Is even cost effective anymore to build your own PC?

Question

I've been doing research into building my own desktop and it seems like, these days, it's not as much of a savings to build your own case as it used to be.

I put together a wish list of all my desired components on Newegg (with a budget of about $1200), and in the end they pretty much equaled some comparable pre-built systems that they offer there (give or take a $100 here or a Blu-ray burner there).

Am I just not going to the right retailer or what? It seems like building my own system would only be for fun and not for savings or mod-ability.

Answer 1

You don't necessarily save money building yourself, except by not adding crap you don't need, as large builders benefit from economies of scale ( ie, they are able to buy in bulk at a discount) what you do get is exactly the parts you want, configured as you want, with much more potential for upgradeability.



Not that you cant build yourself cheaper, but it often depends on some degree of recycled parts, for example assuming your old case and optical drives are fine, use them rather than new ones, etc.



I would only buy a premade computer if I would save more than say 25 percent doing it and I would be satisfied with it pretty much the way it is for the forseeable future.



ps. the otherway you can save money, if you are into it, is by overclocking. my current system was built when money was fairly tight, so I used a cheap CPU (e5200) but overclocked it to a level that made it comparable with an e8500) and it will take the fastest 775 cpu's made, so now that money is a bit more available I am looking to change the chip, about a five minute jod. The chip I will be getting has falled enough in price since I got the E5200 that the difference will have paid for the 5200.

Answer 2

Building your own computer can be cost effective, the thing here is when you buy a Dell you are buying the cheapest products that they can find. so if you go to newegg and get the non-namebrand motherboard that you would normally not get that cost 50 bucks then that is where you save money. if you get the good stuff you will pay a little less then the retailer but you will have a higher quality product then you will ever get from Dell. I always build my computers and usually save about 300-400 from what I would pay from a pre-built.

Answer 3

I would recommed buying a custom built computer off of ebay at a very good price here at this page:



http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/GAL-PC-E5200-DUAL-CORE-500GB-4GB-9500GT-1GB-GFX_W0QQitemZ390099479259QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_DesktopPCs?hash=item5ad3bdaadb