New computer advice

Moderator: Moderators

Fishlips
Posts: 1793
https://www.behance.net/kuchnie-warszawa
Joined: Mon Jul 17, 2017 11:38 pm

Post by Fishlips »

Are out of the box machines a good buy? I've always had the dude down the street build one for me.
Rapitiss
Officer
Posts: 5050
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 11:50 pm

Post by Rapitiss »

Fishlips wrote:Are out of the box machines a good buy? I've always had the dude down the street build one for me.
Its all about risk vs reward ( or cost )

-------------------------------

Option 1 - Prebuilt

Out of the box machines can be a great value with respect to time and price. When a big chain over estimates supply and they decide to liquidate some of the inventory.

I've purchased a few (3-4) prebuilt machines for people. Generally I do a ton of research and make sure the PSU is large enough that I can slip a new video card into the $400-$600 base model and boom instant "gaming" machine.

Pro:
1 - Ready to ship and pick up

Con:
1 - Do your homework on return policies in case you get a lemon. They ARE mass producing these.


-------------------------------

Option 2 - Custom built by someone else

There are a ton of places that you can go to get a custom built machine. You get to select the components you want to use or get 'expert' advice on what to select.

Pro:
1 - You know exactly what parts are being used.
2 - You have someone else put it together
3 - You have a good point of service/return if it doesn't work

Con:
1 - Price. Expect to pay more for the service. Typically 50-250 depending on the price of the parts.


-------------------------------

Option 3 - Custom built yourself

Maximum risk. Often priced near or above what the 'out of the box' units cost for the low/mid end computes. You can save significant cost for the high end machines.

You have to know exactly what components you want to use and accept all the risk of troubleshooting bad components.

I've generally build a computer every 2-5 years for myself or someone else. Most of the time things go fairly smoothly but I've had builds that I've had to return parts and one build that took me weeks to get stable, only to have it work for about 2 years before it went tango uniform.

My last build I spent 6 months reading reviews about the AMD 3950X. I spent 4 weeks prior to the buy really digging into every article I could find about the CPU+MB and cooling requirements. I ended up spending $2400 on parts ( $750 for the CPU alone ) The build itself went fairly smoothly but still took me 4-6 hrs to unpack and stuff all the parts in and get the OS loaded.

-------------------------------

So to answer the original question; Yes, No, It depends ...
Gibsalot
Posts: 137
Joined: Mon May 25, 2020 12:56 am

Post by Gibsalot »

in my personal exp with out of the box PC's over all they can be a good buy and run prety much as exspected. the biggest CON for pre built PC's is proprietary parts, almost every ( brand ) PC has its own proprietary parts witch can be a huge PITA when you want to upgrade that PC in a year or so..... the biggest one is proprietary Mobo's that only work with that brands proprietary copy of Windows ..... not sure how normal that kind of think is now i have been building my own PC's for the last 12+ years but i know in the early 2000's - 2010 when Dell and gateway was huge and had add's everywhere ..... dude your getting a Dell ..... i hated working on them it never failed to be a smoked HDD clicking away and the comp did not come with a windows disk it had a partition on the Hdd with windows recovery installed there and the Mobo ither refused to work with a normal copy of windows or it worked but got random strange error's.... if any have any exp with Pre built comps from 2010 - today im not sure if this type of thing is still relevent or not ................ but if it is make sure ither the comp has a standard Mobo or you plan on upgrading it down the road.
Beldin Feldegast
Halaster themad
Rapitiss
Officer
Posts: 5050
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 11:50 pm

Post by Rapitiss »

Gibsalot wrote:.. has its own proprietary parts ...


Don't get a Dell if you plan to try and add anything, they still play tricks.

The others are pretty standard parts, but most of the time they skimp on the PSU and provide JUST enough power to run what you purchased.

Which makes sense since most people who buy a prebuilt will not be upgrading anything before buying the next prebuilt.
User avatar
Alsmack
Officer
Posts: 4260
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 8:18 pm
Location: Chicago, IL

Post by Alsmack »

I've custom built hundreds of machines in the last 25 years. Most of them 10-20 years ago. I used to do up to 5 a month as a side business during high school and for a few years after, not to mention working IT at the time too.

Building yourself used to be a great way to beat the price to performance curve and really build a better machine than you can get prebuilt these days.

If you just want something that works though, the margins are so thin on desktops, and they usually include windows, it's nearly impossible to beat a store brand PC on feature to feature parity. You might spend up to 20% more to have roughly the same specs, but you had to buy windows outright ($100ish bucks) and you had to spend the time on research and building. Even if you have built the exact same machine before, it takes a good 30 minutes to get everything mounted, a decent cable management job, and then you still have an hour to install the O/S. And that's flying fast, with a good work bench, proper tools, and all the know how ready to go.

What I'm trying to say is, unless you're building a machine to be purpose built such that you might get at a custom shop, beating their prices is only part of the battle. If you're not building to learn or because you enjoy it, it's generally not worth the cost savings that you might get, if you do enough research and price shopping.. And that's if one of Rapitis' nightmare scenarios (Weeks to stable, dealing with DOA parts, etc.) don't come to fruition, which they do. Luckily, I repeated a lot of builds, with minor variations, so it was easy to know at least the base build was good, it was usually just DOA parts to worry about.

