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Pre-Built VS Building Your Own
I'm looking to get a new PC soon and am having trouble deciding between a pre-built or if I should order parts off newegg and build a custom one.
The issue isn't wether or not I think I can build a good rig as one of my friends whos been building PCs for 10+ years is practically begging me to let him build it. The issue is what kind of warrenties do you get from a place like newegg? On some of thier parts they have that 2 year warrenty option, and there's also the manufacturer warrenty, but are these reliable?
I trust newegg but I'd prefer to get all parts under warrenty and at least a 3 year plan. So I guess I'm wondering if manufacturer warrenties are any good? From my experiences with them they normally are hard to deal with and very intent on blaming some other part for the computers problem.
I also have the problem of not really knowing how to defreg a system and find out whats wrong.
Basically I want a machine that will last me 3 years at least, and I'm affraid if I do the whole build your own routine a year from now the thing will stop working and I'll be screwed. The difference between the custom PC and the pre-built one is only about $150, excuding the $100 3 year warrenty, so would I be better off just getting the pre-built?
PS- The company I would use to get a pre-built would be "CPU Solutions." They seem good, they have good prices, 3 year warrenty option, and they list the EXACT part (not like cyberpower or ibuypower where they don't list the exact parts). The thing that I'm worreid about is although thier resellers rating is great, they've only had 2 recent reviews on there. Has anyone delt with them before?
Comments
If you have a friend that knows how to do all that, then I'd say get your friend to help you pick out parts and build it.
--------
"Chemistry: 'We do stuff in lab that would be a felony in your garage.'"
The most awesomest after school special T-shirt:
Front: UNO Chemistry Club
Back: /\OH --> Bad Decisions
Well, the return policy generally is independent of the manufacturer's warranty.
For instance, say you buy a Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive. So long as you register the product with Western Digital, and retain your proof of purchase, your covered for 5 years by Western Digital themselves. This is regardless of if you buy it at Newegg, or Best Buy, or from a guy at a flea market.
Now, generally, returns through the manufacturer are going to be slower than just taking it back where you purchased it (and then they do it instead of you). Some companies (like Sapphire), prefer you go through the reseller first (because you will generally get a new or repaired product faster).
And then there are the products that don't really offer any warranty. RAM and pre-built computers are notorious for this. Say you buy "Generic OEM Memory" your at the mercy of your reseller, as there is no manufacturer's warranty on it. Most reputable resellers will retain a 15 or 30 day return window (Newegg's varies depending on the exact part), but not all will.
Long story made short: warranty support is one of those things where you have to read the fine print, because it varies widely, even if you buy everything from the same place.
The biggest difference between building yourself, and pre-built, is that a pre-built will generally have a one year warranty that covers everything (sometimes with the option to extend to 3 years for an additional price). It doesn't matter if it's your RAM or the door covering your CD-ROM, it's covered under the same policy, and you send it in to the same place. Build it yourself, and each individual component will have it's own warranty, and each individual component could have a different avenue to repair it should it fail under warranty, but usually the parts will have a lot longer warranty with no additional charge (CPU's are covered for 3 years, some RAM and video cards have lifetime warranties, etc).
you sound like you're leaning more toward a pre-built, which is fine especially if you're not that experienced with building and really want something high end.
Im not sure what your budget is, but Doghouse Systems is good, Falcon NorthWest is even better. Both companies have a very good reputation for customer service and being there for their customers long after the purchase.
Outside of those two I really have no clue. Ive known people to have purchased from both, and one of my first gaming PC's was purchased from Falcon so they do come highly recommended (if you can afford them)
There are some gaping holes in what that site offers, so it's likely that they won't build you what you want, or perhaps rather, what you should want.
1) Where are the power supplies of moderate wattage? The lowest wattage power supplies they offer are 600 W. The lowest level power supplies that aren't junk that they offer are 650 W. Now, the Antec TruePower New 650 W and Corsair TX650 are nice power supplies. But they're massively overkill for most gaming systems, and a waste of $30 or so as compared to a good quality 500 W power supply that would be more appropriate for a gaming machine that will never pull 300 W from it.
