, but it worked. The next PC I specced out part by part and built it by hand – the result being an economical gaming machine with a tendency to refuse to boot any time I installed a system update. By the time I finally got it stable the internal components were out of date, so I added a few upgrades, which brought their own breed of problems. About that time, Macs went intel, so when I upgraded from an old G5 to a Mac Pro, I just installed Vista on a partition and used that. Oddly enough, it’s been my most trouble-free gaming machine to date…
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When I was a child, I played with Lego every day (only toys I had)….what? Yes, that’s probably why I love putting my PC’s together myself. Fun stuff to do.
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home made beast :D
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I carve my PC myself from slabs of black onyx. I score tracks and pour in molten silver. It looks cool, but the shift to 32nm was rather tricky.
Seriously though, building a PC is a piece of piss nowadays. Everything goes together like lego, and Windows picks up almost everything before you even load the supplied drivers.
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I always build my own. It’s been just over two years since I built my latest rig and it still runs things great. No need to upgrade in the foreseeable future.
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I suspect this is part of your full on plot to get advertising money?
I sometimes buy stuff used so I don’t have to do the building but in general I build them. Even if I get them used it’s essentially bare bones and heavily upgraded after I get it.
Most of my pcs are based off of server boards though.
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I get an error message when trying to take part in the poll (using Safari, so that’s probably it). Anyway, I’m a mac user so..
1) I don’t build my own machines.
2) I’ve never done so, but I might given a mac which allows for such (I have an iMac and I doubt that I could easily install them).
3) Never. I could very well get one if I get a more beefy mac, should I have need for one.
4) Nope. Nothing against laptops, I just don’t feel the need to take my computer with me wherever I go.
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I have always built my own computers for gaming, my media center or anything else I need computer wise. Had a laptop didn’t last long power controller fried but I was never happy with it so I haven’t felt like buying a new one, mainly cause I can’t fix the hardware myself.
Current Rig specs
Koolance PC4-1036BK Liquid Cooled Aluminum Full Tower Case Black (displaces 1000watt of heat)
Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe Wireless Edition Motherboard
AMD Athlon 4×4 Fx-74 Dual cpu for Quad core – only quad on the market 3 years ago
BFG Tech GeForce 8800GTX 768MB Water Cooled OC Edition x2 for SLI goodness
ENERMAX GALAXY 1000W Gamers Power Supply
mushkin 8GB (4 x 2GB) DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel
Swiftech Apogee GT Water Block x2
Fluid XP+ Extreme non-conductive coolant
X-Fi XtremeGamer
Klipsch 5.1 THX Cert Spekaers
Logitech G15 Keyboard
Logitech G9 Mouse
Dell 2405fwp 24″ Monitor Primary
HP f70 17″ Monitor Secondary
SataII Western Digital Caviar 320gig main os
SataII Western Digital Caviar 500gig installed games
SataII Western Digital Caviar 1tb all other files
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oops the mother board is a Asus 4×4 – L1N64-SLI WS, forgot to update that
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I have always built my own machines. It has always been cheaper, and more often than not, having all available software/drivers ready next to the machine comes in far handier then having to search for them, make phone calls, etc.
And don’t get me started on pre-installed software. >.<
I usually end up putting together a brand new pc every four or so years, so I generally don't upgrade specific parts unless they die.
Recently, however, I've started to think about paying someone else to put one together for me though. Honestly, putting a machine together has only gotten more complicated and more frustrating as each individual part has its own compatibility list that you pretty much have to check beforehand or risk returning it wasting your time and money, not to mention the sheer number of them.
Its gotten so bad I've even pondered upon the idea of running a collectivized information site that would let you input your part and it would bring up its compatible components without forcing you to go to each and every other manufacturer's websites. Then again, that would be a huge headache too.
Still, if you can live with the headache, building your machine is the best way to go.
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I have never not built my own system.
I tend to customize them highly, too, for silence and performance. (Right up to machining my own hard drive racks out of aluminium.)
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I got a pre-built system for Christmas a few years ago, and have since replaced every single part of it besides the CD drive. I’ll probably just keep upgrading it. No sense rushing out and spending a bunch of money on an entirely new batch of parts when I can just buy them one at a time.
