Comments on: RPS Asks: Do You Build Your Own PC?

By: caffeinedreamer

caffeinedreamer — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:02:14 +0000

I bought a customised a Sager NP9280 from XoticPC to use as a DTR in Japan. Wish I actually had a desktop though…

By: Little Green Man

Little Green Man — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:51:40 +0000

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.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:55:43 +0000

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.

By: Jetsetlemming

Jetsetlemming — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:29:56 +0000

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.

By: drewski

drewski — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:53:16 +0000

I’ve built every PC I’ve ever owned apart from this one, my gaming laptop.

By: Max

Max — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:02:50 +0000

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.

By: tbit

tbit — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:42:37 +0000

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.

By: cannon fodder

cannon fodder — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:30:54 +0000

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)

By: vagabond

vagabond — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:06:35 +0000

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)

By: Jerricho

Jerricho — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:08:41 +0000

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.

By: Jerricho

Jerricho — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:07:06 +0000

@ 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.

By: Jerricho

Jerricho — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:56:00 +0000

@ 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.