Why so much animosity towards prebuilts?

Having built many computers in my day (I did it for a living for a while), I can't understand what the big deal about it is. Yeah, its fun the first couple of machines you build, but it is just so much easier to fork over the money and get your comp. handed to you. No matter what people say, if you look around for a while and weigh your options you can't save that much money.

For Example:

My Prebuilt - little over 4 grand - shipping; 2 year in house warranty; G5 Mouse: & T-shirt (a $20 value!)

Single parts from New Egg: (I know all are not best possible price)

QX6700 - $970 (not overclocked; you kind of have to know what you're doing)

Sound Card - $89

MoBo - $260

Hard Drive - $200

1000 W PSU - $250 (Couldn't even find one New Egg)

8800 GTX - $559

Vista home Premium - $110

Liquid cooling - $100 (A pain to install)

RAM - $300

DVD Drive - $40

Lighting - $30

Case - Maybe $150

G5 gaming mouse - $60

Odds and Ends - $20

Subtotal - $3138

+243.04 tax (at 8%

+shipping (possibly on every part) 100?

= $3,481.04

Keep in mind, this includes no construction, which gets a little more worrisome when you have $3500 you can mess up. When you also factor my 2 year in house warranty/maintenance (can't be underrated), and Alienware bragging rights, it doesn't seem too much different to me.

How about you?

I don't really hate prebuilts but I will never buy another prebuilt again. It's just more exciting to make it yourself and you save a little money. And you get to learn more. :)

You mention Alienware bragging rights but I'd rather brag about my ability to build a computer and maintain it successfully on my own. Bragging about owning a specific brand of computers or any other product (including iPods or people who think they are original cause they have a Zen) is stupid anyway. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I'd rather stay away from people like that because they are the kind of people who will show off everything they have and it just gets annoying after a while. 

I think I like putting computer's together more than acctually using them. It's like a ultra expensive jig-saw puzzle.

I cobble up old pieces just fo'fun mang! THATS WHAT I DO.

Just me though. Im sure most people dont care 

Having built many computers in my day (I did it for a living for a while), I can't understand what the big deal about it is. Yeah, its fun the first couple of machines you build, but it is just so much easier to fork over the money and get your comp. handed to you. No matter what people say, if you look around for a while and weigh your options you can't save that much money.

For Example:

My Prebuilt - little over 4 grand - shipping; 2 year in house warranty; G5 Mouse: & T-shirt (a $20 value!)

 

Single parts from New Egg: (I know all are not best possible price)

QX6700 - $970 (not overclocked; you kind of have to know what you're doing)

Sound Card - $89

MoBo - $260

Hard Drive - $200

1000 W PSU - $250 (Couldn't even find one New Egg)

8800 GTX - $559

Vista home Premium - $110

Liquid cooling - $100 (A pain to install)

RAM - $300

DVD Drive - $40

Lighting - $30

Case - Maybe $150

G5 gaming mouse - $60

Odds and Ends - $20

 

Subtotal - $3138

+243.04 tax (at 8%

+shipping (possibly on every part) 100?

= $3,481.04

 

Keep in mind, this includes no construction, which gets a little more worrisome when you have $3500 you can mess up. When you also factor my 2 year in house warranty/maintenance (can't be underrated), and Alienware bragging rights, it doesn't seem too much different to me.

How about you?

PC-junkie

Last time I checked, 600 dollars was quite a lot of money

I think I like putting computer's together more than acctually using them. It's like a ultra expensive jig-saw puzzle.

I cobble up old pieces just fo'fun mang! THATS WHAT I DO.

 

Just me though. Im sure most people dont care

Random__Guy

same here man 

Hey PC-Junkie i understand where your comming from. It seems you've outgrown that feeling of "Ultimate Accomplishment" when putting every component together.

I'm still in the "build it yourself" stage but if i had the money i'd definately hire somebody to put my watercooling unit together which i've had for almost 8 months and havent used due to its complexity.

I think a lot of the animosity has to do with lack of maturity.  Some folks here just cannot disagree politely, and have to express their disagreement in somewhat of a rude way.  There is a lot of fun to be had building your own PC, for some, and there is a lot to be said for the peace of mind and lots of free time to be had with buying prebuilt.  Rather than respecting each other's differences, some here just can't help it and they jump up and down like you killed their puppy.  Its sad, really.

I built my first PC over 20 years ago, and built quite a few since.   I had a lot of fun.  Now, I have fun doing OTHER things, but I still enjoy gaming and doing a little tweak here and there.  My dog appreciates it when I take time out to walk him instead of trying to replace my PSU...

