Hi, So I'm new to this hardware forum, but not to PC building, If any of you are redditors I come from http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc, http://www.reddit.com/r/gamingpc, and http://www.reddit.com/r/overclocking. Feel free to stop buy and ask us any questions 

Note: Please read the sidebars for rules on posting in each of these subreddits

As some of you may be considering buying prebuilt over building it yourself, I have decided to make a post about the differences between the two. 

First I will make up a pro's/con's list between Pre-built and Self-built.

If you are interested in building yourself here are some great DIY youtube videos to follow

Part 1 - Choosing Your Components http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPIXAtNGGCw

Part 2 - The build http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_56kyib-Ls

Part 3 - Installing Windows & Finishing Touches http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxaVBsXEiok

Self-built Pro's

• Much cheaper parts
• More variety on the choice of parts
• Easier to RMA(return merchandise authorization) parts that arrive DOA(Dead on arrival)
• Only have to ship back that one hardware piece that you are RMAing
• Easier to upgrade
• Learn more about PCs

Self-Built Con's

• Can be tedious work and requires some patience
• Possibility of breaking hardware if careless
• Difficult to figure out what parts to choose

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pre-built Pro's

• Easy, quick, and fast
• Makes it easy for novices who know little about PCs (check cons)
• No worries about breaking parts by putting them together yourself
• Little maintenece involved

Pre-built Con's

• Much more expensive
• Usually exploits novices by giving parts that are unneeded, while sacrificing other parts
• Shipping usually takes a long time
• If ANY piece arrives DOA you have to RMA the entire PC

• CPU: Intel Core i5-3570 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($209.98 @ SuperBiiz) 
• Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H77-DS3H ATX  LGA1155 Motherboard  ($96.33 @ Amazon) 
• Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($49.94 @ Outlet PC) 
• Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($89.99 @ Microcenter) 
• Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 3GB Video Card  ($299.99 @ Microcenter) 
• Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($56.21 @ TigerDirect) 
• Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 650W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply  ($76.49 @ Amazon) 
• Optical Drive: Lite-On iHDS118-04 DVD/CD Drive  ($24.06 @ Compuvest) 
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)  ($89.98 @ Outlet PC) 
• Total: $992.97
• (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
• (Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-15 17:43 EST-0500)

Ex 2 - Pre-built, Roughly same hardware as 1K$ self-built (Made by CyberPowerpc, probably one of the best pre-built sites out there)

• CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-3570 3.40 GHz 6MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1155Gaming Case w/ Adjustable HDD Cage 
• MOTHERBOARD: * [CrossFireX] GIGABYTE GA-Z77-HD3 Intel Z77 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ IRST, Ultra Durable 4 Classic, 7.1 HD Audio, GbLAN, 2x Gen3 PCIe x16, 2x PCIe x1 & 2 PCI (Extreme OC Certified)
• MEMORY: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Vengeance [+14])
• HDD: 1TB Western Digital Caviar Black SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 7200 RPM HDD
• VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti 3GB 16X PCIe 3.0 Video Card (EVGA Superclocked)
• CASE: Cooler Master HAF 912 Mid-Tower 
• POWERSUPPLY: 600 Watts - Corsair CMPSU-600CXV2 Builder Series CX600 V2 80 Plus Certified Power Supply 
• OPTICAL DRIVE: 24X Double Layer Dual Format DVD+-R/+-RW + CD-R/RW Drive
• OS: Microsoft® Windows 7 Home Premium [+104] (64-bit Edition)
• SERVICE: STANDARD WARRANTY: 3-YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY PLUS LIFE-TIME TECHNICAL SUPPORT
• _PRICE: (+1260)

As you can see, roughly the same build is about 300$ more, remember that this also comes with a few freebies (Keyboard and mice usually).

 

Now let me show you another type of build that I hear a lot. "Oh hey, I want a gaming PC, let me go get ALIENWARE!" No, And I will show you why.

