buy branded ready made or build your own?

  • Thread starter Thread starter -keevill-
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-keevill-

I have always built my own pcs from parts and I am now wondering if the
reliability from a brand name such as Dell is going to be better. I am sick
of having to change the mainboard or cpu or power supply of my home built
ones. I talk to several others who have all given up making their own
machines and now buy branded machines.
 
-keevill- said:
I have always built my own pcs from parts and I am now wondering if the
reliability from a brand name such as Dell is going to be better. I am sick
of having to change the mainboard or cpu or power supply of my home built
ones. I talk to several others who have all given up making their own
machines and now buy branded machines.
Click to expand...

If you're having to replace components in your homemade
systems, you're either not buying the right components in
the first place, or something is wrong with your assembly
process.

Nothing has changed with regard to the homemade vs.
preconfigured decision. Dell etc are still cutting corners
whenever and wherever possible, at the expense of
system flexibility, upgradability etc. You'll always get a
"better" (i.e. more reliable) computer by assembling it
yourself.
 
-keevill- said:
I have always built my own pcs from parts and I am now wondering if the reliability from
a brand name such as Dell is going to be better.
Click to expand...

No reason why it should be if you know what you are doing.

It isnt hard to choose more reliable components than Dell uses,
because they basically choose mostly on price and have done
some terminal stupiditys in the past, like running hard drives
right at the maximum limit of temperature that the hard drive
manufacturer allows, with the inevitable lousy hard drive
reliability that comes with designing it that stupidly.
I am sick of having to change the mainboard or cpu or power supply of my home built
ones.
Click to expand...

I've never had to change any of those in anything I have ever assembled.
I talk to several others who have all given up making their own machines and now buy
branded machines.
Click to expand...

Sure, plenty dont have enough of a clue to be able to assemble systems
properly and they may well be better off with ready made systems.

And Dells can be an expensive pain in the arse when components die
outside warranty too, because they can play silly buggers with unique
components that cant be just replaced with bog standard replacements.
 
-keevill- said:
I have always built my own pcs from parts and I am now wondering
if the reliability from a brand name such as Dell is going to be
better. I am sick of having to change the mainboard or cpu or
power supply of my home built ones.
Click to expand...

That's strange IMO. Why would you suggest that parts in a prebuilt
system would last longer than factory fresh parts purchased
separately?
I talk to several others who have all given up making their own
machines and now buy branded machines.
Click to expand...

Maybe they were never very good at it?
 
I have always built my own pcs from parts and I am now wondering if the
reliability from a brand name such as Dell is going to be better. I am sick
of having to change the mainboard or cpu or power supply of my home built
ones. I talk to several others who have all given up making their own
machines and now buy branded machines.
Click to expand...

I don't know about Dell (they do have pretty good parts availability
though). What I do know is this: if you buy a machine from Sam's or
Costco and you have a problem with it in the first six months, you can
take it back and get your money back or a replacement, your choice. I
think building is great if you are a gamer or have a special need that
you can't fill in a store. Last time I figured it, though, for an
average system my price was the same as buying it on sale but didn't
include the lcd monitor they threw in with the deal.
 
I have built 10 plus systems over the years ... and the cost advantage
has narrowed . That said ... if you watch the sales and rebates...
you still can build a better then branded for a lot less.

If you are a distressed buyer ... you need it right now... you are
going to pay more no matter which what you do.

That is my 2 cents

David
 
I have built 10 plus systems over the years ... and the cost advantage
has narrowed . That said ... if you watch the sales and rebates...
you still can build a better then branded for a lot less.
Click to expand...

I just don't see the sales on parts that I see on entire machines. If
you're a gamer or have a special need, you can probably do better by
building yourself. For the basic user, however, buying saves a little
money and can save a lot of hastle. Only way the basic user comes out
on a build is if they have an o/s they can use for free.
 
I just don't see the sales on parts that I see on entire machines.
Click to expand...

You need to get out more.
If you're a gamer or have a special need, you can probably
do better by building yourself. For the basic user, however,
buying saves a little money
Click to expand...

Wrong if you arent in any hurry and can accumulate what you
need and reuse quite a bit of stuff from the previous PC.
and can save a lot of hastle.
Click to expand...

Only if you dont know what you are doing.
Only way the basic user comes out on a build
is if they have an o/s they can use for free.
Click to expand...

That aint the only way, there's the rest of the stuff like Office etc too.

And you arent stuck with the minimal power supplys etc that are
so common on the heavily discounted assembled systems either.
 
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