2) Where are the solid state drives of modest capacity? The only one they offer under 128 GB is the rather dated Intel X25-M--and even that is $190. Why can't you get a 60 GB SSD for $120?
3) Speaking of solid state drives, where are the SandForce drives at all?
4) Where are the hard drives under 1 TB? All they offer under 1 TB is very expensive VelociRaptors.
5) Where are the budget gaming video cards? The usual choices for a budget gaming card would be a 512 MB version of a Radeon HD 5670, a Radeon HD 5570, or a 512 MB GDDR5 version of a GeForce GT 240. They do, however, offer a couple of Radeon HD 5450s that aren't for gaming at all.
6) Where is the Radeon HD 6950? At typical prices, that is the card to get if you want to spend $200-$300 on a video card. But the site doesn't offer it at all, nor Nvidia's GeForce GTX 560 Ti, which is the other significant card in that price segment.
7) Where are the memory voltages? They clutter the boxes for memory modules with random junk information that basically tells you that it is compatible with the motherboard, but no voltages? Some of the options give the part number, so you could look it up yourself, but some don't.
Thanks for the replies.
It does seem my best bet would be to just get parts and let my friend build it for me. I'll just make sure to get products with good warrenties and register them and I'm sure my friend already knows the parts to get. If the only difference is that it takes more work and time to get your refunds then I don't mind, I just didn't want to be left with a broken GPU and no place to return it.
And thanks for the links Vodo, those places are a bit pricey for me though.
I think you overestimate the value of a warranty.
Suppose that a $50 part breaks. What are you going to do about it? Replace it yourself in a couple of days, or send it in for warranty service and do without your computer for two weeks? If you do the former, the warranty doesn't do you any good.
It wouldn't hurt to post what your friend proposes to get for you here. It might be a very nice build, or he might not know what to get today.
As for the build I havent really talked it over with my friend, still about a month away from getting it so I'm not in a rush, but here is what I was generally looking at:
Optic Drive- Sony Optiarc Black
Hard Drive- Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
Motherboard- ASUS P8P67 LE
GPU- EVGA GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB
CPU- Intel Core i5-2500K
CPU Cooler- COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus
Power Supply- CORSAIR Enthusiast Series 650W
RAM- G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB)
Case- Antec Nine Hundred Two V3
OS- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
With rebaits it comes out to around $1360 with shipping. I thought about throwing in a SSD but figured from a gaming standpoint I'd see more improvement using the money to upgrade to a GTX 580.
PS- I did notice that I could buy "Sparkles" GTX 580 in a combo with the g. skill ram and save $25 but I'm a little worried about buying such an expensive card from a brand I've never heard of. Would I be better off just spending the extra $25 and getting the EVGA version?
I recommend not going for a GPU that costs more than $215. My reasoning behinds this is that the performance cost above that price point exceeds my personal ratio of reasonability. However, if you are buildung for a particular purpose, say a performance benchmark in a certain game, then get the GPU that suits that purpose. I personally always budget for an upper mid-range GPU that plays games 1-2 years old on the highest settings and new games on mid to high settings. I usually keep my computers below $1,000 and replace the GPU ad hoc per the latest game interest that may have decreased performance/quality with my current GPU.
Both? Then have 2 of them on hand!
Well my reasoning behind getting the expensive GPU is that I want this to last around 3 years (at least 2), so I figure if I buy a top of the line card now in 2-3 years it will be what your describing.
I'd question the choice of paying extra for the 2500K unlocked multiplier, together with a motherboard that can't handle that big of an overclock. Either you overclock or you don't, and if you do, you need components all around that can handle it safely.
The GeForce GTX 580 is not a good value for the money. You can get about 70% of the performance for well under half the price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161361
I'm a lot more hesitant than some people to recommend two cards in CrossFire/SLI over one higher end card. But I'll make an exception for the GeForce GTX 580. It's a very nice card, but not $500 worth of nice unless you absolutely have to have the best single-GPU card on the market.
Actually, depending on the monitor resolution you're going to play games at, you might be perfectly happy with just a single Radeon HD 6950.
If you're going to spend $1400, I'd really try to get an SSD.
