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Best place to buy a pre-built gaming PC?
- Thread starter Kyne
- Start date
Yup just compare spending ~$800 at Digital Storm:
vs bargain hunting for your own self-built rig (also ~$800):
Nah, there are too many things that can go wrong, even today, if you're not willing to really dive into building your computer. Also, I don't understand this "it'll be worth it" mentality. Why would it be worth it? I can change the oil in my car myself, but I don't see any achievement in doing it myself over paying someone else to do it and not have to worry about the hassle.
The Reloader
Member
I wouldn't call incredibility easy. It's not hard, but it's not super easy. I built my first PC about a week ago with literally zero experience and zero exposure to terminology. You have to be extremely careful with each piece and some instructions are not clear. I cross-referenced about 5 youtube videos and even asked GAF for help mid-build and in all it took about 6 hours from everything laid out on the table to first power-up. Some scary moments though (I almost scraped off some surface-mounted elements on the motherboard with the screwdriver!)
If you feel you can build it and have to time to do the research, do it. Otherwise, get it built.
Well I'd say it's worth it if you can save hundreds of dollars..
allotheabove123
Banned
Not if you do your homework. Putting together a PC is easy when your parts are guaranteed to work together (which also isn't hard to figure out).
silvermember
Banned
True but changing an oil only cost 35 bucks. Building a computer can save you over a 700 bucks and last you longer, so that is not a good comparison.
The only reason you should not build your own computer is IF you are totally clumsy, but ( I was voted clumsiest in high school and I still built my own computer). Building a computer isn't that difficult in the age of youtube. When I built me it wast he first thing I ever built in my life except for food.
The hardest thing for me was finding good deals, but building a computer isn't hard past installing the CPU on motherboard, it does take some research though.
BibiMaghoo
Member
To put a 1440x900 monitor in that built is a fucking travesty and you should be ashamed and possibly punished in some manner.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
You're correct. To some people that $50 will be like a hassle free insurance. I was just trying to spice up some romance...
Thanks for the post. I would definitely leave it to a $50 professional.
My last PC was prebuilt through Maingear and it was fine, but since I let my friend pick out the parts (assuming he knew more about computers than me) I got screwed on the performance of it, it was not what I wanted. But again, the company was fine.
Depending on the person, that may not be a big deal. I've had a lot of people I know try to build their own PCs and it turned into a nightmare for them, to the point where they wished they would have spent the money to have a professional do it for them. They should be given the choice, of course, but the attitude that "anyone can do it" is kinda naive.
You're correct. To some people that $50 will be like a hassle free insurance. I was just trying to spice up some romance...
Hey baby, I know you're a striped RAID and I'm mirrored, maybe we can get together and be all RAID 5.
Woody Invincible
Banned
#dead
Man I remember the first time I built my rig and freaked out because I didn't get a post. Realize that the cpu fan wasn't plugged in and it worked. It was like building Frankenstein.
What Bibi said.
Dude...c'mon.
This too.
Because you build it, you know what you are buying - you are doing research. You then know how to tinker with the system to crank it up a few notches.
I spent like month of researching before buying my stuff - checking the compatibility, overclockability, you know every Hz you got there, every GB.
Before I even owned my first SSD drive, I've learned everything about it before even touching it - and then having it and working with it, optimizing the OS for best performance, how to best preserve data and longetivity of the drive.
Taking each pin of every fan and researching what what where in case would do the perfect airflow? powerfan? switching power going into fans to controll their speed? Loading profiles on RAM in BIOS to get the speed you really bought? CPU-Z, GPU-Z, stress testing of CPU, GPU, overclocking.
Turning off the LED on case because it is so freaking bright...
Sweat, anger, satisfaction, performance...
Love it.
ed: Oh man..haha..good luck on buying your gf's PC and ignore this post since it helped you in no way.hh
Honestly the days of "it's much better to just build it yourself" are over, imo. There are so many good options out there for either buying top pre-made machines for a good price or vendors who will assemble it for you for a low price. Years ago, we all had no such options.
And I say all this as someone who has built his last few PCs.
And I say all this as someone who has built his last few PCs.
Barkley's Justice
Member
The last PC I bought ready-made was Velocity Micro:
http://www.velocitymicro.com
Really liked everything about them (and of course the PC).
http://www.velocitymicro.com
Really liked everything about them (and of course the PC).
Gumbie
Member
Had several people I know use www.ironsidecomputers.com in the past. Hassle free and great customer service. They will make a youtube video of your completed build if you want them too. Here's an example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D9__uU4z-o
You can find a lot more on their channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D9__uU4z-o
You can find a lot more on their channel.
matrixman92
Member
i thought building a pc was going to be impossible for me. I had friends over to help, but it ended up being easy as Hell. The only hard part were stupid wires for LED lights on my case that I never use anyway.