I enjoy my prebuilt - it meets my expectations and works well. Building your own can be fun and rewarding, but it can also be a horror show for those that don't know what they are doing (and so many people don't). I think of it like vehicles. If you are a mechanic you can dig in and do it yourself, otherwise you should just hire one to do it for you.

cuz when u buy prebuilt your paying for labour, so its cheaper to do it yourself

and in some cases (cough DELL cough) your paying for them to plaster their names all over the net, all over our games, all over the tv, etc

basically it comes down to just cheaper to put it together yourself, but if your unable to then its aiight to buy prebuilt 

Single parts from New Egg: (I know all are not best possible price)

QX6700 - $970 (not overclocked; you kind of have to know what you're doing)

Sound Card - $89

MoBo - $260

Hard Drive - $200

1000 W PSU - $250 (Couldn't even find one New Egg)

8800 GTX - $559

Vista home Premium - $110

Liquid cooling - $100 (A pain to install)

RAM - $300

DVD Drive - $40

Lighting - $30

Case - Maybe $150

G5 gaming mouse - $60

Odds and Ends - $20

 

Subtotal - $3138

+243.04 tax (at 8%

+shipping (possibly on every part) 100?

= $3,481.04

 

Keep in mind, this includes no construction, which gets a little more worrisome when you have $3500 you can mess up. When you also factor my 2 year in house warranty/maintenance (can't be underrated), and Alienware bragging rights, it doesn't seem too much different to me.

How about you?

PC-junkie

Some of those prices are pretty off-the-wall - both in terms of being over and underpriced.

I build a machine on Newegg that matches all those specs for $2950 shipped ($3200 with tax, which only applies in California and Tennessee). There are naturally a few discrepancies - I have no idea how much hard drive space you need, so I picked out two 250GB hard drives, and I'm not sure what sort of liquid cooling setup you had in mind, but I went with the Gigabyte Galaxy II. For lighting I picked out four 12" cold cathodes, and I used a SATA DVD RW drive (something Alienware doesn't offer). It's also worth pointing out that you do not need a 1kw power supply for that rig - a decent 750w power supply would be more than enough, which would cut that price back to $3100 shipped.

That being said, there are pros and cons to pre-building and building. Pre-built machines have customer service, work right out of the box, and when dealing with the extreme high-end components you don't have to worry about them messing up. However, building your own machine is generally cheaper, a good learning experience (only applies to newer builders, of course), and unlimited customization.

I think a lot of the animosity has to do with lack of maturity.  Some folks here just cannot disagree politely, and have to express their disagreement in somewhat of a rude way.  There is a lot of fun to be had building your own PC, for some, and there is a lot to be said for the peace of mind and lots of free time to be had with buying prebuilt.  Rather than respecting each other's differences, some here just can't help it and they jump up and down like you killed their puppy.  Its sad, really.

I built my first PC over 20 years ago, and built quite a few since.   I had a lot of fun.  Now, I have fun doing OTHER things, but I still enjoy gaming and doing a little tweak here and there.  My dog appreciates it when I take time out to walk him instead of trying to replace my PSU...

ZBoater

You always make thing interesting, Zboat. I've gone both ways, and both have worked wonderfully. I usually end up making many modifications to my system whether it's prebuilt or not...so it ends up working out pretty much the same way. But yeah, as you get older (I'm looking at you, immature board-riders ;)), you have other responsibilities that make it more difficult to find the time to tinker with a PC...as sad as that is =/ Growing up sucks, eh?

That said, on a 2k system, you could save roughly 2-400 bucks or so. Is it cheaper and often times more fun to build your own? Sure. But prebuilts have their perks as well...and then there are custom builds, which are often indiscriminately lumped in w/prebuilts...They are the same, yet different ;)

I like to build my own for the same reason people buy pre-builts: trust. I don't trust the pre-builts to have everything just the way it ought be in terms of the parts that are in there, the way they are seated, and all the ins and outs of how it was put together; I just don't trust them to get it all right every single time. I also like knowing exactly what parts are in there, whereas someone like Dell often sticks in no-name hard drives, power supplies, motherboards, RAM, optical media drives, etc... and that sort of thing.

 Besides, the cases you can build your own machines in are just so much cooler. They only add to the sense of elitism that custom-builders share in.

its because people here think if they can build a PC, others can too.TheDarthvader

Well, for the past 4 or so years, I have been interested in the construction of computers. (Also networking, servers, etc) I found that when I build a computer for myself and other people it has a more rewarding feeling. Just like doing good in school, you can say "I did that all by myself" and feel proud. But in saying that, I do believe that most people, including gamers, should by prebuilt machines. First of all, they don't screw it up in the middle of putting it together. Second, they don't have to configure/tweak it before being able to play a game or surf the net. Plus, a lot of people don't have the knowledge and shouldn't be messing around with stuff that they do not understand inside and out. I mean heck, would you want to stick your hands inside a T.V. if you didn't have an idea of it's workings?

So Prebuilts = Most users. DIY = Myself and other people who share the same interests.

