Having built my own in the past I can finally afford to buy a pc all in one
go.( Im sure it works out cheaper) Just wondered who was best Tiny seem good
but quite low spec components, mesh do a good deal but the monitor is poor
( I want a athlon 64 foe mainly gaming) I want to spend about £900 and am
hoping for about a 3400 ??
Any thoughts anyone??
It usually only works out cheaper at the low end. At the middle price
ranges or the upper end, you'll find that a pre-built that's identical
in specs will be nearly identical in price (some shops take off 3-5%
for buying a full system, as you're buying all the parts from them).
In those ranges, if there's a major price difference, it's often
because corners have been cut to make it cheaper. Depending on your
needs, these difference might matter a lot or they might not matter at
all (eg. low end power supply, cheaper case, lesser name motherboard,
and/or integrated peripherals, lesser name memory, etc).
The other end is the "boutique" machines where the build quality is
higher, but so is the price. The boutique machine won't necessarily
perform better than an identically spec'ed one you built, but it will
have a lot of labour put in to the details (eg. sanding and
refinishing of case edges to remove burrs and sharp edges, custom
paint, wiring harnesses and wiring oragami tricks).
When buying pre-built, it's more often a case of best VS cheapest.
The best compromise between best and cheapest will always be the
machine you build yourself, or custom spec at a smaller store.
