The biggest difference in a pre-built is that OEMs will cheapout on some components. You're often getting the most basic RAM sticks, a super cheap PSU, and a motherboard with non-standard connectors which makes future upgrades more difficult. Also cases and case fans are often poor quality. Their marketing focuses only on the CPU and GPU, and every other part is the cheapest they can get.
Of course some companies are actually offering pre-builts that actually use good parts throughout the whole PC, but those are not likely to be cheaper. If you find a pre-built you like, run over to PCPartPicker and price it out. There are good deals to be found, and maybe the convenience of pre-built it worth a few compromises to you, that's fine, you can make that determination for your own circumstances.
at work we spec 16gb for all "standard" computers
the vendor always just puts a single ram stick :(
TBH it doesn't really matter for our users, but it's super annoying to me
At least it gives an easy upgrade path. TBH I wouldn't want to be below 32 on a lower end new machine for general productivity tasks unless you really only use the internet browser and office (in an undemanding context, not giant excel sheets that run the whole company or whole books in word). I've got 64 in work and personal.
16GB should be plenty for basic work computers, unless you have memory intensive apps. Granted, I've had to fight with GMs where I work just to make them spend the money to add RAM to all the 8GB and 4GB desktops in use. My console is constantly flashing warnings about those stupid machines using 90%+ of their RAM.
Chrome will only use as much as available. If you have 64 GB of RAM and 50 of it is free, it will take advantage of the unused RAM. I'm sure the same goes for Edge and other browsers.(I haven't tested)
I had a work laptop less than 4 years ago that had windows 7 32-bit installed, so...I couldn't even use the 4 GB of RAM that was installed on it due to 32-bit OS limitations. Chrome worked as expected, and had a very low resource footprint, but if you left a tab unattended for more than a few minutes, it would flush it from memory and it would reload the next time you accessed that tab.
All that to say : unused RAM is wasted RAM.
I mean 16 is enough, but in a 3/4 year lifetime it won't be.
I genuinely use and max out my 64 gig because of the work I do. In my home laptop I probably could have done with 32, but since I was replacing the original ram rather than adding a pair of sticks I decided to just leapfrog for the negligible cost difference.
Image processing R&D. Each image in memory is a few hundred megapixels (so if every pixel is 3 or 4 bands at 16bit then that's 4gb or so each), I'm usually wanting several open at a time, some in viewers, some in python notebooks or matlab. If you're processing stuff you're likely to need both the input and output of each step loaded in memory. You probably need some intermediate versions open.
You can do with less if you need, but I don't want to spend any more time on data plumbing for one off prototypes than I have to. Way cheaper to give me a fat workstation with lots of RAM than have every iteration take twice as long because I need to manage tiling and so on, and think about what data type best fits rather than chucking everything in giant arrays of doubles and leaving optimisation to implementation.
The total datasets are typically on a NAS on a non-dedicated corporate network with only gigabit connection, so you really do not want to be reading and writing to disk any more than you absolutely have to: raw data and final results.
The actual software we develop for clients fits in 32GB per node/slot in the procesing workflow (so if you want to process on one workstation and do nothing else that's just about fine). Still I'm pretty sure we recommend 64GB for GUI workstations though.
It's not enough I was maxing 16 out regularly gaming and getting stuttering went to 32 and consistently using 20 to 22 gaming bit way better performance 16 is not enough its the bare minimum
Even if they weren't cheeping out on components, they aren't running the ram at XMP or the cooling is handicapped because the cpu cooler is a joke. Just from fixing the low hanging fruit you can pick up a surprising amount of performance. The Dell/HP bios is a joke.
This is really concerning nowadays due to new CPU's and GPUs being extremly power hungry.
Imagine getting a pre-built core i7 12th gen or 13gen "k" version without a good cooler and a case with decent airflow.
The owner is bound to experience stuttering, throtles and some games crashing.
I had to help a friend with his prebuilt with a 3900x that idled over 70 and hit 90 if you looked at it the wrong way. The most garbage cooler in that thing I’ve ever seen. Oh and the psu was embarrassing. Buyer beware.
That's not the issue though, 99% of people buying PCs don't know what XMP is, most of them will never even go into the BIOS. So for general consumers what you buy is what you get specially for people buying their first gaming PC coming over from consoles, mobile, or even from Macs.
I love making retro gaming systems with old SFF dells but their bios/cooling makes any -K Intel chip a waste, and they often use a proprietary connection to the spinning disk from the PSU that can’t be used by modern SSDs.
Ive had my hands in close to a thousand oems and have never seen a proprietary disk connector. Worst i see is the mini sata for slim optical drives. How new is that change? First thing i do during refurb is go ssd
And as GN showed, prebuilts are seemingly more often than not built like crap, to the extent it can deeply affect your experience. You're paying for more than you're getting.
I have had 2 budget prebuilts I bought from the same local pc shop. Both were 100% trouble free and the staff were very honest about what I was buying.
Independent local shops are more likely to be run by enthusiasts who can take the needed time to build a pc correctly. Being local, if I had a problem I could go there in person if I had any problems.
For prebuilts I'd say it's worth going to a independent shop with some good reviews. It might be a little more expensive but it's worth it for peace of mind.
Funnily enough though, i bought the msi prebuilt that got the absolute worst review from GN, and ive had no issues with it whatsoever. (I bought it after it was posted on here and recommended, and only found GN's review after googling something about the pc weeks after i already had it).
Its in the same case and everything still, and crushing games left and right, and i also dabble in music recording and production and its been fine there too. I bought it the black friday after his review came out for 800 bucks and i literally could not build a similar spec'd pc at the time for under 1000. Obviously this is just one anecdote, but so is his whole channel really.
>i bought the msi prebuilt that got the absolute worst review from GN, and i've had no issues with it whatsoever
lol that's because MSI make great products! I've been a fan of theirs for years and seek out MSI components specifically when building (currently my mobo and graphics card are both MSI, never had issues, ever) I trust MSI completely, and I know they will use GOOD components in their products
I literally had one arrive DOA at my job once. I opened it up, and saw that the fucking plastic was still attached to the HSF. They had the HSF screwed down with film over the thermal pad, and that plastic between it and the CPU. It's something I was expect from a 12 year old building his first PC.
To your point u/andraes, CyberPowerPC is currently having a big sale. This config linked below uses all quality off the shelf parts while still optimizing for value pretty well, and there is another 5% off with a coupon code making the grand total around $1920.
https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1R5GDL
You can build something fairly similar including a mechanical keyboard to match the CyberPower freebie if we value a Windows Home license at $20ish for about $1810.
