Building PC vs. Someone building PC for me

Tim Miller

Tim Miller

Well-known member
Tax refund check is coming soon. It is all pretty much going toward a editing PC for me (roughly $1800).

I want to attempt to build it myself because I know I can get some good deals on Newegg and Tiger Direct.

But

There is a store that just opened down the block from me that builds cpus. Good guys but as you all know they cost extra. The thing that attracts my wife to it is 1) they know 100% (or claim too) how to build a cpu and 2)offer a pretty nice warranty (all the manufacturer warrantys and 4 years of their own on it).

So what is a guy to do? or say? This is a lot of freakin' money for us too because my wife is currently out of a job. Any advice helps.

:dankk2:
 
i'd be safe with the money....meaning if you are going to build your own comp, be sure to know EXACTLY what you are doing. if that cpu that you build breaks, then you and your wife are not going to be happy. she'll think you wasted your money and will say "i told you so" and you'll be pissed off at yourself when you buy everything, put it together and then find out it doesn't work.

whatever you do, just make the right choice. those guys may cost a little extra, but if they have an excellent warranty on their work then i think it would be the best idea to just have them build it.
 
It depends on how much they charge. An extra 4 year waranty is pretty sweet, and may be worth it for that reason alone.
 
I built my own system about two years ago as a novice and think for the $100 that they were going to be charging me would have been worth the cost.... Although it worked out and is what I'm still using right now I think I ended up spending more$ that if I had bought an instore system and added a few sticks of ram or an additional hardrive..... Especially after my Power supply overloaded and fryed my Motherboard about 8mnths ago..... luckily my CPU or other comp's weren't affected.

Still my next computer will be a store bought one I'm sure something along the lines of this computer that you might find a pretty decent deal check it out


http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage...t&productCategoryId=cat01172&id=1134697737705
 
If the cost for them to build it is doable for you and your wife and they provide a warranty, I would say to let them do it. Otherwise, expect to spend some time on google doing a little research.

I dove right in knowing nothing and have build 3 computers now from new egg; One of them being a stout editing system. Between instructions that normally come with the various hardware and google, it is not too bad. The key for building a PC is to make sure that everything is compatable. You can google this and also check the customer reviews at new egg. If it is a popular item, normally people post what they are using the item with and how it worked out.

If the folks at the new computer store that you mentioned are truly good people, I'm sure they wouldn't mind giving a little advise if you run into any trouble.

Also keep in mind that a new PowerMac G5 2GHz dual processor is $2,000. Buy an adapter and use your pc monitor and your are livin' large. I'm a bit biased toward Mac though. I bought a Mac a few months ago to replace the editing PC that I built (cost to build=1,600). I love the Mac!
 
Here is the run down of what I ordered from them with the price tag attached:
Evercase Black Midtower USB 350W ATX - 69.99
Lite- On XJ-HD166S 16X DVD-ROM Drive - 34.99
NEC DVD+/- RW 16x Black - 59.99
AMD CPU Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core 2.2Ghz FSB2000 Mhz - 599.99
Kingston Memor 512 MB x 2 - 131.00
Sapphire ATI Radeon X800 GTO PCI-E 256MB - 189.99
Western Digital WD800 JD 80GB 7200RPM - 79.99
Windows XP Pro - 159.00
ASUS Motherboard A8N-SLI Premium - 199.99

Sales Tax 110.25

Total $1636.49

I made basically the same thing on New Egg and would save around 3 to 400 dollars.
 
I hope your picking up the XP pro 64bit version, also like I mentioned a 350watt psu
might be a little low once you toss in a bunch of extra's keep in mind extra HD's I think I have a 500watt....Also your HD seems overpriced? I don't know about the model but I recently bought a 200gb Wester digital for 89.00 CAD so ? but like you said that's that computer store.....
 
Build it yourself and save some money. If you stick to popular mainstream components, you shouldn't have any problems. Also, what good is a 4 year warranty if the business only has a 50% chance of lasting 6 months? If you want a warranty buy a Dell and an extended warranty, because they have a pretty decent chance of being around in a couple of years. But frankly, I hate these big manufacturers with their proprietary components. Building a box is pretty straightforward and there's a ton of stuff on the web that can walk you through it step by step if you're unsure of something.
 
Zack, you can build your PC yourself and save money, but if something goes wrong, you'll end up dragging to the guys down the street and paying through nose for them to fix it. If the guys down the street build your PC and offer a warranty, then you might pay more now, but when your NLE fries your motherboard, you can haul your unit down the street and the guys who built it will have to deal with the problem. Don't look at your computer as a piece of personal life, like a dog, but as a tool. As others have said, you might want to buy from a nationally known company. As for the posts above who say that if you stick to popular mainstream components, you'd have no problems? I'd take that with a grain of salt, just having had an HP DVD40 go bad one me and take down my soundcard as well.
 
Just thought I'd throw my thoughts in as well.

I built my PC around this time last year and it's crashed on me once since which was my fault. Making sure everything is compatible is definitley a good idea and it optimizes the speed and performance of your rig. I use mine for editing and general use and it runs rather well. I've overclocked it as well, but that's not a good idea to attempt unless you know what you're doing or some have background in computers.

I'll list my computer specs to let you know what I'm running.

AMD Athlon 64 3500+ 939 pin
ASUS K8V-SE Motherboard
200 gig Western Digital 7200 rpm HD
1 gig Dual Channel RAM
550 w PSU
16x DVD ROM
8x Dual Layer DVD Writer
Floppy--always a must =P

This setup runs pretty nicely and overclocked even nicer. It only came up to about $1000 CDN so it goes to show that it's definitley cheaper than buying one from your local Best Buy and you get lots more out of it.

I'd say if those guys can build you a nice computer, do your own research and hear what they reccomend and decide from there. Good luck!

-Kegan
 
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