Never buy a stock PC.

Jamie_Cortez

Dave_C wrote: »

What you are saying is quite correct. If you need to overclock and need all the high end stuff then a DIY build is required.

I didn't make the point in my previous post that there is not just a straight binary choice of computer between general use and gaming, it's a spectrum.

As you have already pointed out, there is already a range of gaming machines to suit the range and style of games being played.

Also not everyone (including me) has the knowledge and skill to build a PC, dedicated gaming machine or otherwise. As such I am prepared to pay someone else to spec and assemble a machine for me, knowing that all I need to do is plug, install and play.

I tend to buy off the shelf machines with decent graphics, which are more than adequate to run games from a couple of years ago.

Dave

And thats the difference, if you gaming on older games then sure off the shelf is fine, newer games GPU's like the GT 630 are not going to produce good frame rates.

If you have never built a machine before i really recommend doing it, there are dozens of step by step guides and video based tutorials out there, it's good fun (if your a geek like me!) and its also satisfying to know you built it and got more for your cash.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_56kyib-Ls&feature=player_embedded#!

Is a great beginners guide to building.

art_for_arts_sake

In the past PC builds and repair taught me a lot. Last time I did a shopping list the cost of parts alone was considerably more than the price of an off the shelf PC and a customer return base unit was just too good to miss. I'd much rather install Windows from an OEM or retail disc than reinstall from a recovery partition though, and the option of installing Linux as a dual-boot alongside Windoze is tempting.

If anything my biggest problem in buying an off the shelf PC is that they rarely support legacy devices and the addition of any other ports than the USB ports supplied means breaking the seal and voiding the manufacturers' warranty, so it means waiting for that to lapse before the PC's opened up, and then having to re-register Windoze if it decides I've made too many hardware changes.

fishybusiness

@ Jamie

but that OEM components are far cheaper because they are usually not of similar quality or spec.

OEM parts are often, but not always standard parts or slightly modified spec parts from the major players.

Hard drives are same spec, memory is nearly always branded, cables and PSU's if you look carefully are manufactured by the big boys.

Perhaps the only area of dispute is main boards. Some companies that have now gone under used standard boards - iQon comes to mind there. Packard Bell, use modded boards, some of their older ones have known faults, HP again, modded boards that are more or less reliable.

There are some decent powerful PC's out there that you can buy off the shelf, for some they are great, other build their own, and I also agree it can bring benefits, or for CAD work can be a necessity.

If mainstream designs were so bad, after this length of time consumers would get the message and not buy them. Think about it.......

RobTang

I didn't think 'normal' consumers bought desktops these days, anyway.

Short of gaming and 'work' uses you may as well buy a laptop.

visidigi

RobTang wrote: »

I didn't think 'normal' consumers bought desktops these days, anyway.

Short of gaming and 'work' uses you may as well buy a laptop.

don't tell me, one of those DTR laptops? :wall:

there's plenty of reasons for a PC...

WhiteChristmas

I wonder how many actual gamers spend Sunday morning browsing MSE rather than indulging in a bit of Endless Space or Secret World?

Jamie_Cortez

WhiteChristmas wrote: »

I wonder how many actual gamers spend Sunday morning browsing MSE rather than indulging in a bit of Endless Space or Secret World?

In a life cycle, i check forums when i log my computer on before going on to play games....

Oddly enough both Endless Space and Secret World are on my machine

demystified

Dave_C wrote: »

Also not everyone (including me) has the knowledge and skill to build a PC, dedicated gaming machine or otherwise. As such I am prepared to pay someone else to spec and assemble a machine for me, knowing that all I need to do is plug, install and play.

If you're buying a high end machine its even more important to build it yourself. Costs are usually over the top of an OEM build even before you have to pay someone to assemble it.

It's really not hard some basic research should get you 95% of the way there and just ask on a forum about the rest, it not rocket science.

Back to the general discussion... while its probably cheaper to buy off the shelf for a complete machine, where self build has the upper hand is upgrading, whilst OEM machines have just enough capacity for the components and usually no more, if you self build you can spec for upgradability i.e. have a higher power PSU that will let you upgrade over several builds, also I usually only need to replace the core components i.e. motherboard, CPU, RAM whilst keeping just about everything else - cables, HDD's, graphics card, case and usually the OS too rather than having to replace the whole kit and caboodle.

So why the initial outlay may be higher the inherent upgradability keeps the costs down in the long term I believe. Also upgrading now and then lesser components such as hard drives and graphics cards etc spreads the cost over time rather than facing a single large bill for a complete machine every so many years.

HO87

Let's be honest the vast majority of people have no real idea how their PC works and, frankly, don't need to. They buy based on having a rough idea of the price they would prefer to buy at and what obvious bells and whistles are included.

When the machine starts to 'fail' - either because components are genuinely giving up the ghost - or because of poor or, more likely IMHO, completely non-existent housekeeping/failure to update and run AV programmes/installation of too much cr*p or whatever, it is always much easier to just go out and buy. The major retailers are simply supplying this market and few machines I have seen in their box-barns are truly intended to be future proof - well maybe next week but certainly not next year.

A significant proportion, if not all, branded, off-the-shelf machines are built to a price and are widely used to keep shelves clear of rapidly dating, some times even obsolete components. Being built to a price means that compromise dominates performance and it is for that reason that I do not buy (and have never bought) off-the-shelf. That is not to say that pleasant surprises don't occasionally show themselves.

Going off at a tangent slightly, but I have dual-booted my machines for the last 7 or 8 years Windoze/Linux without major issue and have thoroughly enjoyed the experience. If people think that Linux is the domain of geeks then they are at least 5 years out of date and what they don't realise is that they can actually try out most flavours without changing their W7, or whatever, set-up by using a Live Disc. I recommend it.

The only issue that has reared its head in more recent time is using an NTFS-formatted external hard drive to swap content between Windoze, Linux and Mac. Sadly, the way in which Linux writes data to the hard drive has created problems and I have lost (not permanently) data as a result.

Johnmcl7

If you shop around particularly from the likes of the Dell outlet you can get some pretty good bargains particularly on higher performance parts (LGA 1366 last time, LGA 2011 this time) which work out cheaper than buying the parts separately, it's mostly stock parts so you can swap out what you don't want and most importantly get a next day on site warranty so when the graphics card decides it has had enough the downtime on the machine is minimum.

I haven't had trouble with lack of capacity either as I find Dell tend to underspec their PSU's, the last machine started off with a single optical drive, single hard drive and one PCI-E slot occupied by a high end graphics card and gradually it ended up with an additional optical drive, an additional SSD, a wi-fi PCI-E card and X-Fi audio (most of which are now in the new machine). The machine never missed a beat aside from a faulty graphics card but one phone call and I had a new card the next day, on my last custom build where I had trouble with the motherboard and graphics card (just faulty parts) I was without the machine at full capacity for weeks.

John