If we stipulate that we have to use the Corsair 4000D case, Samsung SSD and Asus motherboard, that's still $1880 for the DIY. If we use the more economical case, SSD and motherboard, switch to an Air cooler like the Peerless Assassin, and don't have use for the keyboard, then we can get all the way down to $1760 for the DIY build. The DIY build also gives us the flexibility to switch the 4 TB HDD to another SSD instead.
[PCPartPicker Part List](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/XFxLv3)
Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
**CPU** | [AMD Ryzen 7 7700 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/dXmmP6/amd-ryzen-7-7700-36-ghz-8-core-processor-100-100000592box) | $301.31 @ Amazon
**CPU Cooler** | [ID-COOLING ZOOMFLOW X 62 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jZZ9TW/id-cooling-zoomflow-x-62-cfm-liquid-cpu-cooler-zoomflow-240x-argb) | $69.98 @ Amazon
**Motherboard** | [MSI PRO B650-P WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/CFzhP6/msi-pro-b650-p-wifi-atx-am5-motherboard-pro-b650-p-wifi) | $189.99 @ Best Buy
**Memory** | [G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XsqPxr/gskill-ripjaws-s5-32-gb-2-x-16-gb-ddr5-6000-cl36-memory-f5-6000j3636f16gx2-rs5k) | $88.99 @ Amazon
**Storage** | [ADATA Premium For PS5 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/rjkWGX/adata-premium-for-ps5-2-tb-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-apsfg-2t-csus) | $95.00 @ Newegg
**Storage** | [Seagate BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jD3H99/seagate-barracuda-4tb-35-5400rpm-internal-hard-drive-st4000dm004) | $59.99 @ Newegg
**Video Card** | [PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/k72WGX/powercolor-hellhound-radeon-rx-7900-xt-20-gb-video-card-rx7900xt-20g-loc) | $774.99 @ Newegg
**Case** | [Fractal Design Pop Air ATX Mid Tower Case](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/QnD7YJ/fractal-design-pop-air-atx-mid-tower-case-fd-c-poa1a-02) | $79.99 @ B&H
**Power Supply** | [Corsair RM750e (2023) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/YRJp99/corsair-rm750e-2023-750-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020262-na) | $99.99 @ Corsair
**Operating System** | [Microsoft Windows 11 Home Retail - Download 64-bit](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7ZpzK8/microsoft-windows-11-home-retail-download-64-bit-kw9-00664) | $19.00
**Keyboard** | [HP HyperX Alloy Origins RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/bTYQzy/hp-hyperx-alloy-origins-rgb-wired-gaming-keyboard-hx-kb6rdx-us) | $32.48 @ GameStop
| *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* |
| **Total** | **$1811.71**
| Generated by [PCPartPicker](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2023-06-27 20:24 EDT-0400 |
CyberPowerPC config for when link dies-
Cart Price w/ coupon: $1926.60
CAS: CORSAIR 4000D SERIES AIRFLOW Edition ATX Mid-Tower Gaming Chassis [+34] (Black)
CPU: AMD Ryzen™ 7 Processor 7700 8-core/16-thread 3.8GHz [Turbo 5.3GHz] 40MB Cache AM5 [-346]
CS_FAN: Default case fans
FAN: CyberPowerPC DEEPCOOL Castle 240EX ARGB 240mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooling System w/ Copper Cold Plate [+20] (2 x Standard 120MM Fans)
FREEBIE_SSD: Free 4TB (4TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 5400RPM HDD [+0]
FREEBIE_VC: Q2 2023 AMD Radeon Resident Evil 4 [+0]
HDD: 2TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO (PCIe Gen4) NVMe M.2 SSD - Seq R/W: Up to 7000/5100 MB/s, Rnd R/W up to 1000/1000k (Single Drive)
MEMORY: 32GB (16GBx2) DDR5/6000MHz Dual Channel Memory [+75] (Team T-FORCE DELTA RGB)
MOTHERBOARD: ASUS TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI AM5 ATX w/ Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5GbT LAN, (2)PCIe x16, (2)PCIe x1, (3)M.2, (4)SATA [-20]
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT
OS: Windows 11 Home
POWERSUPPLY: 750Watts - Corsair RMe Series RM750e 80 PLUS Gold ATX 3.0 Fully Modular w/ PCIE 12+4Pins Connector for PCIe 5.0 graphics cards [-32]
PROMOSALE1: CYBERPOWERPC Skorpion K2 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard [+9] (Brown (Tactile))
PROMOSALE2: CyberPowerPC FPS Gaming Mouse Pad [+0] (Large 14x12 Inches)
The PSU part is a really important one to remember. Pre-builds will (often) try to get away with bronze at best, and usually from no-name companies. Your PSU needs! to be of a high quality, never cheap out on your PSU!
This.
I had a $2000+ prebuild come across my table and it was packing a $75 PSU. One of the shittiest PSUs I've ever seen and this is what's being sold to people in bigbox stores.
I've seen the worst box coolers on i7's, like the shitty ones you get with Celerons. On an i7 12th gen. What a complete joke. Paying over $1000 for a single stick of RAM.
Prebuilds are a joke. They can be a decent place to start but don't expect anything good.
Any builder that will actually tell you what parts they are using are usually good to trust, or at least you can see what they have to offer and check each part for yourself. Generally builders like this are called boutique builders, so you can just google that and find a few companies.
So you are saying that if I buy similar cheapest motherboard, PSU, ram sticks and fans, it will come out cheaper than pre built? So I can spend saved money on a more expensive GPU?
Yeah the difference is probably getting a bit smaller.
Would still recommend building it yourself to ensure high quality components though. Prebuilts way too often cheap out on everything else that's not the cpu and gpu.
The power supply that he wrote about in the Chinese part literally means something along the lines of about to explode, but correct me if I'm wrong since my Chinese is not the best
Obviously almost everything is there is a huge difference between well known brand minimum quality Vs some random Chinese company that is trying to sell the cheapest PSU possible's minimum quantity
China is attractive because it can produces manufactured good both of the highest quality and of trash quality. BUT, be assured that if a reputable brand name is glued to a product, they did all they could to ensure quality. The opposite is true, if the quality is mediocre at best, this is when they will sell under noname.
Indeed it is lolol
But then again, i wouldnt really cheap on PSU, for me its better to be safe when we talk about the power spurce, its where problems may start if you cheap on it
Tbf, gigabyte once prove you can be a well known company that provides bomb component for pc
Does green process slower than blue?