 

First off, lets us know that Alienware likes to give limited options to customization when buying from them. You get little choice and you end up paying for more then what you need. One instance is the ram, They ONLY offer 32GB of ram on their high end build which is almost unneeded for almost any kind of build.

 

Lets say you want a high tier top notch PC, I'll show you the difference between alienware and building one

 

Alienwares HIGH TIER BUILD

Market Value $4,099.00

Total Savings $275.00

Dell Price $3,824.00

PROCESSOR	2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i7-3930K (12M Cache, Overclocked up to 3.9 GHz)
HARD DRIVE	512GB SSD 6Gb/s MAIN + 1TB 7200RPM Storage
MONITOR	No Monitor
SOUND CARD	Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
OPTICAL DRIVE	Single Drive: 24X CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) w/double layer write capability

While I always appreciate seeing more people helping those who need it.. I feel as though we're being viewed as the backwoods folk of some hick village.

It is great you touched on the pricing of DIY and Prebuilt, however you also scare people at the time time. You have to be Intentionally careless to damage PC parts. Also providing a link to videos on DIY installations is great for newbies.

I have to disagree with you on RMA process, after 30 day periods end then the RMA process can turn into a PITA. For a general PC user a general warranty on a PC of 1-3 years can be far less daunting. Because when you're new lets face it, they're going to struggle to find out what part isn't working or died. Then dealing with the seperate company on the RMA is a battle sometimes.

I want to add prebuilt system have the same maintenance requirements as a DIY system. It isn't like prebuilt system have self cleaning abilities.

Prebuilt systems are a viable option for people as long as they helped making an informed dicision on the system itself. Sure there is a premium however some people really like the peace of mind and less hassle aspect of it all.

Originally posted by Aori

While I always appreciate seeing more people helping those who need it.. I feel as though we're being viewed as the backwoods folk of some hick village.

It is great you touched on the pricing of DIY and Prebuilt, however you also scare people at the time time. You have to be Intentionally careless to damage PC parts. Also providing a link to videos on DIY installations is great for newbies.

I have to disagree with you on RMA process, after 30 day periods end then the RMA process can turn into a PITA. For a general PC user a general warranty on a PC of 1-3 years can be far less daunting. Because when you're new lets face it, they're going to struggle to find out what part isn't working or died. Then dealing with the seperate company on the RMA is a battle sometimes.

I want to add prebuilt system have the same maintenance requirements as a DIY system. It isn't like prebuilt system have self cleaning abilities.

Prebuilt systems are a viable option for people as long as they helped making an informed dicision on the system itself. Sure there is a premium however some people really like the peace of mind and less hassle aspect of it all.

Good point I'll add some great DIY videos that helped me. I'll include that at the beginning of the post,

As for for you last comment "Prebuilt systems are a viable option for people as long as they helped making an informed dicision on the system itself. Sure there is a premium however some people really like the peace of mind and less hassle aspect of it all."

Good point about the peace of mind and less hassle, (Which is one of my pro's of being quick,fast and easy) DIY vs Pre-built is mainly a budget + effort decision. If you are willing to put in effort to save some money it's totally worth it. If you aren't on a budget then go with the pre-built. You'll get a much better built PC if you build it yourself (Considering if both are the same price)

Originally posted by eddieg50
You have made a nice little comparison. I do however disagree with you on cyberpower rep which is awful. Check out AVA Direct which has an excellent rep. I compared parts at new egg and tiger and compared those to Ava and Ava was about $150 more on a $1400 system. I decided to go with Ava based on their rep and price and I just did not want to take the time and effort to do it myself and yes I was afraid I would mess it up etc. It also came with a 3 yr warrentee. It arrived in a big box surrounded by air foam, the interior of the comp was very neat and again had foam protecting the parts. I have had this for about 5 months and it works perfectly.   So if you ar going to buy a pre built do not get if from cyber or Ibuy or any of those crap houses do a bit of research

I've had many friends I've recommended to CyberpowerPC, who have gotten great deals and great customer support. 