Then at the end being confused for 45 minutes as to why it wouldnt turn on, until we realized we had to flip the power switch on the case before turning it on
I've been down sampling for ages since I built the rig back in April. I essentially was in a situation were I was buying one or two computer parts a month. Income situation changed where I had to settle for my current monitor (my newly acquired car became a huge monetary investment). I'm gonna upgrade my monitor sometime this year hopefully but this was the best I could do as a budgeting college student
. #donthatejellies_two
Member
This is BS (not the girl, just the general idea is misleading). Sorry,
I directed a smart 14 year old gamer, with a non computer literate family, and he had no clue where to look.
I gave him a parts shopping list from gaf. He got the parts, paying 25% more because its australia, then read/watched everything I sent him about building PCs, then used the wrong screws to mount the motherboard, so I had to come over and work that out and fix it. Then he assembled the cpu fan tower the wrong way, so I had to fix that. Then he buggered up three tiny pins in the socket 1170 (somehow) locating the cpu, so we had to RMA the board but not after I wasted two days trying to work out why it would not POST and believe me, there are lots of potential ways to waste time figuring out why a board doesn't POST, and since he didn't buy a $1 pc speaker, and I could not be assed driving around to find one, I had to stick two wires from the speaker out terminal into my mouth to taste the number of beeps it was issuing.
Then the pc parts place said they had to return the board to asrock to see if the warranty would apply or not. Then there was such an immense delay, he gave up waiting and just bought another board. Then despite the drives being recognised in bios, windows would not install, but the error message from windows installer was FUCKING USELESS, so I had to come over and muck around eventually saw the hdd wasn't in sata1 so got things moving again (maybe he didn't have it in sata1 because it was physically inaccessible under the graphics card, but why should it matter anyway), but there are lots of reasons windows might not want to install and debugging them e.g. changing bios settings to check, takes a lot of time, then I had to help him decide what bullshit from the asrock cdrom should or should not be installed, and advise him on a wifi card and the right monitor, and finally, he got a working steam setup, and went back to playing minecraft.
Note, he did a lot of things right, I'm making him sound terrible, but he had to work out which cables in the boxes to totally ignore, how to wire up those stupid fiddly pins for reset, power, led correctly. How to mount the drives and what to do with the case fans, etc etc, referring to manuals that come with the parts printed on shitty paper in tiny fonts with low-res black and white pinout diagrams etc.
So yeah a 5 year old little girl can do it.
If you've built PC #1 before, or extensively screwed with a few pre-built PCs, you can build #2 and especially #3 onwards easily. No argument. But that means you're trained.
BibiMaghoo
Member
I've been down sampling for ages since I built the rig back in April. I essentially was in a situation were I was buying one or two computer parts a month. I'm gonna upgrade my monitor sometime this year hopefully but this was the best I could do as a budgeting college student
Haha, sorry. I thought it was just an example build. I have one as a second screen above a 1080p laptop screen, and every time I drag a window to it, I die a little inside. That rig deserves much better.
I actually was originally planning to buy an Alienware X51 and just replace the GPU with a 970 GTX down the road. I wanted it because I wanted a computer that looked nice, console-sized, and was easy to move. My cousin convinced me to build so I instead went with getting this http://www.silverstonetek.com/product.php?pid=503 in black to go with the rest of my media center.
Me not choosing the X51 actually didn't have anything to do with price because the X51 actually has pretty decent pricing. It was more of the fact that you were limited to such small options on the PSU that putting in a GTX 970 would become a risk. With the build I just put together, I'm going to end up having a faster, cooler running PC that has more options if I need to do anything in the future. The only bad thing is that it's bigger than the X51 I think. My only future upgrades will be to the SSD and maybe GPU, but I don't intend on touching this for 5-6 years lol
Me not choosing the X51 actually didn't have anything to do with price because the X51 actually has pretty decent pricing. It was more of the fact that you were limited to such small options on the PSU that putting in a GTX 970 would become a risk. With the build I just put together, I'm going to end up having a faster, cooler running PC that has more options if I need to do anything in the future. The only bad thing is that it's bigger than the X51 I think. My only future upgrades will be to the SSD and maybe GPU, but I don't intend on touching this for 5-6 years lol
It does. I was looking at that newly released 4K Philips monitor but decided to hold out on a 34"-40" screen with adaptive-vsync/FreeSync.
Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew
Banned
Oh baby, I'm getting all wired up! Did you bring the thermal paste?
If there is a micro enter anywhere near you is try them. It's build your own pc month and they have lots of discounts when you bundle processors and motherboards and storage. They will build it for you for $100 also and that gives you a 1 year warranty for them to fix anything in the store. I built mine 2 years ago and it's still great and that way you get all the nicer motherboards instead of crap components.