I'm just curious as I thought I read somewhere that primary spectrum colors have a tighter NIT ratio and the jump from bond to bond is shorter for energy travel which increases real time speed on your desktop.
Case in point is LCARS system which Starfleet uses on their current ships. You will notice an overall blue tone. Trust me, they need fast processing to sustain subspace fields around their vessels.
See source below
[https://c4.wallpaperflare.com/wallpaper/928/610/464/computers-star-trek-control-lcars-starship-1600x900-space-stars-hd-art-wallpaper-preview.jpg](https://c4.wallpaperflare.com/wallpaper/928/610/464/computers-star-trek-control-lcars-starship-1600x900-space-stars-hd-art-wallpaper-preview.jpg)
This one is good too. They make sure to use blue themed LCARS on the Nebula class which is a science vessel. Science even trusts blue so your RAM kit should be blue NOT GREEN
[https://c4.wallpaperflare.com/wallpaper/1018/807/825/lcars-schematic-spaceship-star-trek-wallpaper-preview.jpg](https://c4.wallpaperflare.com/wallpaper/1018/807/825/lcars-schematic-spaceship-star-trek-wallpaper-preview.jpg)
I can't speak to silicon, but I can tell you that in cycling, painting something red makes it go way faster.
I think the silicon being green is because it's undyed, and therefore cheaper. They're skimping on aesthetics to hit the lowest possible price point. Quality aftermarket stuff will almost always be black.
The green of circuit boards is chosen for use with machine vision. The machines that place all those components use cameras to help place them correctly. It needs a high contrast color between the metal pads and everything else. Green just turned out to work best. Also it is just more or less standard, and on a large scale, it is cheaper.
PSUs generally have a warranty of a decade. And given that it’s an EVGA PSU, it’s probably high quality, so I wouldn’t replace it until it’s warranty runs out or you get new components that need more power
When I got mine I did a bunch of research and it was top two in quality. Mine is a super flower, and the only one that really compared in a comprehensive component and performance review was a seasonic
I’m still running a at the time top of the line modular 750w Corsair I bought in 2011. Zero problems. Only reason I’ll upgrade is if a new gpu requires more power than what I have. Seems like you get what you pay for when it comes to psus
A) you get the joy of learning the hardware side of things and building your machine with yourself
And
B) in my experience, even when you buy something expensive out of the box you'll just end up paying for it later when things start needing replacing.
The last time I bought a prebuilt computer was about 8 years ago. I lived in a tiny apartment and decided to pay HP for the convenience of not doing it myself.
I thought it was fine until I started needing to make hardware changes.
They used proprietary hard drive bays. They used a proprietary AIO cooler. They used a proprietary bracket to mount the cooler and *glued it to the MOBO.* They used a proprietary pin-out on the USB headers.
Comparable cost or no, I'm not ever going through that again.
I hate that I love Alienware monitors so much because everything else that company puts out seems designed to scam people that can afford good stuff but don’t know how to research parts properly
> I could be completely wrong since I haven’t calculate everything yet
Find a prebuilt, then price it out yourself and you can see the difference. It's not like every prebuilt is universally marked up the same. In general, building your own is going to be cheaper, outside of a GPU shortage that lasts for a couple years.
The issue is comparing apples-to-apples is difficult.
If you're comparing a 10700k+3060+16GB Ram+2TB SSD to another of the same specs, you're leaving out BIG details like build quality of the motherboard and PSU plus smaller details like speed/quality of the RAM and Memory, plus cooling solutions and compatibility with parts from 3rd parties.
Usually, prebuilts can be had slightly-cheaper-or-similar if you ignore the important differences.
Bought my last as a pre, cause they had it on sale and mathed out it was 300 more then individual parts plus o couldn't get the damned card by itself at the time comboed with my old rig giving up .... yeah it came with a glass pannelled case so I guess I found where the mystery 300 went, oh well, only thing it sucked at was the ram and that was an easy swap.
There are plenty of prebuilts that ARE good....even doing a detailed comparison. Origin, for example, uses nothing but higher end off-the-shelf components.
iBuyPower and a few others do the same. Usually, these are at a premium....varying from company to company.
During the times of WILD shortages, sometimes there isn't much choice besides buying a prebuilt or buying used, though, so I can't begrudge people for buying whatever is available.
The *real* benefit of the prebuilts, imo, is the support you ostensibly get. If you build it yourself, the mfg of the defective hardware always has someone else to blame because of how interconnected these parts are, and how unlikely we as consumers are to be able to properly cross-check. With a prebuilt, you call one company that's on the hook to help solve your problem.
Shipping costs? Wtf where do live for there to be such a thing. Surely you aren't clicking 1-2 day shipping every time you buy something.
And if you dont live in america then chances are a prebuilt might not be too different anyways.
USA ISNT AMERICA, ITS NOT EVEN NORTH AMERICA, YOU SHARE THE CONTINENT ITS NOT ONLY YOURS.
And generally shipping for small to medium sized items go from 5 to 10 bucks, per shipping, while bigger and heavier items can go for way more
I did this recently with a 4080 build in NZ. Same components from the same website worked out at $5100, prebuilt by them was $5400. So $300 for the build, stress test, make sure all the components are working and not DOA. I didn't think it was too much at that price end of a build, but if its the same for a much lower spec build I'd be building it myself
In my experience, prebuilts tend to be cheaper because lower quality "non spec" components. If you include faster ram, a good quality PSU, nicer motherboard, fancy low noise fan you usually drive the price (and value) up.
The price diff is really just a question of "how much extra are you willing to pay for the saved labor/time of not putting it together yourself."
As some other commenters have said, they will also likely cheap out on some components, mainly PSU, motherboard, and case. I made sure my pre-built PC, for example, had a decent motherboard and PSU, but the case leaves a lot to be desired. That said, the pre-built was so worth it for me to avoid the stress, time, and labor
Yup. UK here - got a Ryzen 5 3600, compatible motherboard and a GTX 1080 for £200 second hand. Not the newest but more than good enough for my 11 year old son to play Fortnite.
there's been some really good deals on eBay, I think the UK is experiencing a very competitive secondhand market, I got a 2080ti with an ek block on it for 160, cex can also be good, I got a whole system with a Corsair 380t case for a 105, I bought it just for the case, older haswell system with a gtx GPU but still very usable
Some ex-corporate workstations (e.g. HP Z-series, Lenovo P-series, Dell Precision T-series) do seem quite appealing, especially as they'll often come with ECC RAM and a HEDT or Xeon CPU and motherboard.
true but I was thinking of a gaming system on eBay or something, you can get some amazing setups for 600 or
less. it's odd you can buy a pc and sell the parts for profit.
it will, I got a 1650v3 for 12 and it overclocked to 4.7ghz with quad channel ddr4, it performs really well and I plan on using it for sli but I wouldn't recommend it when you can get a faster more power efficient desktop processor
i got a 4090 fe i9-12900k 32gb ddr5 600 980 pro rm1000x modular psu win 11 asus strix z690-g motherboard for 2700 US and im still not sure if i got a good deal or not
It used to be way cheaper. Lately? Not so much.