Originally posted by EMT-P

Originally posted by eddieg50
You have made a nice little comparison. I do however disagree with you on cyberpower rep which is awful. Check out AVA Direct which has an excellent rep. I compared parts at new egg and tiger and compared those to Ava and Ava was about $150 more on a $1400 system. I decided to go with Ava based on their rep and price and I just did not want to take the time and effort to do it myself and yes I was afraid I would mess it up etc. It also came with a 3 yr warrentee. It arrived in a big box surrounded by air foam, the interior of the comp was very neat and again had foam protecting the parts. I have had this for about 5 months and it works perfectly.   So if you ar going to buy a pre built do not get if from cyber or Ibuy or any of those crap houses do a bit of research

I've had many friends I've recommended to CyberpowerPC, who have gotten great deals and great customer support. 

CyberpowerPC and Ibuypower (different companies but certainly appear to be under the same ownership) do indeed at least offer one of the most comprehensive prebuilt part selections available but their reputation preceeds them with regards to their attention to detail and customer service (or rather lack thereof in this case).  All companies that manage to keep their heads above water will have customers that don't experience the well documented negative sides of said company.  And yes someone who has a negative experience is much more likely to be vocal about it than someone who's experience was pleasant (as that is usually what we expect).  As someone who appears to understand computers and the general markup charged by online retailers I would think you can also appreciate just how do companies like these offer such stellar deals over their competition?  My advice to anyone seeking to purchase a prebuilt is compare various customer reviews from numerous sites before pushing "buy".

Originally posted by miguksaram

Originally posted by EMT-P

Originally posted by eddieg50
You have made a nice little comparison. I do however disagree with you on cyberpower rep which is awful. Check out AVA Direct which has an excellent rep. I compared parts at new egg and tiger and compared those to Ava and Ava was about $150 more on a $1400 system. I decided to go with Ava based on their rep and price and I just did not want to take the time and effort to do it myself and yes I was afraid I would mess it up etc. It also came with a 3 yr warrentee. It arrived in a big box surrounded by air foam, the interior of the comp was very neat and again had foam protecting the parts. I have had this for about 5 months and it works perfectly.   So if you ar going to buy a pre built do not get if from cyber or Ibuy or any of those crap houses do a bit of research

I've had many friends I've recommended to CyberpowerPC, who have gotten great deals and great customer support. 

CyberpowerPC and Ibuypower (different companies but certainly appear to be under the same ownership) do indeed at least offer one of the most comprehensive prebuilt part selections available but their reputation preceeds them with regards to their attention to detail and customer service (or rather lack thereof in this case).  All companies that manage to keep their heads above water will have customers that don't experience the well documented negative sides of said company.  And yes someone who has a negative experience is much more likely to be vocal about it than someone who's experience was pleasant (as that is usually what we expect).  As someone who appears to understand computers and the general markup charged by online retailers I would think you can also appreciate just how do companies like these offer such stellar deals over their competition?  My advice to anyone seeking to purchase a prebuilt is compare various customer reviews from numerous sites before pushing "buy".

I do wonder everytime I see there deals how they manage to do it. When I first looked at the site I was very skeptical at how they were offering and what they were holding back on. One of the major ones I found was they hide the OS making a build seem 100$ less then it actually was.

And it ALWAYS is a good practice to look around for the best deals. I simply used CyberpowerPC with my experience with them.

Whenever I hear someone say they are getting a pre-built I go into internet retro mode and turn into James Hetfield screaming "Pre-Built bad!"...

/for you newfags thats from "Napster bad"

Originally posted by EMT-P

 

Self-built Pro's

• Easier to RMA(return merchandise authorization) parts that arrive DOA(Dead on arrival)

Pre-built Con's

• If ANY piece arrives DOA you have to RMA the entire PC

Otherwise really good post, but I have to disagree with that.

For average PC user it's a huge pro that you can return entire pre-built PC if it's not working, and a huge con that with self-built PC you have to be able to diagnose which part is faulty and return only that part. Telling what isn't working when the computer doesn't start is normally way beoynd the skills end equipment your average PC user has.