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I’ve built my own desktops since I was 12 (that’s a decade now). It is cheaper and more fun! I’ve built three enclosures from scratch, one of which was a unit I built into my custom-fabricated desk. If there’s anything I hate about computers these days it is this trend towards obnoxious, retina-searing LEDs and cathodes. I pretty much despise case windows, too — I don’t give two shits about what the insides of the PC look like so I hide them away. I care that stuff’s properly seated and wires are out of the way, mind, but I don’t need to constantly peer inside to get a techno-stiffy off the internals.
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My first PC I had built to order in the shop – the rest I’ve made myself.
I could try to pretend I do it because it’s better value for money or that you end up with better component but that would be a lie. I do it because I’m a huge geek and I enjoy it. Doing all the research into which components to get and from where to get them. Having all the parcels arrive on my doorstep. Best of all is the little burst of nervousness when you’ve assembled all the component and press the On button for the first time – will it jump to life with a quiet yet contented purr? Or will it go BANG and toast several hundred pounds worth of silicon.
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@Jambe:
Technostiffy is an awesome neologism, or should be at least.
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I always have and always will build my own boxes, in fact in the past 5 years i’ve built over 1500 boxes, as it is my chosen profession. MMMMMM, did a OC’ed i7 today, I was super temped to take it home with me.
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Wow guys your readers are major, humongous nerds.
I am too, of course. Yes, yes, 6 months, and sometimes, for my answers. The truth is I never play modern games on this laptop (that I am typing on right now, in bed, decadently snacking on raspberries), but I ought to, because it should be able to run them.
I bought an ASUS GeForce GTX260 a few months ago but it may be the cause of the freezes and BSODs I’ve been expecting since then. Which would make me very very sad. Or it could just be a Win7 thing. Or both.
Uh but I digress.
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Can I has non-lonely hearts adverts on my favourite PC gaming website? I’ll gladly take PC component parts over flirty-titty-eye contact. There’s nothing worse than lying in bed next to my girlfriend and having to explain why I’m viewing a website with soft porn on it. Please find a new revenue stream chaps.
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I love my Rock:-
http://www.custompc.co.uk/labs/125903/rock-xtreme-ctx-pro.html
Just had the 7950GTX replaced under warranty.
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Kenny: It’s an Evony ad right? They’re flooding Google ads with those, it’s a pox on the entire internet right now. Evony is probably an identity-theft scam of epic proportions, which steals content from other games, so yeah, nasty business altogether. There’s no way to block them without getting off google ads altogether.
Anywho.
My current PC is the first one that I’ve assembled from ‘scratch’ with parts I bought online. I got an Nvidia 8800 with it, and haven’t really felt the need to upgrade it since then so I’m probably a generation or two behind.
My last PC before that was a barebones rig off of Amazon or EBay or something, meaning it had the case, motherboard, and CPU already assembled. I was too scared I’d break the chip or warp the motherboard or mount the fan wrong or whatever.
I bought a gaming laptop about 2 or 3 years ago. First mistake was going to Office Depot first, an office supplies store that just happens to carry computers too. Second mistake was buying it from the first store I went to. Third mistake was buying a gaming laptop. Altogether I paid 1,000 $ for a not very good laptop, and six months later it lost the ability to regulate its own heat and can’t do any type of gaming whatsoever.
Hell, browsing with Firefox and multiple tabs isn’t even a good idea with it. It once overheated and crashed just from reading Rock Paper Shotgun with ads enabled.
Unless you’re living out of your car, or you have a bunch of money you just want to throw away on a gadget, stay the hell away from gaming laptops is my advice.
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I fell into the trap of thinking a laptop could be good for gaming, proud owner of a Dell XPS M1330. Then the nvidia graphics flaw came to light. On third mobo atm, and its starting to give signs of this one giving in too… To be fair though, the thing does run at 95*c when gaming (I’m not sure if that is 95*c, or if thats just where the mobo’s thermometer maxes out).
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(pressed opinion too quickly!)
SO for me it’s desktops all the way. Though this one is struggling with my new 1900×1200 screen, time to build a new one? :D
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@cncplyr: that was why i bought my last pc – the old one didn’t really like games in 1920×1200, much better with the new one. Almost a year old now, so it’ll probably commit suicide over OFP2 or Rage.