This, and NCIX in Canada.
There's some okay deals to be had, but pretty much everything is going to be $300+ more expensive with lower quality parts in that price range.
Go here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=944920
Use those builds. Done. Move on.
Reddit's PC community is a tragedy and should generally be avoided. It's moderated by kids so obsessed with being right, that they often just look at data for bias confirmation, and end up giving really bad advice.
theusedversion
Member
Every thread about prebuilt computers is always shitted up by people feeling the need to bring up building your own.
OP, I bought an Alienware X51 and absolutely love it. Highly recommend.
OP, I bought an Alienware X51 and absolutely love it. Highly recommend.
alife
Member
I've known how to build computers and tinkered with them since I was 9 years old (Mother worked for Apple, Digital, then MMS before retiring from the field and step-father worked at Digital, MMS, Lam Research, and has been at Intel for 15 years or so now) and saved up enough money to build my own, no hand-me downs, when I was 13. The only help I required since I first started playing with computers was how to install Windows by the time I got to putting together parts I bought myself (Windows 98 SE just came out), which I turned to one of my older cousins for help with, formatting the hard drive via DOS and so forth. Building your own rig will always be the better option but that's not to say that pre-built PCs are terrible, just not the best bang for your buck. I encourage anyone to build their own PC(s). It's similar to driving a manual transmission vs auto. With manual, I have more control. To some it may seem intimidating but if you're willing to read a few tutorials, watch some Youtube videos, ask for help from friends/forums, it's easier than you think. And yeah, a 5 year old did it. The only tedious thing about building your own PC is reinstalling all your shit when it's that time of the month to reformat.
But if you absolutely have to purchase a pre-built PC, I'd recommend Velocity Micro. Streamers advertise iBuyPower too.
Edit: And as _illmatic_ pointed out which reminded me what I was looking for, Falcon Northwest.
But if you absolutely have to purchase a pre-built PC, I'd recommend Velocity Micro. Streamers advertise iBuyPower too.
Edit: And as _illmatic_ pointed out which reminded me what I was looking for, Falcon Northwest.
Informed consumer decision that goes against your personal decision = shitted up. I love it. Warrior harder plz.
_illmatic_
Member
I always build my own rigs, however if I was gonna spend money on a prebuilt desktop, I'll have to go with a Falcon Northwest.
http://www.falcon-nw.com/
http://www.falcon-nw.com/
theusedversion
Member
Its off topic and unnecessary. Name calling is classy.
Seventy_X_Seven
Member
I just got my first gaming PC last week and I also wanted something pre built but ended up buying parts instead for better value. Man, when everything showed up at my door and I'm just looking at everything with no clue where to start, it was a bit overwhelming. First day I put everything together and buying turned on, so frustrating. The second day though the little light turned on and the fans stated spinning and boy oh boy was that a great little feeling. After I got Windows installed and booted up my first game to see it running smoothly . . . I'd say that feeling is worth building on your own. Especially when you look back and realize it's really quite simple but you just made it hard on yourself.
It's not OT at all, it's warning the person about the objectively worse decision they are making by buying a prebuilt. If you've noticed, a lot of the people suggesting not to do that aren't saying "build it yourself". They're suggesting that the person pick parts out and have NCIX, Microcenter, or a local computer store assemble it for a small fee.
Then you have the upside of a prebuilt (tech support and not having to build it) with the upsides of a custom built, being significant performance improvements and higher quality components.
Winning post lol. He's got to keep us updated what happens during the OS install lol. Jokes aside, building it yourself is super easy, and you'll make your lady happy.
It is OT because it's not what the OP is looking for.
And there's dozens if not hundreds of interested people looking at the thread title and clicking in for legitimate advise about buying pre-built. Including me.
I've built before, but I'm honestly over it. And I'm also in a place where my time is more valuable than my money. So I opt for pre-built.
When I click this thread I'm looking for the latest info on the best sources. Not lectures about how "easy" building myself is. Or how "real" gamers do it themselves.
There's plenty of threads dedicated to building your own rig. Leave that OT business out of this one, please.
I used them for my new computer back in July and haven't had any issues with it,will probably use them again whenever I want another full build
honestly I don't know why everyone suggests building it yourself when sites like this exist
even if you don't mind putting it together the very thought of parts possibly being doa and having to figure out which part the problem is then send it back and get a new one etc makes me cringe
Yup just compare spending ~$800 at Digital Storm:
vs bargain hunting for your own self-built rig (also ~$800):
You've also learned how to put together a PC which in the digital age is equivalent to knowing how to fix car
-MD-
Member
I bought an IBUYPOWER computer back in 2004-2005 and the guy I dealt with was so shady, anytime I called he'd say his name was different when it was clearly always the same guy answering the phone and he threatened to send me a broken computer after I complained that my 2-day shipping delivery was taking over 3 1/2 weeks.