Some good links for those trying to choose PC parts:

MMO-Champion forums have an excellent thread with sample computer builts at different price ranges: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/986175-Marest-s-Sample-Builds

Tom's Hardware: http://www.tomshardware.com has

• GPU performance charts http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/19-Tom-s-Hardware-Index-B-Performance,2976.html
• CPU performance charts: http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/cpu-charts-2012/-07-PCMark-7,3150.html

And articles like

• Best Gaming CPUs For The Money: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html
• Best Graphic Cards For the Money: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html
• Best SSDs For The Money http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-recommendation-benchmark,3269.html

You can use the charts to quickly look at (roughly) how fast some processor or graphic card is, and the articles give good recommendations of products at different price ranges. Articles links go to January 2013 articles which will be outdated when Tom's Hardware releases their February 2013 articles.

Personally i'm for RMA'ing individual parts, but then i haven't bought a pre-built since an old HP system about 10 years ago that did nothing more than run excel.

It's worth pointing out that RMA is more useful if you plan the brands you buy based on where you live. For example Gigabyte are hugely recommended in the UK because their RMA is UK based and can take as little as 3 days to recieve a replacement part from the day you post it back to them. Generally the further away the company is the longer it will take and the more postage will cost, Corsair for example are just across the water in The Netherlands and can take a couple of weeks but are generally quicker than that. Then you get companies like XFX who's time isn't really down to where they are but more bad practice, they can take a couple of months on occassion and aren't averse to physically breaking parts themselves then blaming it on the customer.

Originally posted by miguksaram

Originally posted by EMT-P

Originally posted by eddieg50
You have made a nice little comparison. I do however disagree with you on cyberpower rep which is awful. Check out AVA Direct which has an excellent rep. I compared parts at new egg and tiger and compared those to Ava and Ava was about $150 more on a $1400 system. I decided to go with Ava based on their rep and price and I just did not want to take the time and effort to do it myself and yes I was afraid I would mess it up etc. It also came with a 3 yr warrentee. It arrived in a big box surrounded by air foam, the interior of the comp was very neat and again had foam protecting the parts. I have had this for about 5 months and it works perfectly.   So if you ar going to buy a pre built do not get if from cyber or Ibuy or any of those crap houses do a bit of research

I've had many friends I've recommended to CyberpowerPC, who have gotten great deals and great customer support. 

CyberpowerPC and Ibuypower (different companies but certainly appear to be under the same ownership) do indeed at least offer one of the most comprehensive prebuilt part selections available but their reputation preceeds them with regards to their attention to detail and customer service (or rather lack thereof in this case).  All companies that manage to keep their heads above water will have customers that don't experience the well documented negative sides of said company.  And yes someone who has a negative experience is much more likely to be vocal about it than someone who's experience was pleasant (as that is usually what we expect).  As someone who appears to understand computers and the general markup charged by online retailers I would think you can also appreciate just how do companies like these offer such stellar deals over their competition?  My advice to anyone seeking to purchase a prebuilt is compare various customer reviews from numerous sites before pushing "buy".

   Agreed!  If you do carefull research companies like Ava Direct and Digital Storm have much higher ratings than other companies-stats do not lie.  That being said if you are confident in your abilities to put together a computer yourself go for it

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by miguksaram

Originally posted by EMT-P

Originally posted by eddieg50
You have made a nice little comparison. I do however disagree with you on cyberpower rep which is awful. Check out AVA Direct which has an excellent rep. I compared parts at new egg and tiger and compared those to Ava and Ava was about $150 more on a $1400 system. I decided to go with Ava based on their rep and price and I just did not want to take the time and effort to do it myself and yes I was afraid I would mess it up etc. It also came with a 3 yr warrentee. It arrived in a big box surrounded by air foam, the interior of the comp was very neat and again had foam protecting the parts. I have had this for about 5 months and it works perfectly.   So if you ar going to buy a pre built do not get if from cyber or Ibuy or any of those crap houses do a bit of research

I've had many friends I've recommended to CyberpowerPC, who have gotten great deals and great customer support. 