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I have a netbook I just bought. So I can’t really answer the laptop question. I use it for playing X-Com terror from the deep, the only x-com game I missed during my leap from amiga to pc. Can anyone recommend other good netbook suitable oldies? I do use steam and gog.
Genres that would suit me on this platform are strategy (turn based pref) and adventure espec. point and click. Bear in mind I’ve covered lucas arts and the first broken sword.
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I built my computer about a year ago now. Cost me ~1400 (Canadian) and it’s a fucking beast. Short of games that are just poorly optimised, I can run anything maxed. I think the best part of it is the 9800 GX2 that I got for 190 dollars. I’ll probably use this til about 2012 when all the new hardware starts rolling out and upgrade then.
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I’d usually prefer to build a PC myself, but sometimes you find package deals from suppliers that are better than what you can put together individually.
My current system is a MESH computers corei7 one, which i picked up for a relatively cheep £850 back in march. As they literally supplied a tower, vista64 install disk and the mobo disk, it was very basic, but after looking around at buying those parts myself it would have worked out over £100 more expensive for the same stuff (the OS pushed it over the 100 mark really).
The big thing for me was getting a really good mainboard and processor as i like to make my PCs last a long time. The i7 920 and the mainboard were over half the cost of the PC. I do alot of 3d work and rendering can be a bastard, but going from my old P4 box to this was like taking a hop step and a high speed train to along way away very quickly. Render times on my uni work dropped from 15 mins a frame to ~2 mins and working on models over 1 mil polys was suddenly possible haha.
Since then i picked up an EeePC for all my mobile needs, which worked fantasticly till the SSD died, so it’s now on it’s way to ASUS to get that fixed. The eee was also my first step into Linux, which was interesting. Watching my piddly laptop boot quicker than my shiny fast desktop was a bit depressing heh.
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Last video card i bought was 2 years ago, i haven’t upgraded not because i don’t want to pay for it, but because the 8800 gts still runs pretty damn near everything at full settings.
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As to “other,” I’ve both built my own PC and bought them from retailers. The former is too much hassle and the latter is too expensive and often you can’t get quite what you want.
I’ve seen mwave.com mentioned before, which is essentially a parts shopping place, a la tigerdirect or what have you. For a few extra bucks, though, they’ll assemble everything and test it for you until it works (this last bit is the rub with building your own. Never having enough parts to swap out to see exactly what the hell is broken.)
I haven’t tried them personally yet, but I look forward to getting my next PC from there, which will probably be sooner rather than later.
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I don’t want to be chained in place, I see the desktop as a ball with an invisible chain, and as a person who likes to bounce about, I find it insufferably restrictive. My first laptop rather effortlessly outclassed the best desktop I’ve ever had anyway, and that was the clincher for me.
Since I’ve started using a laptop, I have had desired mobility, and if I’m going to do something in an MMO with a bunch of friends and it’s a sunny day, I can even take my laptop outside on the patio and game there! That’s not exactly something I could ever do with my desktop.
If I feel like lounginig, I can hop into a comfy chair and lazily poke around the Ages of the D’ni in Uru, or play something else more cerebral, and the whole experience is rather homogeneous to (or at least a modernist equivalent of) relaxing with a good book.
I might get some extra performance out of a desktop, if I buy the very cutting edge technology and get back into the cycle of upgrading every few months, but given the choice of a little extra performance, or the personal freedom a laptop grants, I’d quite merrily opt for the latter, whenever asked.
Besides, the whole upgrade cycle was an incredibly tiresome and arduous process that I’m glad to have washed my hands of.
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I usually build my own pc’s, but I’m certainly not against buying pre-fabs if the price is right. Tiger Direct had a really good price on a high end (for me) refurb’d media center last thanksgiving that was about $100 or $200 cheaper than i could have built it for.
I haven’t gotten into the gaming laptop scene; I mostly just can’t justify the price difference, and I rarely am gaming anyplace besides home anyways, so it makes more sense for me to just have a desktop, and go through the arduouse task of carting it around to lan parties two or three times a year. I have an eeePC for little stuff, and it serves it’s purpose well.