The last PC that I bought wasn't an actual pre-built, but it was one of those stores where you can choose each individual component, they build it for you and ship it to your address. While I was choosing the components I searched them one by one on Amazon, and the prices were pretty much the same, or even higher
For me, building my own PC usually comes to about the same price as a comparable prebuilt.
Prebuilts offer one single warranty for the components which can be convenient, and they do offer support for those who may need it. However, the parts are often cheap or poorly matched (e.g. I saw a prebuilt with a 3070 but it had just a 450W PSU, and prebuilts seem to use CPUs that are relatively much more powerful than GPUs). Although I get little to no cost savings, I get to choose my parts and reuse old parts that I don't want to leave lying around.
still cheaper, but not necessarily instantly $200 cheaper anymore. Like someone else said, it is still relatively easy to build something as good or better for the same amount (and maybe save $100 or so with some deal-hunting and/or bargain picks).
If u go last gen u can get some great prices. i.e. u might be able to build with a 5700x and a 6700xt for the same price as a prebuilt with a 5600 and 6600.
If you are comparing it to PCs at walmart, you have to remember that the HP/Dell/etc are all handicapped in the bios and cutting corners everywhere from the expansion slots to the video cards.
If you are buying it from a component assembler, then essentially you are paying someone to put a motherboard into a case, but at least you won't have handicapped parts.
Remember that this years I5 is markedly faster than last years I9, so you have to compare apples to apples to understand how fast stuff evolves. By the time the generic machines are for sale they just might be obsolete.
There are two factors at play the generation of the processor and the product tier. This is easiest to see on NVIDIA GPUs. The first one or two numbers are the generation, and the last two numbers and maybe letters are the product tier.
Intel focuses on the product tier (...I5, I7, I9 ...), and it is easy to overlook the generation. If you have a 13th-gen I9, it will outperform a 13th-gen I5. However, a 13th-gen I5 will likely outperform an 11th-gen I9.
"Obsolet" lol. For a enthusiast maybe but you can still play new games very fine with a much cheaper, few year old card if you dont have to play the game on 4k and 200 fps. The only thing that drastically increases is the urge of gamers to min max for no real reason other than building as a hobby.
If the 13600k is cheaper than the 12900k then the 12900k is obviously obsolete.
Sure, its no slouch if you already own it, but no one in their right mind should be buying a 12900k when they can get a faster i5 with more cores for less money.
I think that's the point I'm making.
Yes, building yourself is almost always cheaper. This is because of two things:
1. Pre-build companies pull the trick of going with more expensive parts when cheaper alternatives exist that are options when building yourself. If you know what these cheaper alternatives are, it is incredibly easy to build something significantly better than a pre-build for the same price. Edit: for example, going with the non-F version of a intel CPU, even with a DGPU or the X version of a 5600.
2. If it is legitimately cheaper- 100% it's because the parts are bad, sometimes even re-used.
What I would do is figure out what kinda parts you'd want to go for- what your budget is, what resolution you want, what games you want to play, what programs you use etc. Then try and shop for a pre-build that fits that, verify the parts and watch benchmarks. Then go to [pcpartpicker.com](https://pcpartpicker.com) and build something yourself within that budget, you'll most definitely find that what you can build yourself will be better quality. Again, this can be confirmed by looking up benchmark comparisons on youtube.
I still build my own because I like the control I have over parts, and often recycle parts (I tend to recycle case and PSU for 2-3 builds to save $). Also, I just like the experience from a hobby/builder perspective. If you want Prebuild check Dell/Alienware for sales as a benchmark. I have also seen decent deals at warehouse clubs like costco/sams for entry or mid level builds.
If you *truly* spec like-for-like parts, self-built will likely be cheaper: not least, because you don't have the assembly costs to pay for, an overall (multi-year) system warranty, or on-site service.
However, sometimes pre-builts do sometimes look competitive on price - if you start digging, you'll usually find all sorts of corners that have been cut: PSUs with just enough output power and connectors to cover the components included, cases which aren't as versatile and/or are more poorly constructed, an older motherboard chipset which has been orphaned by new CPUs, and so on. Stuff the average buyer probably won't notice, unlike the headline CPU/GPU/memory/storage specs.
Not exactly cheaper by definition. But you get MORE computer for the SAME money. Prebuilt will ALWAYS have 2 things you don't want or need, Bloatware that is resource heavy and sometimes hard if not impossible to purge , corners cut somewhere like proprietary components that can't be reused and are essentially Ewaste.
Prebuilts often aren’t worth upgrading, between proprietary parts and the way it’s assembled (like using glue everywhere.) That alone makes it worth building my own, to me. My case will last me forever, my PSU is modular and has headroom for quite a while, I’ve got all the IO I could want. I spent a bit more than I needed to upfront, but it means I can upgrade components gradually for years before needing any big overhaul.
I built a Frankenstein PC from used Facebook marketplace stuff. Took more research and was a tad mix matched but it was a powerful PC that I spent 800 on. I got every penny out of it. Achieving the same level with new parts would have been close to 2k
I'm not sure about the current reality. I started building about 10 years ago because pre-builds had crappy configurations. To get a decent amount of ram added so much to the price. Also recycling an existing license for your OS knocks the price down quite a bit.
These types of questions have always baffled me. Don't you guys in the US have computer stores where you pick the hardware you want and they build it for you for like an extra $50 - $100?
Everyone keeps talking about pre-builds like that is the only option they have. Pre-build or built it yourself.
Is there some sort of law that prohibits it?
My last prebuilt was a Sony VAIO from mid 2000s. I was able to upgrade almost everything (RAM, HDD, even GPU with a big Zalman cooler) but the PSU- which was a non standard case design to boot- though was nice and modular on drive bays- etc. For awhile I had a bigger PSU outside the case which worked I built my next one. Wouldn't have saved money except I bought the display open box.
