@airshocker said:
@muleheadjoe said:
@airshocker said:
@muleheadjoe said:
You can buy a fairly robust but lightweight system from any major pc manufacturer (hp, dell, gateway, etc.) and upgrade components at will over time. The biggest problem with buying a new pc from a standard maker is they almost ALL have Win8 as your only choice of OS and Win8 is pure garbage for gaming (and everything else for that matter). You can go to smaller builders and many, if not most, of them allow you to choose Win7 as the OS which is to be preferred.
Many 'gaming rig' builders are offering "entry level" pc's around 500 bux (monitor, mouse, & keyboard usually NOT included). CyberPowerPC, iBuyPower, and Alienware all have starters in that range.
If you're adventurous, you can build your own machine and for your 600 bux get a pretty tasty machine. But there are risks involved in building your own (if you don't have steady hands, or are lax about tidy workspaces, you could easily cause irreparable damage to components while trying to put stuff together ... that's why I prefer to have a professional build my pc's).
PC Gamer magazine (trip dub pcgamer dot com) has regular articles about building rigs.
I've been building PCs since I was 12. When I built my first PC I didn't have steady hands, nor did I know what I was doing. My first PC never broke and I've been building them ever since. Don't scare the guy with bullshit. You don't need a professional to build a PC.
No need to be rude ... no, I don't need a professional to build a pc for me, I *choose* to have a professional build it for me. I can afford it, and don't want to have to spend time winkling out issues and I am massively risk averse ... I've been gaming on PCs for 2 decades pally, so I'm sure I've been around the block as much if not more than thee. I've broken stuff trying to upgrade my PCs (I remember upgrading to a 2400 baud internal modem and breaking something inside the pc case because I did not know what I was doing). Rolling your own if fine if you put the time and effort into researching components to be sure that part A works with part B. There are guides online, but again you have to put the time and effort into finding & reading & comprehending such. It can be fun if you are a hands-on kind of person, but not everybody wants to go that way.
So my advice is fine for the OP. Just coz it doesn't trip your trigger doesn't make it wrong.
It's not rude to call something you say bullshit. It's the internet and people will disagree with you. Get over it.
You make it sound like simply sticking your hand inside your PC will break something. That is simply not the case. PC parts are made to be sturdy. They're made to be handled. I've dropped my video card down the stairs before and it was fine. Obviously I wouldn't suggest doing that, but you get the point.
You don't need to know anything about PCs to put one together. There are a PLETHORA of guides online that tell you exactly what to do. With pictures and videos and everything. So again, stop trying to scare the guy.
Yah, actually it is rude. Calling my post "bullshit" is not "disagreeing" with me, it's the same as calling me a liar to my face. Not cool.
Nothing I posted was false, misleading or "scary" ... I was not "trying to scare the guy", I was offering reasonable advice and pointing out that there are risks with building your own rig. Maybe 95% of all homebrews go down without a hiccup, but that other 5% is pure frustration. I figure that the guy should at least *know* of the risk, even if it's a *small* risk. Your advice, which I take to be essentially saying "dude ain't nuttin gonna go wrong, just do it" could be construed as potentially misleading optimism in general, or in the case of a worst outcome event, as intentionally egging someone on with bad advice.
I know, because I've been there, that it's frickin easy to blow a card by being unstrapped and unintentionally zapping it with static. I know how easy it is to damage slots and cards if you twitch at the wrong time while trying to make "tab A slide into slot B" with cheap hardware that isn't perfectly aligned. Sure, most little dings won't cause a major failure, but the chance / opportunity / risk is there. I can find hundreds, probably thousands, of posts in various forums on any given day where people are saying "I was building my own rig, got mobo A and RAM B and CPU C and when I put it together it all went titsup" ... this obviously shows that it's fairly easy to screw things up if you're building your own rig and don't know what you're doing.
Given sufficient knowledge about selecting components and how to put them all together in the right manner, then good eyesight, steady hands, and a reasonably clean workspace will greatly enhance the liklihood of a successful outcome. If a person couldn't afford (or was unwilling) to buy replacement components if they accidentally damaged them, I would suggest buying a system off the shelf rather than building his own. The OP stated that he has a limited budget and while he's not looking for a "gaming rig" he may look to upgrade some components at some unspecified point in time down the road, so it makes perfect sense to me to buy an off-the-shelf system. For any major name brand system, all the components have already been verified for compatibility, appropriate device drivers installed, and fresh hardware "burned in" as need. The downside to OTS boxes are limited customizability, can't always pick the coolest looking hardware in your price range, and you generally won't have as much performance per dollar compared to rolling your own.
Log in to comment