Also, don't come on this board thinking that you are a pro for building your machine. Just because you stuck a few wires together and place a card into a slot doesn't make you an expert on computer systems. 

I think it all starts with an experience like this: You're 16, you walk into Best Buy or where ever and pickup a copy of Oblivion. Take it to the computer department and say, I want to buy a pc that will play this game on high settings(not ultra-High). And you find out that out of all the pc's there, none will play it on hight setting.Axed54

A typical 16 year old usually isn't out by himself to purchase a comp anyways, daddy is there handy with the credit card. 

We don't have a problem with good prebuilds from OEMs like VooDoo or Falcon Northwest. It's the companies like Dell, Gateway and sometimes HP that most people have a problem with.

They use low quality parts which offer little upgradibility or compatibility. Although you may get a good deal every once in a while with a decent monitor thrown in, the parts in the tower (PSU, motherboard and RAM) are rubbish to enthusiasts.

I for one don't bash prebuilds because they're prebuilt (can't say that for all people, though). I tend to advise against buying prebuilds if your budget is less than $2000, as custom built offers better value for money and is more future proof (ie change dual core to quad core or flash BIOS for better overclocking).

EDIT: I'd also like to note that Dell make some really nice laptops and monitors, and their XPS line are pretty good--if you can afford it. 

I have nothing against prebuilts and I do see where you're coming from up to a point. The biggest gripe I have is when a person starts a thread asking what prebuilt he/she should buy and that they either don't have time to build one or they are unsure of themselve on how to build a computer. Then some knucklehead replies why don't you build your own or it's cheaper to build you own....well duh didn't you read what the person was asking? I think some people stop thinking when it comes replying to threads like those. I think it would be better to steer a person to a prebuilt that is of quality build and price than to convince them to build. You can upgrade prebuilds, it just that you have to purchase the correct one in order to do so. The threads to convince them to build is when the topic of the thread is "Should I buy or build" or something like that.Gimli64

I partially agree with your comment. If someone asks about which company they should buy a PC from, they can get a straightforward answer based upon the choises presented. However, if someone asks about getting a great pc and they're on a tight budget, they're bound to get the "build it yourself" answer, from me as well.

There is simply no way that you can get a pre-built system for 1500 that will max out crysis, as an example. You can definitely build one that will. That is the motivation behind people giving the "build it yourself" response.

To the OP and a few others, most people don't have $4000 to spend on a pc and upgrade it in two years with another 4000 investment, since traditionally pre-builds aren't the most upgradable systems. That is why we choose to build; that and the shock :o that we get when we see that dell charges $3500 for a $1800 PC that we can build ourselves (that is how much they charged for a rig similar to mine half a year ago).

can someone tell me what do we mean when we say we cant upgrade a prebuilt PC? sure Dell doesnt make their own motherboards or GPU's and surely they arnt stuck on with super glue that we cant take them off? so how are they not upgradable?TheDarthvader

Some of them use weird motherboards that don't follow any standards so they wont fit in 3rd-party cases and you can purchase motherboards from Newegg because they wont fit, a lot of them use oddly-shaped power supplies so you have to buy a PSU from them instead of a third-party, and the memory they use is slow, cheap, and crappy.

So now you're stuck with a crappy motherboard that you can't upgrade, and your PSU can't handle a high-end video card. And then you're stuck with ~1gb of crappy RAM. Even if your PSU could handle a high-end GPU, it probably wont fit because those cases are all really small and cramped.

They don't all use crappy HDDs. I've found plenty of WDs in some of the Compaqs and HPs that I run across, but it's a different story with some of the dells that I've seen.

And then there's the Compaqs that have those weird HDD slots. Jesus those things are impossible to mess with. My HP also has really odd HDD slots, I can barely reach the screws. It's a pain to upgrade that pc, the same thing with the CD drive slots. I have to remove the side panel then I have to get a really thin and long screw driver and screw it in at an angle. Adding a DVD drive has never been so frustrating. Oh and if you drop the screw you have to turn and flip the whole thing until the screw comes out from the little space in the back. Can't really describe it.

I've also noticed that the heatsinks they use are sometimes worse than the CPU's stock heatsinks.

It's a whole different story with places like ALienware, Falcon Northwest and Voodoo. They use the same high-quality parts that we can purchase from Newegg or TD but you also pay a lot more for that. 

also, on the midrange systems, the BIOSes are set to severly limit your overclocking potential in the Tier 1 companies.

That might not be the case with the companies like Alienware, falcon northwest, or velocity micro, but those PCs are HORRIBLY overpriced

so does the dell H2C also use crappy PSU and wierd motherboard? i thought it was a kick ass pcTheDarthvader

It uses a custom mobo and the PSU is actually pretty good.

But the XPS is the exception (and it should be for that price).

Prebuilds are PCs that from the day you get them, you don't change a thing until the day you trash it. They're not made for customising, they're made for plug and play connectivity.