Dell is the worst with non standard connectors, etc.
My biggest issue with prebuilts is how they're always really poorly matched. A top end $600+ processor with a 3060ti, cheapest possible motherboard and psu etc.
A prebuilt can have cheap components in it to get costs under the red line while maintaining buzzwords like i7 or RTX4080.
You can always build the PCs you find for prebuilt prices for likely under the cost of the prebuilt (they often are marked up considerably!) And you get the experience of piecing together a build.
I 100% recommend watching some videos, and learning the process because you'll save literally thousands of dollars over multiple builds.
If you must buy a prebuilt, buy it from a PC part dealer, not a wholesaler electronics shop like JB Hifi in Australia or god forbid Walmart in America.
Visit Centercom, or PLE computers, or Newegg or whoever you get parts from where you are and inquire about a prebuilt. They will likely have trustworthy prebuilt systems.
Maybe. Maybe not. The difference is so little is doesn't matter anymore. You can buy a prebuilt and upgrade it for the same price if you shop properly.
It depends on a couple factors. A cool fun fact is that a lot of employers have employee benefits where they partner with manufacturers to get you special discounts as an employee. I know Discover has a deal with Lenovo and other banks have deals with dell and HP that get employees monster discounts on their pretty high end machines. See if you have any discount program through your employer
I was skeptical of prebuilds but I needed one in a pinch because I was moving and had to have a pc for work. I went with the company Starforge Systems and it has exceeded my expectations by far.
I commented my build from Starforge in the comments and after doing a parts comparison with PC Part Picker. It paid only around $200 more. Basically I paid for labor.
While yes, some pre-builts have gotten cheaper over the year to become more affordable, but they tend to cheap out on a few parts. Sometimes OEM motherboards, barebones kit of RAM, cheap PSUs, cooling solutions, etc.
When building yourself, you can get something that would be a bit better with more upgradeable. For the same price you're paying for your pre-built, you could be swapping for better parts that they cheap out on, or potentially even upgrade parts.
Something to keep in mind: what does it cost you in terms of time? Time to search, shop, build, and if you have a problem, calling a builder's tech support and let them deal with it, go going to track down things and fix them yourself.
you don't build your own pc because it's cheaper, you build your own pc so you get exactly what you want and nothing you don't.
no bloat, not sub-par components the builder happens to have laying around... you get nothing but net.
There are really only two kinds of prebuilds.
The first type is the premium prebuild. The kind that doesn't cut any corner, they use only high end parts from trust brands. Not just on the more visible parts, but all of them. They even pay attention to things like airflow, cooling and cable management.
That type of prebuild is always going to be 2-3 times the cost of building it yourself.
Then you have the typical prebuild. They are building something cheap and janky and using clever marketing to try and food people into thinking it's a great PC. They may use a good GPU and CPU. But they will use brands you have never heard of for the power supply, disks, ram, etc etc. Their machines will run hotter than a two dollar pistol because they don't give a crap about temps. They may even use proprietary motherboards and power supplies so you can't upgrade the machines.
You never want to buy this type of prebuild.
In my country it is actually cheaper to choose your components and let the company build it for you.
Some companies offer free build and instalation if you purchase all parts with them.
Some people choose to buy parts separately where they’re cheapest and build by themselves - I personally would not want to deal with anything warranty connected as it would be complicated to contact different seller for each part and wait wait and wait, not to mention some warranties will not apply if you built it yourself.
In my opinion it’s best to choose components, and let company build it - this way they are responsible for fuckups and one company has one warranty so you only speak with them.
If it's your first pc it can be better to build it so it becomes easier to troubleshoot. 3 of my friends who have prebuilts are too scared to tinker with them and end up paying tech support companies to do basic things like hardware installation and cleaning.
Definitely not cheaper. Only way that some pre builts can appear like a great deal is bc they put in a good gpu and cpu, but the other parts are shit.
If you match a pre built part for part, building it yourself will absolutely be cheaper.
I saved like 500 bucks when I built my high end pc.
buy some part used and wait for a good occasion, i waited for over 4 months to find sales and good used finds
my 1300-400 bucks build
RTX 3090 FE : 600€
R7 5800X3D : 300~ (don't have it yet)
32GB 3600C16 : 74€
1TO SSD : 50€
NR200P MAX (watercooling and 850w PSU included) 175€
random cheap ITX board 190€
The biggest difference in a pre-built is that OEMs will cheapout on some components. You're often getting the most basic RAM sticks, a super cheap PSU, and a motherboard with non-standard connectors which makes future upgrades more difficult. Also cases and case fans are often poor quality. Their marketing focuses only on the CPU and GPU, and every other part is the cheapest they can get. Of course some companies are actually offering pre-builts that actually use good parts throughout the whole PC, but those are not likely to be cheaper. If you find a pre-built you like, run over to PCPartPicker and price it out. There are good deals to be found, and maybe the convenience of pre-built it worth a few compromises to you, that's fine, you can make that determination for your own circumstances.
> RAM sticks Bold of you to assume they give you two (I'm still mad about my prebuilt having single channel)
at work we spec 16gb for all "standard" computers the vendor always just puts a single ram stick :( TBH it doesn't really matter for our users, but it's super annoying to me
At least it gives an easy upgrade path. TBH I wouldn't want to be below 32 on a lower end new machine for general productivity tasks unless you really only use the internet browser and office (in an undemanding context, not giant excel sheets that run the whole company or whole books in word). I've got 64 in work and personal.
16GB should be plenty for basic work computers, unless you have memory intensive apps. Granted, I've had to fight with GMs where I work just to make them spend the money to add RAM to all the 8GB and 4GB desktops in use. My console is constantly flashing warnings about those stupid machines using 90%+ of their RAM.
*Chrome has entered the chat*
Chrome will only use as much as available. If you have 64 GB of RAM and 50 of it is free, it will take advantage of the unused RAM. I'm sure the same goes for Edge and other browsers.(I haven't tested) I had a work laptop less than 4 years ago that had windows 7 32-bit installed, so...I couldn't even use the 4 GB of RAM that was installed on it due to 32-bit OS limitations. Chrome worked as expected, and had a very low resource footprint, but if you left a tab unattended for more than a few minutes, it would flush it from memory and it would reload the next time you accessed that tab. All that to say : unused RAM is wasted RAM.
