Building a PC vs. buying one

My last build was a nightmare. My next desktop is liable to be some NUC variant or something where I don't have to coordinate parts. Current Ryzen 5700G has more than enough power to emulate Switch games. I'm perfectly fine with that degree of performance.
 
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I haven't bought a prebuilt in over 20 years. I make all my own PCs, it's the way to go. Only downside is the gay ass RGBs that cover every single piece of PC hardware now.
 
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You can easily build a proper rig for sub $1,000, and despite what dent heads like DSP would say, you can easily slap it together in under an hour with zero experience and a 10 minute YouTube video showing you what to do. Make sure you have an ISO of your chosen OS and you are set to go.
 
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Vink said:
You can easily build a proper rig for sub $1,000, and despite what dent heads like DSP would say, you can easily slap it together in under an hour with zero experience and a 10 minute YouTube video showing you what to do. Make sure you have an ISO of your chosen OS and you are set to go.
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agreed. The build I posted would easily work for you, and you can pretty much get windows 11 for free, they care so little about selling it that there are numerous legal ways of getting it (they make money from ads now and locking you in).
The super secret about building pc's is that its honestly not hard at all. Watch build videos before you start, learn what the parts actually are and what they do... it might take a couple hours of your life but it will save you money in the long run.
If you are involved in any trade at all, you already have the skills. I learned to work on older cars because its pretty much the same concept as old school pc's and servers, just different parts.
 
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K-Hole said:
Yes, build if you can. Time, money, experience? Then build. If not, then buy.
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Building doesn't take much time unless you are going turbo autistic. Experience isn't needed, it is easier than ever. Worst case scenario if feeling doubtful: pulling up your phone while building to find a youtube video on how to mount or do [thing] on the Asus ROG x04304 or any other motherboard, case and so on.

The most important thing is not to sweat it, take an hour or two and do it casually. Take a break and drink a cup of tea. Flip through the manuals at your leisure. If you are completely inexperienced and find that you have no one to ask when running into trouble then youtube on your phone will have all the answers.
 
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DNA_JACKED said:
APUs have been "nearing the point of good enough" for 10 years now. As they get more powerful games get more demanding.

APUs are good for tiny builds but even a cheapo dGPU will not only spank an APU at, well, anything really, it can also be upgraded without having to also replace your CPU. CPUs last forever nowadays, having to replace it for a slightly faster APU is rather wasteful.
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Game requirements end up plateauing because they need to cater to the weakest console, which for most of the 2020s is going to be the Xbox Series S. This generation took a big leap forward with good 8-core CPUs and SSDs, but the graphics performance is now spread out to target 1080p with the Series S (worse GPU than the Xbox One X) and 4K with the Series X and PS5.

1080p is still the most popular resolution today, and the APUs coming out in the next couple of years will handle 1080p well. I guess the 5700G is already faster in CPU performance than the consoles, Rembrandt desktop (680M) would have a slightly worse GPU than the Series S, and future APUs will pull ahead of the Series S in all areas.

An APU can be repurposed with a dGPU later if needed. The 5700G is not ideal for that since it's stuck at PCIe 3.0, but Rembrandt supports PCIe 4.0 and Phoenix Point may support PCIe 5.0. We don't know which of these will come to desktop and when though.
 
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IMO you're always best off building your own at least once (for experience and understanding), but right now it's a coin flip in terms of any savings. For example I almost never install new CPUs on my motherbord any more, I get the store to do it thanks to the warranty and in-store guarantees that if something breaks they'll cover the cost.

Given a lot of commercial computer shops will also now let you pick your parts in any prebuilt going that route isn't a bad idea if you just want to plug and play. Really comes down to what you like doing and how much time you want to devote to it.
 
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Building a PC is quite a lot easier than you would think, it's honestly just plugging in 5 or so parts into their correct slot on the motherboard.

The time consuming part is researching what you will buy.

I think it's fun to build and gives you a sense of pride once finished.

However I think I am the middle ground, I usually tend to look up streamer set ups that they have listed on their twitch pages and modify from there/check with a more savvy friend or colleagues if what I'm buying is decent and suits my needs.
 