CyberpowerPC and Ibuypower (different companies but certainly appear to be under the same ownership) do indeed at least offer one of the most comprehensive prebuilt part selections available but their reputation preceeds them with regards to their attention to detail and customer service (or rather lack thereof in this case).  All companies that manage to keep their heads above water will have customers that don't experience the well documented negative sides of said company.  And yes someone who has a negative experience is much more likely to be vocal about it than someone who's experience was pleasant (as that is usually what we expect).  As someone who appears to understand computers and the general markup charged by online retailers I would think you can also appreciate just how do companies like these offer such stellar deals over their competition?  My advice to anyone seeking to purchase a prebuilt is compare various customer reviews from numerous sites before pushing "buy".

   Agreed!  If you do carefull research companies like Ava Direct and Digital Storm have much higher ratings than other companies-stats do not lie.  That being said if you are confident in your abilities to put together a computer yourself go for it

I've found that AVA direct tends to offer some of the best prices from an online retailer with a well documented positive history.  The only thing I don't really care for is their lack of options compared to their competition but I'm assuming their pricing model is based on bulk purchases of the same equipment which allows to offer the systems at the price they do.

Noticed a new article on Anandtech today that might interest those in the market for a Xbox 360 size "desktop".  I wil caveat this by the fact it is brought to you by Ibuypower but I've yet to see a retail MB that allows the configuration they are offering in their new system (it is honeslty quite unique but the verdict is still out on whether or not it's either smart or efficient).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6752/ibuypower-revolt-system-review-closing-the-boutique-and-opening-the-store

Originally posted by miguksaram

Noticed a new article on Anandtech today that might interest those in the market for a Xbox 360 size "desktop".  I wil caveat this by the fact it is brought to you by Ibuypower but I've yet to see a retail MB that allows the configuration they are offering in their new system (it is honeslty quite unique but the verdict is still out on whether or not it's either smart or efficient).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6752/ibuypower-revolt-system-review-closing-the-boutique-and-opening-the-store

Is that just a case mod basically? it looks interesting, but I don't know the advantages of it other then looking like a 360 :P.

The specs are decent though, curious to see the price.

Originally posted by EMT-P

Originally posted by eddieg50
You have made a nice little comparison. I do however disagree with you on cyberpower rep which is awful. Check out AVA Direct which has an excellent rep. I compared parts at new egg and tiger and compared those to Ava and Ava was about $150 more on a $1400 system. I decided to go with Ava based on their rep and price and I just did not want to take the time and effort to do it myself and yes I was afraid I would mess it up etc. It also came with a 3 yr warrentee. It arrived in a big box surrounded by air foam, the interior of the comp was very neat and again had foam protecting the parts. I have had this for about 5 months and it works perfectly.   So if you ar going to buy a pre built do not get if from cyber or Ibuy or any of those crap houses do a bit of research

I've had many friends I've recommended to CyberpowerPC, who have gotten great deals and great customer support. 

 My experience as well as my brother's with them was completely horrid.

Originally posted by EMT-P

Originally posted by miguksaram

Noticed a new article on Anandtech today that might interest those in the market for a Xbox 360 size "desktop".  I wil caveat this by the fact it is brought to you by Ibuypower but I've yet to see a retail MB that allows the configuration they are offering in their new system (it is honeslty quite unique but the verdict is still out on whether or not it's either smart or efficient).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6752/ibuypower-revolt-system-review-closing-the-boutique-and-opening-the-store

Is that just a case mod basically? it looks interesting, but I don't know the advantages of it other then looking like a 360 :P.

The specs are decent though, curious to see the price.

In this case it's not just a case mod.  Check out the orientation of the motherboard and the GPU.  It's a custom motherboard that I assume must be using a daughterboard to all the GPU to fit the way it does.