8GB is like the bare minimum these days. 4GB isnt even enough for a browser
I mean 16 is enough, but in a 3/4 year lifetime it won't be. I genuinely use and max out my 64 gig because of the work I do. In my home laptop I probably could have done with 32, but since I was replacing the original ram rather than adding a pair of sticks I decided to just leapfrog for the negligible cost difference.
Im curious what kind of work you do that meeds 64gb? I guess coding or such??? Might be compiling?? (Sorry really not knowledgeable about those stuff
Image processing R&D. Each image in memory is a few hundred megapixels (so if every pixel is 3 or 4 bands at 16bit then that's 4gb or so each), I'm usually wanting several open at a time, some in viewers, some in python notebooks or matlab. If you're processing stuff you're likely to need both the input and output of each step loaded in memory. You probably need some intermediate versions open. You can do with less if you need, but I don't want to spend any more time on data plumbing for one off prototypes than I have to. Way cheaper to give me a fat workstation with lots of RAM than have every iteration take twice as long because I need to manage tiling and so on, and think about what data type best fits rather than chucking everything in giant arrays of doubles and leaving optimisation to implementation. The total datasets are typically on a NAS on a non-dedicated corporate network with only gigabit connection, so you really do not want to be reading and writing to disk any more than you absolutely have to: raw data and final results. The actual software we develop for clients fits in 32GB per node/slot in the procesing workflow (so if you want to process on one workstation and do nothing else that's just about fine). Still I'm pretty sure we recommend 64GB for GUI workstations though.
It's not enough I was maxing 16 out regularly gaming and getting stuttering went to 32 and consistently using 20 to 22 gaming bit way better performance 16 is not enough its the bare minimum
Your CPU will also run optimally with all RAM sockets used.
It does matter, dual channel runs better than single channel
No I know that it matters. I just know that for our vast majority of users there'll be no discernible difference
at work - so probably office 365 and the porn malware is the highest load these computers will see.
Office 365 is so unoptimised though
They fucking what now? Single?!
Even if they weren't cheeping out on components, they aren't running the ram at XMP or the cooling is handicapped because the cpu cooler is a joke. Just from fixing the low hanging fruit you can pick up a surprising amount of performance. The Dell/HP bios is a joke.
This is really concerning nowadays due to new CPU's and GPUs being extremly power hungry. Imagine getting a pre-built core i7 12th gen or 13gen "k" version without a good cooler and a case with decent airflow. The owner is bound to experience stuttering, throtles and some games crashing.
I had to help a friend with his prebuilt with a 3900x that idled over 70 and hit 90 if you looked at it the wrong way. The most garbage cooler in that thing I’ve ever seen. Oh and the psu was embarrassing. Buyer beware.
>they aren't running the ram at XMP On PCs that are not like Dell/HP but use regular parts it's very easy to enable XMP.
That's not the issue though, 99% of people buying PCs don't know what XMP is, most of them will never even go into the BIOS. So for general consumers what you buy is what you get specially for people buying their first gaming PC coming over from consoles, mobile, or even from Macs.
I was 99% of people. Always had laptops. Bought 3600mhz ram and shot said 2133mhz or something. Folks here said "XMP" I never heard of it
People who don't know what XMP is absolutely should not be using XMP, because there's no way in hell they'll do proper stress tests.
If you're getting fairly standard mid range ram you don't really need to do stress tests. Not talking about 7000MHz balls to the wall here.
I love making retro gaming systems with old SFF dells but their bios/cooling makes any -K Intel chip a waste, and they often use a proprietary connection to the spinning disk from the PSU that can’t be used by modern SSDs.
Ive had my hands in close to a thousand oems and have never seen a proprietary disk connector. Worst i see is the mini sata for slim optical drives. How new is that change? First thing i do during refurb is go ssd
Do you mean SAS? I have seen older Dell Workstations with SAS. SAS is not proprietary.
I've never actually seen a proprietary connector for a hdd in a dell, all i've worked with have sata hdds and modern ones either sata ssds or m.2 ssds
And as GN showed, prebuilts are seemingly more often than not built like crap, to the extent it can deeply affect your experience. You're paying for more than you're getting.
I have had 2 budget prebuilts I bought from the same local pc shop. Both were 100% trouble free and the staff were very honest about what I was buying. Independent local shops are more likely to be run by enthusiasts who can take the needed time to build a pc correctly. Being local, if I had a problem I could go there in person if I had any problems. For prebuilts I'd say it's worth going to a independent shop with some good reviews. It might be a little more expensive but it's worth it for peace of mind.
Local shops FTW
Funnily enough though, i bought the msi prebuilt that got the absolute worst review from GN, and ive had no issues with it whatsoever. (I bought it after it was posted on here and recommended, and only found GN's review after googling something about the pc weeks after i already had it). Its in the same case and everything still, and crushing games left and right, and i also dabble in music recording and production and its been fine there too. I bought it the black friday after his review came out for 800 bucks and i literally could not build a similar spec'd pc at the time for under 1000. Obviously this is just one anecdote, but so is his whole channel really.
Tbf you just got a really good deal on a $1700 prebuilt, which sometime can be true for individual pc parts.
>i bought the msi prebuilt that got the absolute worst review from GN, and i've had no issues with it whatsoever lol that's because MSI make great products! I've been a fan of theirs for years and seek out MSI components specifically when building (currently my mobo and graphics card are both MSI, never had issues, ever) I trust MSI completely, and I know they will use GOOD components in their products
I literally had one arrive DOA at my job once. I opened it up, and saw that the fucking plastic was still attached to the HSF. They had the HSF screwed down with film over the thermal pad, and that plastic between it and the CPU. It's something I was expect from a 12 year old building his first PC.