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Building a PC is unnecessary inconvenience, and if you've never done it before, it's easy to do something stupid like buy an underpowered PSU or the wrong type of RAM or something. In a prebuilt, RAM is a pretty good proxy for whether or not it's going to be a decent gaming machine. If it has 8 GB of RAM in it, it's a budget model with an absolute joke of a graphics card in it. But it's not 1999 any more, where hardware becomes obsolete every 10 minutes, and buying the wrong model of Geforce means that in 18 months, you can't run any new games. To be quite honest, if you spend about $1000 or more on a new PC with a discrete graphics card, you'll be fine.
 
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CharcoalChkn said:
Building a PC is quite a lot easier than you would think, it's honestly just plugging in 5 or so parts into their correct slot on the motherboard.
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Getting the cooler on was annoying for me. Cable management is also shit but you can just be lazy.

The Ugly One said:
Building a PC is unnecessary inconvenience, and if you've never done it before, it's easy to do something stupid like buy an underpowered PSU or the wrong type of RAM or something.
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PCPartPicker is a big help. That will help you find out what's what and prevent some braindead choices.
 
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The Ugly One said:
Building a PC is unnecessary inconvenience, and if you've never done it before, it's easy to do something stupid like buy an underpowered PSU or the wrong type of RAM or something.
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Regarding the "unnecessary" part - I can't attest whenever it's so in the US, but in my country we don't have direct US-based PC build sellers, we have to go through local ones, and these fun guys add 30-50% to the price just because they can. No, seriously, a pre-build OMEN for ~6000$ - what the fuck is this?

Delivery of the builds from the US is not viable due to the import tax + huge delivery cost, which, while lower than the local build sellers, still atrocious.

Therefore, sometimes building is the only viable option (outside the US). My beloved country also has a sizable tax on tech imports (between 20% and 40%, depends), but even after they scam tax me for the components, I save a 1 to 1.5 thousand on them.
 
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Smaug's Smokey Hole said:
Was it an AIO cooler or something?
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Just an air cooler, nothing special. It was just finicky as hell to screw on and I was also worrying about getting a piece of hair or dust in the paste. Contrast with any other part in the build, like an M.2 SSD is extraordinarily easy to put in and obstructs nothing.

I think I'll have a real challenge if I try building an SFF PC. From buying parts that are not retarded all the way to assembly.
 
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I have had the same, self built gaming PC for 8 years and my one piece of advice is don’t skimp on the processor and power supply. If you have a decent processor and power supply from the beginning, then you can upgrade other components without having to worry about power draw or having to upgrade your CPU. I’ve upgraded my GPU twice and added 3 additional storage drives without having to pay for a new motherboard, RAM, CPU, or power supply. It still keeps up with most new games. Also if you keep your power draw less than 80% of maximum, it will make your power supply last longer.
 
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Here are my two cents

Custom build

If you are someone who is good with their hands then sure you could build a PC, it's not that hard providing you follow a guide. (Just be sure if you're installing a stock AMD cooler to tighten all screws a little bit at a time, the screws on those things are like tensioners and will rip a CPU straight outta the socket given the chance). The hardest part is most likely gonna be sourcing the CPU at a reasonable price

Pros:
  1. Can choose what to spend more money on (less on case, more on cpu etc.)
  2. Premium components
  3. A little cheaper
Cons
  1. Scary for a first timer
  2. Run the risk of breaking something
  3. Time consuming (1-2 hours for a first time build)
Prebuilt

If you're kinda clumsy then probably buying a prebuilt would be best, you'd maybe pay 100-200 extra, and you can get some pretty good deals if you know what to look for, just be sure to research the different parts in the build to make sure you're getting something you actually want.

Pros
  1. No need to build it
  2. Warranty if something breaks
  3. Usually has a nicer case than what you'd typically get for the price
Cons
  1. Lower quality components (power supply, ram)
  2. No boxes for the components if you upgrade and want to sell them
  3. Less of an understanding how the PC is built, if something goes wrong and you decide to DIY
 
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