Knowing how to maintain your PC and how to optimize it for gaming are the basic things. You can’t say yourself a true PC expert if you haven’t built a Computer. Taking parts of a computer and showing your magic on them by building a complete working PC are one of the Best pastimes of a true PC enthusiast.
Building a PC instead of buying it gives you a complete freedom – whatever parts to choose and so on. But it is not the best choice always; Companies who build PCs for consumer markets have many advantages over DIY PCs. Let’s see how…
Messed up wires, holes in Liquid overclocking, Fried PSUs and more
Imagine thinking building a $2500 PC – a monster rig – and you mess up something, the result may be a heavy paperweight. Sounds cool? Not at all. I don’t mean to discourage or insult anyone but that may happen on DIY projects whereas on Pre-Built PCs it is not your problem. Their wiring, RAID setup and PSU
(Power Supply Unit) configuration etc. is almost always perfect.
About Warranty? No Warranty
Almost all parts of PC ship with at least one – or event more – year warranty. That should assure most of us. If any part messes up, sometimes it is easy to be benefited by warranty but it is not always.
Sometimes part manufacturers just blame the fault of other components such as Motherboard maker may say that the problem is caused by Power Supply. Whereas when you by a pre-Built PC and a problem shows up you just have to dump the PC at manufacturers Service center – rest the problem is theirs.
It is easy to upgrade always.
A PC is a PC, and upgrading a PC is simple in any case either it is a DIY (Do it yourself) PC or a Pre-Built. There are some Pre-Built PCs who are a little bit difficult to upgrade, but in most of the cases all you have to use is a screwdriver and you are good to go.
The Eye Candy
Talking about the Beauty of the box… you have a lot of choice, the $130 NZXT Phantom 530 case is just one beautiful example. For more aftermarket customization there are not so easy options. A lot of Pre-Built PCs do come with custom designs and sizes. Several high end Pre-Built PCs look a lot hotter than same range Cases.
Building is not always cheep
Sure you can get a killer deal on amazon for motherboard, PSU and any other thing, but wait; OEMs don’t buy parts from that websites. They order the parts in a bulk and that’s why the same part will cost you more than them. You may get more Bang-of-the-Buck on Pre-Built PCs
What to do…
At first just after you have thought that you need a PC you should make your budget and then check online if any Pre-Built PC is available for you, if not you always have the option to get your hands dirty and build it yourself. And if you are lucky enough the new PC is just a few clicks away.
Image Credit: Sean MacEntee on flickr, Intel Free Press on Flickr.