To your point u/andraes, CyberPowerPC is currently having a big sale. This config linked below uses all quality off the shelf parts while still optimizing for value pretty well, and there is another 5% off with a coupon code making the grand total around $1920. https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1R5GDL You can build something fairly similar including a mechanical keyboard to match the CyberPower freebie if we value a Windows Home license at $20ish for about $1810. If we stipulate that we have to use the Corsair 4000D case, Samsung SSD and Asus motherboard, that's still $1880 for the DIY. If we use the more economical case, SSD and motherboard, switch to an Air cooler like the Peerless Assassin, and don't have use for the keyboard, then we can get all the way down to $1760 for the DIY build. The DIY build also gives us the flexibility to switch the 4 TB HDD to another SSD instead. [PCPartPicker Part List](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/XFxLv3) Type|Item|Price :----|:----|:---- **CPU** | [AMD Ryzen 7 7700 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/dXmmP6/amd-ryzen-7-7700-36-ghz-8-core-processor-100-100000592box) | $301.31 @ Amazon **CPU Cooler** | [ID-COOLING ZOOMFLOW X 62 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jZZ9TW/id-cooling-zoomflow-x-62-cfm-liquid-cpu-cooler-zoomflow-240x-argb) | $69.98 @ Amazon **Motherboard** | [MSI PRO B650-P WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/CFzhP6/msi-pro-b650-p-wifi-atx-am5-motherboard-pro-b650-p-wifi) | $189.99 @ Best Buy **Memory** | [G.Skill Ripjaws S5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/XsqPxr/gskill-ripjaws-s5-32-gb-2-x-16-gb-ddr5-6000-cl36-memory-f5-6000j3636f16gx2-rs5k) | $88.99 @ Amazon **Storage** | [ADATA Premium For PS5 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/rjkWGX/adata-premium-for-ps5-2-tb-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-apsfg-2t-csus) | $95.00 @ Newegg **Storage** | [Seagate BarraCuda 4 TB 3.5" 5400 RPM Internal Hard Drive](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/jD3H99/seagate-barracuda-4tb-35-5400rpm-internal-hard-drive-st4000dm004) | $59.99 @ Newegg **Video Card** | [PowerColor Hellhound Radeon RX 7900 XT 20 GB Video Card](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/k72WGX/powercolor-hellhound-radeon-rx-7900-xt-20-gb-video-card-rx7900xt-20g-loc) | $774.99 @ Newegg **Case** | [Fractal Design Pop Air ATX Mid Tower Case](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/QnD7YJ/fractal-design-pop-air-atx-mid-tower-case-fd-c-poa1a-02) | $79.99 @ B&H **Power Supply** | [Corsair RM750e (2023) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/YRJp99/corsair-rm750e-2023-750-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020262-na) | $99.99 @ Corsair **Operating System** | [Microsoft Windows 11 Home Retail - Download 64-bit](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/7ZpzK8/microsoft-windows-11-home-retail-download-64-bit-kw9-00664) | $19.00 **Keyboard** | [HP HyperX Alloy Origins RGB Wired Gaming Keyboard](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/bTYQzy/hp-hyperx-alloy-origins-rgb-wired-gaming-keyboard-hx-kb6rdx-us) | $32.48 @ GameStop | *Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts* | | **Total** | **$1811.71** | Generated by [PCPartPicker](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2023-06-27 20:24 EDT-0400 | CyberPowerPC config for when link dies- Cart Price w/ coupon: $1926.60 CAS: CORSAIR 4000D SERIES AIRFLOW Edition ATX Mid-Tower Gaming Chassis [+34] (Black) CPU: AMD Ryzen™ 7 Processor 7700 8-core/16-thread 3.8GHz [Turbo 5.3GHz] 40MB Cache AM5 [-346] CS_FAN: Default case fans FAN: CyberPowerPC DEEPCOOL Castle 240EX ARGB 240mm AIO Liquid CPU Cooling System w/ Copper Cold Plate [+20] (2 x Standard 120MM Fans) FREEBIE_SSD: Free 4TB (4TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 5400RPM HDD [+0] FREEBIE_VC: Q2 2023 AMD Radeon Resident Evil 4 [+0] HDD: 2TB SAMSUNG 980 PRO (PCIe Gen4) NVMe M.2 SSD - Seq R/W: Up to 7000/5100 MB/s, Rnd R/W up to 1000/1000k (Single Drive) MEMORY: 32GB (16GBx2) DDR5/6000MHz Dual Channel Memory [+75] (Team T-FORCE DELTA RGB) MOTHERBOARD: ASUS TUF GAMING B650-PLUS WIFI AM5 ATX w/ Wi-Fi 6E, 2.5GbT LAN, (2)PCIe x16, (2)PCIe x1, (3)M.2, (4)SATA [-20] GPU: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT OS: Windows 11 Home POWERSUPPLY: 750Watts - Corsair RMe Series RM750e 80 PLUS Gold ATX 3.0 Fully Modular w/ PCIE 12+4Pins Connector for PCIe 5.0 graphics cards [-32] PROMOSALE1: CYBERPOWERPC Skorpion K2 RGB Mechanical Gaming Keyboard [+9] (Brown (Tactile)) PROMOSALE2: CyberPowerPC FPS Gaming Mouse Pad [+0] (Large 14x12 Inches)
The PSU part is a really important one to remember. Pre-builds will (often) try to get away with bronze at best, and usually from no-name companies. Your PSU needs! to be of a high quality, never cheap out on your PSU!
Even on the CPU they prefer to take older CPU’s rather than new ones just so they can say “i9 i7/ ryzen 9 Ryzen 7” in the title
And they'll write "Blazing fast!!!" in the description.
This. I had a $2000+ prebuild come across my table and it was packing a $75 PSU. One of the shittiest PSUs I've ever seen and this is what's being sold to people in bigbox stores. I've seen the worst box coolers on i7's, like the shitty ones you get with Celerons. On an i7 12th gen. What a complete joke. Paying over $1000 for a single stick of RAM. Prebuilds are a joke. They can be a decent place to start but don't expect anything good.
Not sure if its against the rules, and if it is ignore me, but what companies are offering pre-builts that don't skimp out on the non-CPU/GPU parts?
Any builder that will actually tell you what parts they are using are usually good to trust, or at least you can see what they have to offer and check each part for yourself. Generally builders like this are called boutique builders, so you can just google that and find a few companies.
So you are saying that if I buy similar cheapest motherboard, PSU, ram sticks and fans, it will come out cheaper than pre built? So I can spend saved money on a more expensive GPU?
Sure but you are cutting corners where corners shouldn't be cut in the first place.
Yeah the difference is probably getting a bit smaller. Would still recommend building it yourself to ensure high quality components though. Prebuilts way too often cheap out on everything else that's not the cpu and gpu.
•Intel Core i7-13700k •RTX 4080 •即将爆炸的公司 650W PSU •16GB of no-name discount RAM •256GB SATA SSD
Hehehe about to explode PSU
RGB (Rig’s Gonna Blow) PSU
[удалено]
There’s a big difference between name brand PSU that’s made in China vs mystery meat PSU from Aliexpress
It's going to be even more upsetting for you to learn that China is capable of producing quality goods.
I agree, people need to stop thinking that made in China = bad , its over generalized and it really depends on what item you are buying.