He actually did send me a broken computer, then made me pay $200 to send it back to him for a refund. I see people recommended them these days so maybe they're better but I could never recommend such an asshole company to anybody.
He actually did send me a broken computer, then made me pay $200 to send it back to him for a refund. I see people recommended them these days so maybe they're better but I could never recommend such an asshole company to anybody.
I think fixing cars are a lot more expensive, labor intensive, way more time consuming, and difficult to pin issues.
I don't think that this comparison should be brought up anymore.
I didn't know NCIX started doing this for the past 2 years but I feel this is the best deal you can find for getting the best quality components you can afford and having someone else handle the assembly.
For parts I recommend
MSI GeForce GTX 970 OC
Intel Core i5 4690K Unlocked
Intel 730 Series 480GB SSD
ASUS Z97I-PLUS Itx LGA1150
Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced mITX Compact Aluminum Case Black
G.SKILL Sniper SE F3-14900CL9D-8GBSR 8GB 2X4GB DDR3-1866 CL9
Microsoft Windows 8.1 32BIT/64BIT English Retai
Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200RPM SATA3
Seasonic G-550 Gold 550W ATX
PC Assembly and Testing With 1 Year Limited NCIX System Warranty
It's a bit over budget after you factor in shipping so adjust the items if you feel it is necessary.
The only parts I wouldn't change are the CPU, GPU, Motherboard and SSD (unless you are just getting a smaller SSD drive. Just stick with the Intel 730)
usually you can find Nvidia cards by typing GTX plus the number, I recall having to modify my search criteria on their site as well when I was a noob...I realize you wont know the number but obviously NCIX has more than three NVDIA cards available...some arent in stock, especially if they recently went on sale, so if you leave the parameters wide open its better.
I bought my rig pieces at NCIX and got my neighbor to help me build it...count be happier and although I got a wide variety of companies like asus MB, aftermarket MSI lightning GPU, different company for power supply etc. they were all on sale and I got a pretty decent system. Now I can just repalce one peice at a time and never have to pay big for the whole system at once again.
I really wanted to take part in the buuilding anf learn something...the only thing is that there is no warranty if you do it yourself. The guy I got to do it doe s it for living and it worked out, but yeah I would recommend you pay the $50 to NCIX ot do it if you domt care to be involved, as you therefore get a 1 year warranty on the set-up and even if a part is faulty it will be on them to get it right for you for one year.
Thanks for reading my post.
Still, if there was an OP that said, "I only want to buy a car that is overpriced and performs much worse than good options", you don't want people to point out the obvious issue? Okay.
I bought mine from ibuypower and it was fine...until 2 weeks later the MB died and I had to RMA it. If you've ever replaced a MB before then you know, you might as well be building from scratch. Then the HDD died and I needed to reinstall Windows.
Moral of the story here is that PC gaming by its nature is going to require some type of expertise in hardware and software configuration and installation. You might as well learn now if you're serious. It's also part of the charm and most grow to love it.
So there's my charactetistic GAF plea to not buy pre-built. If you must though, ibuypower is fine.
Moral of the story here is that PC gaming by its nature is going to require some type of expertise in hardware and software configuration and installation. You might as well learn now if you're serious. It's also part of the charm and most grow to love it.
So there's my charactetistic GAF plea to not buy pre-built. If you must though, ibuypower is fine.
-MD-
Member
Nobody do this.
Memorabilia
Member
I just built my girl a new Steam box system that doubles as a homework machine for school. I put it in a tiny little case and it runs most games I can throw at it.
Unless you absolutely cannot or will not do the construction yourself its worth the time. There's something satisfying about your girl knowing you put it together for her. As long as it doesn't fall apart.
There are already plenty of good tips in here about which components to pick. But one of the main ones to consider is what size case does she want? If you want to build her something really compact n cool looking there are some great custom ITX or M-ATX cases out there. Also, something to keep in mind is imho its difficult to find an off the shelf system that doesn't look corny/cheap/tacky.
Unless you absolutely cannot or will not do the construction yourself its worth the time. There's something satisfying about your girl knowing you put it together for her. As long as it doesn't fall apart.
There are already plenty of good tips in here about which components to pick. But one of the main ones to consider is what size case does she want? If you want to build her something really compact n cool looking there are some great custom ITX or M-ATX cases out there. Also, something to keep in mind is imho its difficult to find an off the shelf system that doesn't look corny/cheap/tacky.
theusedversion
Member
There's a reason the X51 has its own OT. Its because its a fantastic PC.
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