@Clayton Hughes – if you keep an eye out, it doesn’t take long to have way more extra pc parts than you could possibly need. I’m currently running Win 7 on an ATI vid card circa 1997, while i wait for my new GTX 260 to come in =P
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@Wulf – while whether you actually -need- the extra performance depends entirely on what you’re looking to do on your computer, the performance difference between a fully hand-built desktop PC and an equivalently priced laptop is in no way little. And that laptop will stay at exactly the same performance point forever, while the desktop machine can keep pace with a $150 card here, a $250 CPU/motherboard upgrade there, etc, over many months.
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@Ourdreamsoffreedom: What kind of store do you shop at? I’ve never heard of a place that would do that for free. But, on top of that, I do enjoy putting the computer together myself, even when I do invariably get pissed off at it when SOMETHING doesn’t work.
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Dunno why people knock laptops.Personally,when I can only afford 1 computer,it needs to be…portable.
I own a 5yr old HP Pavilion DTR. 17inch screen,2.8GHz P4 processor,512MB RAM,64 MB(yes,I know)Radeon 9200 graphics card.
I had to change the motherboard once under warranty,and have traded in a 60GB hard drive for a 120GB.Handles Ground Control brilliantly, CnC Generals,Act of War Direct Action,Dungeon Siege and Sins Of A Solar Empire very well but chugged in BFME2 and CnC3 Tiberium Wars.
Next computer will also be a laptop,as soon as they suss out the whole USB3 thing.Before then,RAM and HD upgrades.Probably.
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Another person here who has put his own pcs together but when the guy at the shop does it for 40 bucks and helps me source all the components cheaply there is no real point. Would never buy pre-packaged though.
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@Jerricho
Either you’re running one heck of an overclock, or you don’t know how dual cores work. :P
I’ve built the one PC that I’ve ever personally owned, which I’m typing on right now. I’ve done some other random upgrades as well.
It’s going to be two years old next month. I’ve made two upgrades to it thus far: a ram upgrade (I can’t resist good sales), and a graphics card upgrade (my old one died of a hot and wheezy death). I fully expect most of my parts to last for a long, long time. All of the parts that don’t constantly change formats were purchased in hand-picked high quality. However, my Mobo/ram/gfx/cpu were purchased for mid-range prices. All I have to do to overhaul my system is replace those components.
I’m a big fan of midrange parts. I don’t need to be cutting edge, as cutting edge costs an arm and a leg. Price for performance is almost an exponential curve. Related to this is my total lack of desire for multiple graphics cards. If you can afford a second card as an upgrade path, you can probably afford a newer card that has twice the performance. The only possible need I would have for more than one card would be to support more than two monitors. I recently replaced my old (mid-range) graphics card with a new (mid-range) graphics card. For the new one, I paid half as much, got a card that’s two inches shorter, runs 20 C cooler, and get about 150% extra performance. An Ati 4850 for 75$. That was an awesome sale, and timely, too.
My next potential upgrades (not sure when) are the CPU (which is getting old) and a new hard drive. I can get a terabyte of hard drive space for about 80$? That’s gonna be purchased sometime soon.
I’m also twitchy about heat sinks. I don’t overclock, and I don’t want to watercool, but I’ll do just about anything else.
Oh, and for people who don’t like flashy cases, go take a look on newegg for the Antec P182 SE. It’s a perfect example for a case that I love, but I would never buy.
Also useful for computer building is the use of Hot Deals sites. Any given week and I can find ridiculously good deals on most anything. Often the exact part I’m looking for. I think my current computer was purchased from three different websites, with different sales running at each place.
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Same as first poster:
Select components but let the system be built by someone else (covinience).
I upgrade components myself though if needed (toying with the idea to replace my E8500 with a Core 2 Quad right now).
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Only thing left from my original PC (Dell XPS P2-300 circa 1998) is the speakers. Everything else has been chopped and changed by me over the years. About the only thing that’s still awkward nowadays is swapping the motherboard, and that’s just time consuming rather than scary once you’ve done a couple.
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I’m going to guess at most of the commenters here being under 30.
I used to build my own, too, back when I had more free time, less disposable income and no wife to complain about boxes full of cables and motherboards and things cluttering up the office.