As far as the build, that's a monster system. It has most all of the top of the line hardware in it.
If you are playing on a single monitor, honestly, you'll notice more performance by dropping the GPU slightly, and then picking up that SSD you were talking about. The nVidia 580 is very fast, no doubt, but so is the nVidia 570 or AMD 6970 (the next step down). In fact, both are so fast that you won't even be able to tell the difference at 1080p (single monitor) resolutions, and you'd have to use triple monitors (which you can't do with just one 580), or wait 2-3 years for games to have more advanced graphics, to actually benefit from the increase in speed that the 580 has. Not to mention the 570/6970 will go a good bit easier on your power supply. The Corsair 650W with a 580 is fine with everything at stock clocks, but when you factor in overclocking, may start to stretch it some, and you could be limited on your overclock by the power supply.
EVGA has a pretty decent reputation as an nVidia vendor, but to be honest, unless your looking at a card with a supped up cooler or custom overclocks, the cards are going to be nearly indentical no matter who's name is on the sticker. That extra $25 isn't buying you any better of a card, it's buying the EVGA brand name, and their warranty service. On such a high end card, I think it is worth it personally, but not everyone may feel that way. All EVGA 580's, and most 570's, have their limited lifetime warranty.
Also, as a side note, if you are actually looking at buying in a month or so: Put this list on the back burner. It's a very good build for right now, but, in 30 days prices can change by quite a bit. New SSD lines are now coming out as we speak, Intel has a new Z68 chipset on the horizon, AMD has a new CPU coming out soon, and P67 motherboards are just now starting to hit their full stride and there may be more options. The build you have now is great, I'm just saying, when you are actually ready to buy, step back and take another look at it, because it may juggle a bit based on whatever the prices, availability, and new hardware releases that occur between now and then.
Thanks alot for the replies.
Quizzical- Thanks for pointing that overclocking issue out. I originally didn't plan on overclocking but thought I might as well spend the extra $15 if I ever did want to, but now knowing that I'd also have to upgrade the mobo then its not worth it to me so I'll just go with the 2500.
Ridelynn- Very true. Alot of stuff can change in a month. This build was more of just something to build off of.
And as for the GTX 580 yall may be right, I probably don't need it right now. I'll be playing on a 32" Sony TV so it only goes up to 1080p (I know TVs aren't the best option but im getting it for free so I'm not complaining) so at that resolution its probably overkill. I guess my question would be if I do want to keep the GPU for 3 years, should I just splurge on the 580 even though its a bit too much now?
As for SSDs I'll look more into them. I was just under the impression that they only help load faster and can sometimes help with screen hitches in poorly optimized games. I also heard that SSDs burn out overtime, is that true and if so how long does it actually take?
If you were to buy a Radeon HD 6950 today for $220, then it's probable that in a year or so, you'd be able to use the rest of the $500 budget to buy a card that is faster than the GeForce GTX 580, uses vastly less power, has a much nicer feature set--and isn't out yet. And, of course, there's no need to upgrade until you decide that the card you have isn't good enough, which could easily take a few years.
This is true for the most part, you won't see any FPS increases or anything, but they ~really~ help those load times, and boot times. It's not just by a little bit. I have one computer at work we recently put an SSD into, it went from booting up in a 1:05 to 0:25. You may think "Big deal, I only boot my computer up once a day", but that same improvement carries over to nearly everything that involves the hard drive.
build up suggestions for a PC worth below $500 good for Online games and LAN games.....
>.< should I get an Intel or AMD processor?
If the build is under 700$, I would suggest a AMD quad OR tri core cpu
If you need a gaming system for under $500, then
1) You'll need to keep old peripherals, as they won't fit in that budget, and
2) You should strongly consider waiting for Llano to launch, as that will be AMD's new budget gaming chip. It's rumored to launch as soon as April, and you can use the integrated graphics in that.
Thanks for your time...
Last question... I'm a hard core gamer and worried about the life span of this $500dollar PC. How long would be the life span of this PC if it would be turned on for more that 18hours a day?....
