Should you Buy or Build your PC - BWOne.com

The great debate has always been should you buy or build your own PC. Its always been known to be cheaper to build your own PC but with hardware cost lowering is that still the case today? Lets start off by taking a look inside my own custom PC. Personally I'll always build my own PC as I have fun and very passionate about doing so. I never had store built desktop before and my first machine was one that I went to a local expo and bought all the parts there. The knowledge that you gain from building it yourself is invaluable and knowledge that everyone should have and at the very least the basics. There is definitely time and energy that goes into it but in the end of the day the satisfaction of building if yourself is worth it.

As far as a cost factor is concerned that's where buy or build can get a little grey. PC hardware has dropped much lower in prices these days and store bough machines are coming built with much better hardware than in the past. The advantage where you save with cost comes with building a high performance machine. Building one instead of buying from high end companies such as Falcon Northwest or Alienware you should see the savings there. But if you are building for an average users a store bought one may be better in that scenarios. You also have to remember that you have to gauge the level of technical knowledge the person you are getting a PC for. If they have a decent amount of knowledge, patient and looking to spend a decent amount of money then a custom PC would be the way to go but if they are the opposite you may want to consider that store built PC due to the warranties attached and a way for them to get support in the event you are not available.

You can go back and forth with buy or build. Personally I will always build a PC but there are come scenarios where the store built pc is the better idea.

My Core Desktop Components

Intel Core i7 920
Asus P6T Motherboard
OCZ Gold 12GB PC 12800 Ram
Corsair H50 Hydro Cooler
EVGA GeForce GTS 450 1GB DDR3
Intel X25-M 80GB Solid State Drive
3 Western Digital 1TB RE Black SATA 3.0 GBs HDD
1 Western Digital 1TB RE Black SATA 6.0 GBs HDD
Corsair 800d Case
Corsair HX 750W Power Supply
Asus QT DVD Burner
Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate 64-Bit

[jonasamna]

That case is really good, nice video. What games are you running and in what resolution, fps, directx ?

[BWOne]

@VrnRap That will allow you to take advantage of hardware acceleration with video editing and also play some game pretty well. Also an SSD would be good for your main drive for speed. The cost I gave you is also can change depending on when you build and if you find good deals on some parts. Hope this helps.

[BWOne]

@tnartey Its in push-pull. the first fan is pulling air in to cool while the 2nd fan is push the air out that is being pulled in.

[BWOne]

@TOTOsupra The CX400W is not modular and is louder that my current power supply. Putting lower power supplies in high performance machines is asking for issues.

[BWOne]

@marquesbrownlee Good looking specs there. I would skip the SLI though. Most that I know of that have it or had it gave it up on their next build.

[BWOne]

@TOTOsupra When purchasing a power supply you should always look into expansion for future. I might decide to add more powerful components to my system. Also the last thing you want is a power supply to be the reason for instability because it doesn't have enough power.

[BWOne]

@VrnRap Sorry to reply to this late as I just saw it. A PC like that could go between $800 at its lowers up to $1200 at it highest. If your using Sony Vegas Pro that's not light video editing more on the medium the heavy side so you want a system with between 8 GB to 16 GB of ram if you are editing 1080p videos (depending on the flie type from your camcorder) and a quad or hexecore processor. For a graphics card you'll probably want something just below top of the line

[BWOne]

@JASON9948 Not sure what your asking here? Are you asking why don't I upgrade by using all my PCI/PCIe slots?

[BWOne]

@chrisman324 Scratch the itch and do it. There will be bumps in the road but what you'll get out of it is invaluable.

[HPIxAvengers]

how much did it cost to make your computer and your really really looks good
good job!

[BWOne]

@Sports564 Are you talking about memory as in RAM or when you say memory do you really mean hard drive? If you are talking about hard drive you can take the hard drive out of the dead PC and formate it on another computer to eliminate the data. IF you want to be sure the data is off you can do what's called a D.O.D wipe. (google search this).

IF you are talking about memory as in RAM. Ram on a PC is volatile so when the power is off all data is cleared from it so no worries there.

[tnartey]

i thinl you got the noctua fan the wrong way round, that push push config, or is the one behind the radiator pulling air in from out sid the case? also nice rig

[BWOne]

@marquesbrownlee Cool I tend to stick to nvida for CUDA support for a lot of video editing programs that take advantage of it. Wait for my stats of the GTS 450 in my final review before buying

[BWOne]

@DarthMeatballzz1997 all depends on what you wan and how good of a machine you want to buy or build. You probably want to at bare minimum $1000 and up but i've seen good machines for even less than that so it really just depends.

[ThomasL]

@bwonedotcom The CX400W is very stable and it's eenough for your configuration.

If it's for the future, i agree with your Choice.

[acreaperr]

Learned so much new things i didnt know bout pcs def will build my own pc thanks alot

[Shawn_White]

I built my first computer in 1998 at age 11 with the help from my dad. Every PC we had was a custom built.

It was a 386 and didn't even have a heat sync on the processor.

[lz]

What do you think the the cost would be for a computer that i will use for the following:
1. Light Video Editing - not too heavy, on Sony Vegas Pro
2. Youtube HD, and watching HD 1080p videos
3. Very light gaming, maybe some WoW and stuff
4. Running applications at the same time, like running itunes, firefox, utorrent, AIM, and other applications.
It would be cool if you could tell how much this stuff would cost and what parts you would reccomend. Thanks!

[JASON]

@bwonedotcom yes and can you upgrade to a blue-ray drive?

[PowerDroids]

Did you have any collage thing for the things you do like this for example computer information technology?