PC gamer and build your own PC?

Blackjack_Davy

Yes

MSE_Andrea wrote: »

Some of the replies on our PC (desktop) gaming to laptop gaming swap poll suggest several of you build your own PCs so we thought we'd find out..

Are you a PC gamer and build your own custom PC?

Yes I am a PC gamer and yes I built my own custom PC(s).

I havn't bought a prebuilt PC for the last 10 years at least.

Just do a little research first, its really not that hard. Honestly I put together much harder meccano and lego kits when I was a kid.

Retrogamer

Yes

I've built all my previous PC gaming machines myself but with the latest one i selected all the parts i wanted then overclockers UK built it with them. Good job on the built for the most part. Since then i've added and changed quite a few things myself.

My systems seem expensive for the spec they are but it's because i sick with good brand name components for reliability and i try and keep it nice and quiet.

Sparhawke

Yes

I am like many here, if you buy a store-bought computer you will end up paying hundreds of pound more for it; what you are best doing if you are not technically minded is going to a small shop and telling them what you want.

Even if you buy the gear yourself and then take them parts to a shop.

They will put the parts together for you and it will be much cheaper.

I do not know how much my computer would cost in PC World, but £650 + £100 for time and labour is great, I run many of the newest games right now at 60+FPS at the highest settings.

I have been told my computer would be £1,200+ to get if I were to buy from a catalogue or whatever.

More than enough for my needs

Percy1983

Yes

Always build them myself, I will say those worried about it, there really isn't much you can get wrong, you can't plug things in the wrong place and if you don't plug something in it just won't work until you figure it.

The other advantage of self building if you can buy a decent board, big cooler and mid range processor and overlclock like crazy (with safe voltage and temps of course) and get even more performance for your money.

Retrogamer

Yes

Percy1983 wrote: »

The other advantage of self building if you can buy a decent board, big cooler and mid range processor and overlclock like crazy (with safe voltage and temps of course) and get even more performance for your money.

I agree with this.

I've got a nice Asus board, 2500k and H100 water cooler and it's allowed me to go from 3.3ghz to 4.7ghz for 24/7 use

Percy1983

Yes

Retrogamer wrote: »

I agree with this.

I've got a nice Asus board, 2500k and H100 water cooler and it's allowed me to go from 3.3ghz to 4.7ghz for 24/7 use

similar here, asrock board, spire thermax eclipse cooler and a 3570k at 4.5ghz

Johnmcl7

I'm primarily a PC gamer but even though I could easily build my own machines (I work in IT and spend plenty of time repairing/rebuilding machines) I prefer prebuilt machines as my last two have been a lot cheaper than I could build them for and I can get a next day on site warranty. Because the desktops use standard parts it's easy enough to then customise the machines as I want.

Both the current and last machines have been from the Dell outlet and both have been based on Intel's enthusiast platform (Nehalem for the last, SandyBridge-E for the current one) which were pricey not just for the processor but the platform was as well particularly with Nehalem which used a type of ram which was fairly new and carried a hefty premium.

I have no complaints about the machines themselves either, I find Dell power supplies are usually very solid and aside from the garish lighting on the Aurora R4 case (which thankfully can be turned off) the internal design is very good as most parts are easily accessible for swapping around. One feature I particularly like is a second set of battery powered white LEDs which are placed round the inside of the case to illuminate the internals making it easier to prod around inside.

John

mttylad

I did, I used cast off parts from my son - added some new bits and have an excellent system now. So far have not had a game I cannot play.

Not bad for your kids rejects lol.

Percy1983

Yes

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

I'm primarily a PC gamer but even though I could easily build my own machines (I work in IT and spend plenty of time repairing/rebuilding machines) I prefer prebuilt machines as my last two have been a lot cheaper than I could build them for and I can get a next day on site warranty. Because the desktops use standard parts it's easy enough to then customise the machines as I want.

Both the current and last machines have been from the Dell outlet and both have been based on Intel's enthusiast platform (Nehalem for the last, SandyBridge-E for the current one) which were pricey not just for the processor but the platform was as well particularly with Nehalem which used a type of ram which was fairly new and carried a hefty premium.

I have no complaints about the machines themselves either, I find Dell power supplies are usually very solid and aside from the garish lighting on the Aurora R4 case (which thankfully can be turned off) the internal design is very good as most parts are easily accessible for swapping around. One feature I particularly like is a second set of battery powered white LEDs which are placed round the inside of the case to illuminate the internals making it easier to prod around inside.

John

I really fail to see how a gaming PC can be cheaper prebuilt. I will say lower spec pc's it can be closer and sometimes cheaper prebuilt but gaming PC's off the shelf have always been way out as far as I have seen.

I would agree dell power supplies are fine but I have always found they are just up to the spec of the components there where sold with and any significant upgrade involves a new psu.

Also last I checked dell don't allow overclocking which is a massive deal for many gamers.

Johnmcl7

Percy1983 wrote: »

I really fail to see how a gaming PC can be cheaper prebuilt. I will say lower spec pc's it can be closer and sometimes cheaper prebuilt but gaming PC's off the shelf have always been way out as far as I have seen.

The machine I bought was £1300 with a liquid cooled i7 3930k (hex core hyperthreaded, SB-E), two 6950's when the 6970 was top of the range, 8GB ram, BD-rom, 1TB HDD, 875W power supply, OS and case. To put that into perspective, at the time the 3930K was around £500, the graphics cards were £300 each, the motherboard around £250 (the X79 platform was extremely expensive at release) so that's already over the cost of the machine while still needing a decent power supply for the Crossfire graphics and processor, a suitable case to put it all in, optical drive, ram and operating system. The case is well made and designed as access to all the components is very straight forward, there's a lot of capacity and the cooling is extensive. Plus unlike a custom machine this one has a next business day on site warranty which means any downtime is minimal. On one of the machines I'd built previously I had a dud motherboard which took a while to sort out with the retailer as I had to send it back, wait for it to be tested etc. whereas when the graphics card failed on the Nehalem machine I had a new one delivered next day and the old one taken away at the same time.

I spent a long time pricing up parts but could never get anywhere near as low a price for a full Nehalem/SB-E system mainly due to the large price premium on the platforms when they were new out. It can need a bit of patience but usually well worth it

I would agree dell power supplies are fine but I have always found they are just up to the spec of the components there where sold with and any significant upgrade involves a new psu.

Dell conservatively rate their power supplies, they can handle a lot more than they state. I had the Nehalem based machine packed with every drive bay (optical and hard drive), every ram slot (six of them), every pci-e slot all populated and a top end graphics card a lot of which I added myself and the machine never had any power issues despite spending most of its time at full capacity either rendering or gaming as it wasn't used for anything else.

I've filled up most of the slots on the SB-E system to up its storage (Dell storage prices are daft so I've put my own in instead) and optical drives (only one optical drive bay is empty at the moment) and its processor is running a decent overclock but the power supply has been fine. As well as my own machines I've supported a lot of Dell machines and very rarely have issues with their power supplies.

Also last I checked dell don't allow overclocking which is a massive deal for many gamers.

Dell have been allowing overclocking for years, not only do they allow it but they ship some machines pre-overclocked - the 3930K I bought came with a factory overclock of 4.2Ghz and the bios is unlocked to allow access to the overclocking settings a K-series processor allows for.

I'm not in any way saying everyone should buy prebuilt machines, just explaining why I bought mine given there's quite a lot of myths built up around prebuilt machines which are certainly not true for all machines.

John