Building Your Own Rig Created 14 years ago2010-07-26 11:50:22 UTC by satchmo

Does it still make sense to build your own?

Aside from the sense of satisfaction and the joy of laying your fingers on the cold hardware, does it actually save you money nowadays?

In the past, it is typically cheaper to build your own, but there are so many companies today that cater to all your customization needs that the competition keeps the price very low. Because these companies are able to buy in bulk and perhaps get special discount, they might get a better deal than individual builders on the components.

So which way is cheaper? Building your own or buying directly from one of these gaming rig companies?

Building your own.

I got my gaming rig for 300$. Although, I don't have much money so I don't have that much harddrive space. Everything else seems to be somewhat up-to-date...

300$,

ATI Radeon HD 4650
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
1.8 GB DDR2 2500 MHZ (?)
Gigabyte K8N-SLI

Runs crysis fine on high, give or take. (800x600 1024x768, no aa on either)

Runs most games fine as well, so really even though those new machines by the big companies are powerful, you're better off just making a rig for what YOU want to run, and not have a rig that's overkill for what you're looking for.

So you got yours for 300$ too?

Nice.

Just spent a grand on my computer. Runs everything on max. I mean everything.

The same computer could be bought from a customization site for about 500 to 1000 more, depending on the site. So yes. I'd say it's worth it.

hehe for sure i am going to build my own PC in next two weeks, been thinking about a cheap and efficient AMD platform, i got 1300 PLN = 414.37 USD (no more!)

what do u think about this:
there is no GPU right now but i am going to buy PowerColor Radeon HD4850 512MB PCS after 15th August

AMD Athlon II X2 240 2.8GHz, 2x1MB, 65W, BOX, AM3
AsRock M3A785GMH/128M AMD 785G, DDR3-1600, mATX
GoodRam 2GB 1333MHz CL9 DDR3
Samsung 500GB 16MB Cache F3
LG GH22NS50 SATA SecurDisc (black)
Fortron FSP400-60APN 400W
Tacens Aquilo

should i change something? maybe better processor -> AMD Athlon II X3 435 but u know money...

should i change something?

The best bang for your buck is to get more RAM. 2 GB nowadays is pretty meager, and they don't cost very much.

Is GoodRam a brand? I have never heard of it before. I would get some RAM from a well-known manufacturer. I used to think that all RAMS are created equal, but I learned my lesson the hard way.

He's not going to need more than 2 gigs with that system. It wouldn't even be necessary.

But yah, things you really need to stay on name brand stuff is the PSU and memory. ESPECIALLY the PSU.

I've never heard of the brand you've selected for the PSU. I'd at least go with a low end brand, like CoolerMaster. At least you know they're somewhat reliable.

Maybe you should also change the hard drive to either a Seagate or a Western Digital. Could be my bad luck, but my Samsung drive just died on me after 2 and a half years >:(

I'd also say change the PSU; some unknown brands tend to lack in quality.

@Taylor
My bad luck was my SeaGate 320gb. It hadn't been a year and it already died. Switched to a 500gb WD and am hoping it'll last for at least more than one year.

well fortron and goodram are known and trusted brands in Eastern Europe

@ Kurosaki Ichigo:
Well fuck, I guess you can't trust any manufacturer these days. Seagate is generally praised throughout the internet, even more than WD. God help us all to save our data D:

I've gone with Seagate twice and they've yet to fail me.

The never ending HDD fight. My only WD had a horrible unrecoverable crash after 2-3 years of use. I'd go for Samsung, I have two and so far they're running just fine after about 4 years.

Over the years I've built computers with a total of 10 or so Seagate drives, none of them have failed (well, one blew up because of a power surge, but that was the PSU's fault!) Haven't gone with any other brand, but I'm sure they're all perfectly fine as well. At this point the quality of HDD's are basically the same.

I'd say it's worth building your own nowadays if only for the sheer number of choices you have. You can be as picky as you want, and you can compare all the parts as specifically as possible to get exactly what you want.

Another thing is that companies like Dell and HP like to use their own motherboards, and I don't agree with that.

Last I checked, it doesn't save you too much money, if any. Don't quote me on that, I didn't do a very thorough check.

Its not about the cost of it, it is about getting exactly what you need.
If you just do simple word processing, then go with a cheap dell.

Btw;
http://www.engadget.com/2010/06/29/seagate-busts-out-3tb-external-hard-drive-for-250/

I've been very satisfied with Seagate for more than ten years.

Seagate HDD have never let me down. I wouldn't buy any other brand for HDD.

Except for my next build, I'll be using SSD exclusively (within a year, mechanical drives will go the way of the floppy disks). So far, OCZ dominates in the SSD market in regard to performance.

Highly doubt that satchmo. SSD's are still way too expensive and not nearly big enough to overtake spindle drives for a while yet. Definitely more than one year, at least.

@Soup: I would argue that building your own will still save you buckets. But that might be just because of what country I'm in.

Yah. SSD's have a few years before they're commercially viable to overtake HDDs.

You might use SSDs for program use, but as far as file storage it's not even worth it.

On a different note.. what about the GTX 470!?

I'm now down to two, there both $349
Theres this one;
http://www.palit.biz/main/vgapro.php?id=1320

and then theres this one.. only thing I like about this one is theres a led light where the fan is.. but the cheap plastic look is a bit of a no no for me.
http://www.galaxytech.com/en/productview.aspx?id=312

and both cards are shorten by an inch-and a half from the original 470s that Nvidia put out, which is good for cabeling

Highly doubt that satchmo.

Guess the only way to find out is to wait a year. Hopefully we'll remember this thread in summer of 2011.

Haven't we all been surprised by the speed of hardware advancement before? LCD's were extremely expensive and impractical in the past. But in less than a few years, they have largely replaced CRT's.

I remember the time when a 14" LCD cost US$6,000.

Except for my next build, I'll be using SSD exclusively (within a year, mechanical drives will go the way of the floppy disks

First think of the big servers. They'll surely not use SSDs a long time from now on.
SSDs are currently designed only for your boot partition.

I think it has sense to make your own if you're a person like me: you know what you're looking for and think of possible future upgrades.
Also, always go for modular power supplies. They're much, much better.