There are two very different things that you could mean by the lifespan of the computer. One is, how long until the computer dies and won't turn on. The other is, how long until, while the computer still runs, it's too slow for newer games and you want to replace it. If you get good quality components (which is one reason to build your own), then former is likely to not happen until after the latter.
As for upgrades, I'm assuming that you initially use the integrated graphics in a Llano system. It will be far and away the best integrated graphics ever made, so it won't be at all similar to buying a system with integrated graphics today and trying to use that. The motherboard will also support a discrete video card, so if you eventually decide that the integrated graphics just aren't getting the job done, you'll be able to add a discrete video card and use that instead of integrated graphics.
Llano will be replaced by AMD's upcoming Trinity APU next year. The graphics side of Trinity might move from VLIW5 to VLIW4, which at a low level, is very different, but probably won't be a huge upgrade in performance. Moving the processor from Stars cores to Bulldozer will be a huge deal, though. Llano will use a brand new processor socket, so I'd consider it likely that Trinity will fit the same socket and you'd be able to upgrade the CPU performance that way if so inclined.
$500 is a really hard price point to hit for an entire system. The operating system alone is around $100, and even forgoing that, your still looking at around $150 for a base level motherboard+CPU, another $50 for a base level power supply, and around $80-120 for what I would consider an entry level video card powerful enough for gaming. Don't forget you need a case ($30), hard drive ($50), memory ($40), optical drive ($20), keyboard/mouse, and tax+shipping on all of that, and you'll be right at $500 for baseline stuff across the board.
Any computer built with quality parts won't have a problem running 24x7x365 for years, provided it's kept clean and cool. Sure, parts always have a chance of failing, but quality parts mitigate that possibility, and fans and hard drives are really the only mechanical parts where run-hours really mean wear and tear, the rest of it is more sensitive to high thermal changes than run-hours.
As far as how long the computer will actually be useful... really, a $500 computer as thumbnailed above would already have trouble with some of the more recent releases. Sure, it could run everything today, but with a low end CPU and lower end video card, your already going to need to drop down to medium settings on some more modern games, like FFXIV, Crysis 2, maybe even RIFT. And the games that come out late this year/next year, are going to make it struggle even more.
Whereas if you can stretch that budget to around $800, almost all of that extra money goes straight into better CPU and video, and can take a computer that is struggling, to one that will be able to perform well on all modern releases (high or better settings) for the rest of this year, and probably most if not all of next year. Stretch that again to $1100 or so, and your looking at a nice Sandy Bridge with an upper tier video card that will probably be set for video game requirements for the next 3 years or so. So that extra money really goes into future proofing your computer, and extending the time until you will probably want to upgrade again for performance reasons.
That right there is what is going to make Llano such a big deal for budget gaming systems. Buy a decent but not great processor (equivalent to a Phenom II X4) and get integrated graphics built into the same CPU die that are equivalent to an entry level gaming card for free. And then skip the discrete video card. The low power consumption from using integrated graphics also means you don't need a high wattage power supply or a ton of case airflow.
Of course, the graphics and processor having to share memory, and more to the point, memory bandwidth, means you'll need 1600 MHz DDR3 at minimum, and hope that 1866 MHz DDR3 comes down in price.
Buying high end RAM, IMO is one of the worst investments you could make....if your not overclocking, 1333 speeds are fine....1600 if you plan to OC.....higher speeds if you really gonna water cool or something (with extreme OC's) Even then....a name brand will be good enough. All these "Gaming" "High Performance" labels are just added security. If RAM is rated to run at a certain speed...it should, buying a brand $100 or $200 more because it says "Gaming" or something on it is BS. Decide if your going to OC or not and go from there. RAM speeds are so negligable unless your doing benchmarks. Spend your money on tighter CAS speeds and Quantity IMO.
That's because you're only thinking of the processors already on the market. Llano is going to be different. A Radeon HD 5570 is already meaningfully constrained by memory bandwidth with dual channel 1600 MHz DDR3 on the card. Pair integrated graphics that are likely to be more powerful yet with the same memory bandwidth, and then have to share that memory bandwidth with a quad core processor, and you've got the makings of quite a memory bottleneck.