These days I buy off-the-peg, because frankly my free time is too valuable to spend figuring out why the fuck the machine has begun bluescreening after a about an hour since boot when before that it’s been running perfectly for several months. The difference in price, when factored into the time between upgrades, is pretty damned negligible, plus whilst individual *parts* might have warrantees if you build your own, that doesn’t fucking help if you don’t know *which* part it is that’s causing your machine to go belly up and your wife is whinging at you because you’ve covered the living room in computer parts and you’re getting stressed because the problem is intermittent and not simple to track down and… yeah, fuck that. I just want to play some games. If something breaks, I’ll phone the supplier and they can sort it out. I deal with enough computer-related cruft during the day at work; I’m not doing it at home, too.
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Best bang for you buck is to build it yourself (or at least buy the components and get someone to build it for you).
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Build your own is great fun and easy. Better parts for less money, and the educational benefit of trial and error.
I dont know why more people who want gaming machines dont do it themselves, or at least get a nerd mate to do it for them.
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Always build my own. had my 8800GTS replaced a few months ago by a HD4850X2. This was because the 88′s memory malfunctioned. Got the 4850 free under warranty.
My laptop is mostly for work in the train and on school. So that i always carry my files with me in a workable condition. But i do play games like Unreal Tournament 2004 and Half-Life 2 on em. Runs pretty decent. Also OpenCiv 2 and games that are more playable in the train.
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I had a friend build my original gaming machine. it was never quite right tho, and when one day it died i decided to just do it myself.
ive had so many components through this system now i cant even remember everything, started with a skt 939 and now on skt 775. i’ve decided to give this generation a miss as my overclocked Q6600 is pulling its weight very nicely and i just dont need i7, as tempting as it is.
the next upgrade is an SSD and a nice new 24in IPS panel. I pretty much always have my eye on something on the horizon
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I’d personally pay 10% over the odds, just so I could build it my self, I enjoy doing it that much, it takes me to my happy place.
(At one point, in a progressively more fucked up relationship the only way I could get to sleep was rehearsing in my mind how I would assemble my next PC)
Mind you, I used to work for a pc manufacturer (Evesham micros, sorry), so in all I’ve probably built about 2500 and something machines, most of them were the same though, but I did learn that ESD is not a problem, and that the biggest thing to worry about is bending the pins on the CPU.
Also, that motherboards will still work even if you accidentally knock a capacitor off. Well, it worked long enough to install windows and shove it out the door….
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phuzz you bastard! That’s why my mum’s Evesham PC was a pile of poo!
Agree with others that self-built is best if you can stomach the work. Nothing beats booting your new rig for the first time and throwing the most intensive sparkly new game at it and seeing how it does.
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Normally choose the components and get it built for me, though I have built up Desktops in the past. What I did this time though was choose what I roughly wanted (4870, quad core etc) and then waited till it was on a pre configured sale, was still built the next day for me but I saved about 100pounds and actually came to less than if I bought the components separately and built it myself.
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Build them myself. I am considering getting someone else to put together my next one, as I fear I screwed up my thermal pasting/choice of heat sink. Heat and fan noise are my biggest issues with my current machine. Of course, only time will tell if I let someone else near my innards.
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I choose “other”, as I have been using a mixed approach over time. First I bought cheap assembled PCs on sales, cherry-picked the good components, and slapped a new graphics card and maybe a bit extra ram.
For my latest PC, tough, I bought all the components individually, and had a friend that works in IT come over to help me assemble it. Since then I’ve built a low-performance rig for LAN parties from old parts and I feel pretty confident that I will be able to fully assemble my next machine.
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Also love my 2 year old laptop, still boots like its a fresh install even though its chock full 2years of uni files and loads of other stuff, still not to bad for games for whenever I’m out and about, visiting the parents or if I’ve got a friend round an we fancy a bit of TF2
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I’ve built the last three PCs myself. Gaming on a laptop – other than very simple games like Peggle – is unthinkable and even a little comic to me.
I consider quitting PC gaming for good, but I guess I will always have some mean to play my old PC games.
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@ Fixxxer667
You’ve just given me a stomach punch of nostalgia there. My first PC was an AST machine with a Cyrix 5×85 chip. Trying to keep that thing competitive certainly earned my ‘I VOID WARRANTIES’ T-shirt too. After abandoning a very circuitous route to give it USB support I invested in a bunch of kit based around an AMD K6 and built my first first custom rig. It had an ATI Rage Fury :) I got a lot of miles out of that card. It went into three subsequent machines between myself and a friend.