All that said, I have the know-how and really enjoy building, so I'll always build my own rig for gaming unless I really need something very proprietary, like a Corsair One for the size + noise, that I can't match with available parts.

Apparently I'm wordy today. I never saw a definite budget. Looks like 800ish?
Image
Alsmack | Rezlar | Dpses | Lynis | Medissin | Arbutus
Rapitiss
Officer
Posts: 5050
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 11:50 pm

Post by Rapitiss »

Gibsalot wrote:proprietary copy of Windows
Having the original installation media so you can do a clean wipe / reinstall is good.

If your new machine prompt you to create a rescue disk. Do it.
Evilmonks
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2017 3:24 pm

new PC

Post by Evilmonks »

my budget is 1k limit
Evilmonks
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2017 3:24 pm

new PC

Post by Evilmonks »

i ended up ordering this

https://www.microcenter.com/product/624 ... g+Specific

all i need to do now is wait, any good recommendations for virus protection?
User avatar
Alsmack
Officer
Posts: 4260
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 8:18 pm
Location: Chicago, IL

Post by Alsmack »

I worked at a MicroCenter in the service department for a year or so some 20ish years ago; the Powerspecs always held up pretty well. They didn't use high end components, but they were always pretty budget conscious and I didn't see too many in for repairs. Hopefully that one works out well for you.
Image
Alsmack | Rezlar | Dpses | Lynis | Medissin | Arbutus
Evilmonks
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Sep 28, 2017 3:24 pm

new PC

Post by Evilmonks »

i appreciate everyones input especially RAP who posted this thread for me. thank you all. not sure what the wait time is looking like. my current PC will run for maybe an hour or 2 before it blue screens so i dont think ill be making the raids untill im squared away on the new PC. hopefully its soon tho
Rapitiss
Officer
Posts: 5050
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2012 11:50 pm

Re: new PC

Post by Rapitiss »

Evilmonks wrote:i appreciate everyones input especially RAP who posted this thread for me. thank you all. not sure what the wait time is looking like. my current PC will run for maybe an hour or 2 before it blue screens so i dont think ill be making the raids untill im squared away on the new PC. hopefully its soon tho
Have you tried cleaning your old computer out? It sounds like your computer maybe over heating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BovgvppZX4k
https://youtu.be/XQS9Tb8Wsdw?t=450


My step son was having a similar issue with his computer. It was 5+ yrs old and he'd never cleaned it out. About 30-60 minutes into a game he'd start crashing or getting a blue screen. I opened up his case to find an amazing collection of dust bunnies. We cleaned out his case and heatsinks/fans. We also added a fan on the side of the case to help draw more air in directly over the CPU. Temps dropped 10-15 degrees and he was able to play his games again no problem.
Zargut
Member
Posts: 1122
Joined: Mon Oct 11, 2010 1:45 pm
Location: Taos, NM

Post by Zargut »

Heh just took a can to mine yesterday, but it was so full of dust I also took the leaf blower (at a distance) to it periodically to remove the bulk of what I dislodged with the air can. About 3 rounds of this and its pretty clean. I should have done it sooner.

You will be super happy with that machine and it will be good for a long time. I look at it like making an investment. When I bought mine I thought how best to future proof it. The sales guy had a good point that "VR Ready" was a thing I needed. And though I haven't messed with it I have heard that there is some good 3d porn out there. Ahh the future. It also has all kinds of ports, so...many...ports. A cd burner which not all come with these days.

Mine is a G224, which at the time was also about a grand. Zero issues with it. Can 6 box, while browsing and downloading a move, all at around 50% use for cpu and gpu. But I did have to get some help with the settings from rapi, at first I was hitting near 100% cpu usage. While the video card was only at 50%. Now both stay around 50% Some background FPS thing as I recall. The whole Optane Memory (intel) thing works kinda like ram + memory I guess? I don't know but there's 16 gigs of it doing something.

Now... I would totally buy AMD. After years of intel loyalty, they have finally slipped below the competition (in price vs performance) to a point that I would switch.


Lastly you will be amazed at the SSD if you don't have one. Reboots and system start is so much faster with an SSD. Congratulations on your awesome new machine!

My system is:
PowerSpec G224 Desktop Gaming PC
Intel Core i5-9400F Processor 2.9GHz (6 core)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GDDR5
16GB DDR4-2666 RAM
16GB Optane Memory
500GB SSD
Gibsalot
Posts: 137
Joined: Mon May 25, 2020 12:56 am

Post by Gibsalot »

definatly sounds like over heating issue , i have had a few comps brought to me doing simmiler the owners had cleaned all the dust out but forgot to blow out the power supply it can get filled with stuff easy ( cat hair it a nightmare ) lol !!! DONT open the power supply unless you know what your doing even unpluged the cap's can hold a charge and Zap you a good one if shorted.
Beldin Feldegast
Halaster themad
Tanluyen
Posts: 286
Joined: Sun Oct 15, 2017 11:34 pm

Post by Tanluyen »

If you do ever build your own, don't cheap out on the case and power supply as you can use those for future builds. I replace my units about every 5 years and always keep my last system as my (crapware, box machine, other stuff to not bog down my main one). With SSD drives so cheap now, getting one of those and possible an upgraded video card, if you are doing something more than EQ, for a custom build will get through for awhile.
Post Reply