I can’t fathom a pre-built machine. I enjoy putting them together far too much. My only complaint these days is that all the fun is over too quickly… though I have found myself putting extra effort into careful placements of components and wires for better airflow and such… but I’m really just milking the experience. I should probably get myself some mechano sets instead.
@ DarkNoghri:
It’s an AMD X2 2.6GHz chip. I figured in a thread about building custom machines that readers would figure out the maths for themselves.
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@ FiXXXer667
You’ve just given me a stomach punch of nostalgia there. My first PC was an AST Vision with a Cyrix 5×86 cpu. Trying to keep that thing competitive certainly earned me my ‘I VOID WARRANTIES’ T-shirt too. I eventually abandoned a very circuitous plan to give it USB support in favour of investing in a bunch of kit based around an AMD K6. It was my first custom build. It gave it an ATI Rage Fury card. :-) I replayed all my old games on it for comparrison, Deus Ex and Jedi knight showing the greatest improvements. That card lived on into three subsequent machines between myself and my friend.
I personally can’t fathom buying a pre-built machine, I enjoy putting them together myself far too much for that. My only complaint these days is that the fun is over far too quickly. Thogh recently I’ve been putting extra time and effort into careful postioning of components and wires for improved airflow and what-not, but I’m really just milking the experience.
@ DarkNoghri
It is an AMD X2 2.6GHz. I figured in a thread about custom PC builds that readers would figure out the math for themselves.
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Gah! WordPress ate my first post but now I see its there. Could someone please remove this comment and the duplicate message please. thank you.
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I got my first PC when I was 16. A 486 DX33, and whilst I didn’t assemble it myself, I did install a CD-ROM drive in it.
(A single spin CD-ROM drive that cost something like $800 Australian).
I think I probably caused my parents a fair amount of frustration fiddling with and upgrading the family PC (both before and after getting one of my own). However, the skillset learned got me a part-time job doing desktop support and started off my IT career.
So don’t get too mad if your teenager wrecks your/their PC (save it up for when they’re 22, have just dropped out of business school, and it’s clear that it didn’t have any positive benefits).
Anyway, Whilst I can appreciate the “I have too little free time and enough income to not bother” sentiment, these days if I do hardware stuff at work it’s mostly on high end server gear, so I find that building my own PC or putting together something for my family/friends lets me keep abreast of what is going on in desktop land. I’ve just learned to steer clear of building stuff for anyone incapable of doing their own tech support after the fact (except my parents, I figure I owe them some competent tech-support)
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Have built all my own for the last 10 years (it doesn’t seem that long). My warrenties have only lasted long enough for me to get all drivers, patches etc installed. I have only owned one graphics card over the last 10 years that kept its original heatsink (6800GT flashed with 6800 ultra bios, stock heatsink was good enough to hold up under the incresed Vcore to the GPU and a 15% overclock)
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ditto like a lot of people; pick and buy the parts (right down to the case) and have the store assemble it for free. most in my TO neighbourhood toss it in. will probably upgrade the memory card in 6 months.
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I built one PC and made a lot of bad choices, the thing was riddled with problems. My current PC is a laptop just for the portability (I traveled a lot last year). I want to build another PC now that I know what not to do but I’m still squeezing some use out of this lappy.
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I’ve built every PC I’ve ever owned apart from this one, my gaming laptop.
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I find the cheapest, easiest, least likely to fuck up path is to buy a Dell model that’s on sale then trick it out at home. My current PC is a Dell with the memory and graphics card replaced, I’ve been meaning to get a new one, though. Looking at the site, I can get one with an integrated graphics card, but a Core 2 Quad and otherwise modern hardware for less than $650. Can’t beat that.
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I have built every desktop PC I have owned since college.
I used to build them for friends and family too back when it was way cheaper to build them from parts. However, when budget PCs could be had for $500 or less it became harder to justify building one for word processing and Internet usage.
I bought a gaming laptop recently (XPS 1330) but, if I were to go the desktop route again, would build another in a second.
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What really sucks is that my main PC gaming self build just blew up two days ago. Now I’m looking at replacing the ram, mobo, cpu and PSU. Spending that much money will not be fun.
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I bought a customised a Sager NP9280 from XoticPC to use as a DTR in Japan. Wish I actually had a desktop though…
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