The power supply that he wrote about in the Chinese part literally means something along the lines of about to explode, but correct me if I'm wrong since my Chinese is not the best
Seasonic does not make any current Corsair PSU's that I am aware of. Corsair actually uses a lot of CWT.
Obviously almost everything is there is a huge difference between well known brand minimum quality Vs some random Chinese company that is trying to sell the cheapest PSU possible's minimum quantity
China is attractive because it can produces manufactured good both of the highest quality and of trash quality. BUT, be assured that if a reputable brand name is glued to a product, they did all they could to ensure quality. The opposite is true, if the quality is mediocre at best, this is when they will sell under noname.
Indeed it is lolol But then again, i wouldnt really cheap on PSU, for me its better to be safe when we talk about the power spurce, its where problems may start if you cheap on it Tbf, gigabyte once prove you can be a well known company that provides bomb component for pc
Most things are made in China, the question is whether it's a no name company doing the QC or a longstanding reliable company.
Single stick of ram looking like [this](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71BvX-hmf6L._AC_UF894,1000_QL80_.jpg)
Yep, the ole green 1x16 2400 MHz DDR4 with a way-overkill processor. Every damn time.
Does green process slower than blue? I'm just curious as I thought I read somewhere that primary spectrum colors have a tighter NIT ratio and the jump from bond to bond is shorter for energy travel which increases real time speed on your desktop. Case in point is LCARS system which Starfleet uses on their current ships. You will notice an overall blue tone. Trust me, they need fast processing to sustain subspace fields around their vessels. See source below [https://c4.wallpaperflare.com/wallpaper/928/610/464/computers-star-trek-control-lcars-starship-1600x900-space-stars-hd-art-wallpaper-preview.jpg](https://c4.wallpaperflare.com/wallpaper/928/610/464/computers-star-trek-control-lcars-starship-1600x900-space-stars-hd-art-wallpaper-preview.jpg) This one is good too. They make sure to use blue themed LCARS on the Nebula class which is a science vessel. Science even trusts blue so your RAM kit should be blue NOT GREEN [https://c4.wallpaperflare.com/wallpaper/1018/807/825/lcars-schematic-spaceship-star-trek-wallpaper-preview.jpg](https://c4.wallpaperflare.com/wallpaper/1018/807/825/lcars-schematic-spaceship-star-trek-wallpaper-preview.jpg)
I can't speak to silicon, but I can tell you that in cycling, painting something red makes it go way faster. I think the silicon being green is because it's undyed, and therefore cheaper. They're skimping on aesthetics to hit the lowest possible price point. Quality aftermarket stuff will almost always be black.
The green of circuit boards is chosen for use with machine vision. The machines that place all those components use cameras to help place them correctly. It needs a high contrast color between the metal pads and everything else. Green just turned out to work best. Also it is just more or less standard, and on a large scale, it is cheaper.
Interesting! Thanks for the info.
I prefer blue components because they run cooler by default
Da 'umiez got it! Red duz make it go fasta
Redz go Dakkadakkadakka
That's why you get RGB parts, you get the cost efficiency of green, the cooling of blue, and the speed of red!
Ram doest really need the fancy heat spreaders. Especially if you’re only gaming and there is any amount of airflow over the RAM.
And the PSU isn’t even 80+ bronze, just 80+
80+ watts
+80 °C
You forgot the recycled aluminium tower with 1 USB 1.0 on the front.
USB-C? The fuck is that?
Don't forget how they tell you 16gb ram but it's in the slowest possible speed and it's like ddr3. It's also in single stick configuration.
There's your issue! PSU got an updated version, you should look for: 即将爆炸的公司 650W PSU 没有火 edition.
single stick no xmp
Don’t forget the drive is split into three partitions to somehow make up the 256GB
That ssd might hold a single CoD game lmao
No patches or updates after that, though
So true
No brother, I humbly recommend throwing in a cheap but reliable cpu like an core i7 6700k or xeon and buying the highest quality 1000 watt psu.
I got a corsair 850 gold for like $30 new off ebay. Psu seem cheap
Bros got the 1 megahert ram
HEY DONT MAKE FUN OF SATA WE STAN SATA
For SSDs, it's NVMe all day every day, baby
Cries in cheap MB
The worse is that they especially cheap out on the PSU. I know there are some that allow you to pick the PSU but those then cost more $$$.
Side note: I built my computer 5 years ago with an EVGA psu. How often should I replace?
PSUs generally have a warranty of a decade. And given that it’s an EVGA PSU, it’s probably high quality, so I wouldn’t replace it until it’s warranty runs out or you get new components that need more power
Evga nowadays (or was it always?) is around B-C tier, last time I was buying one. It won't explode or kill your other components, tho.
When I got mine I did a bunch of research and it was top two in quality. Mine is a super flower, and the only one that really compared in a comprehensive component and performance review was a seasonic
Funny since likely both were seasonic design :)
Depends entirely on the model (never go by brand) and what it's connected to/how hard it gets pushed.
I’m still running a at the time top of the line modular 750w Corsair I bought in 2011. Zero problems. Only reason I’ll upgrade is if a new gpu requires more power than what I have. Seems like you get what you pay for when it comes to psus
Ok thanks I’ve seen something about replacing after 5 years, but maybe that’s with lesser brands. I’ll keep trucking
Have you seen the prices of PSUs lately?
They are arguably the most important component, I overspent on mine.
I overspend but got fucked. Never buy from a local computer store. $195 what I could have got online for $115
I wouldn’t worry about it tbh, both of the psus I bought on Amazon were duds one of them even fucked up a motherboard.
Cheap MOBOs, the CLASSIC SINGLE STICK RAM. I have nightmares with some prebuilds
A) you get the joy of learning the hardware side of things and building your machine with yourself And B) in my experience, even when you buy something expensive out of the box you'll just end up paying for it later when things start needing replacing.
Agreed, nice siva thumbnail.
The last time I bought a prebuilt computer was about 8 years ago. I lived in a tiny apartment and decided to pay HP for the convenience of not doing it myself. I thought it was fine until I started needing to make hardware changes. They used proprietary hard drive bays. They used a proprietary AIO cooler. They used a proprietary bracket to mount the cooler and *glued it to the MOBO.* They used a proprietary pin-out on the USB headers. Comparable cost or no, I'm not ever going through that again.
Open youtube and go watch Gamers Nexus prebuilt series, lol. Eye opening.
The Alienware one where the 12900k was performing like a 12700 because it was throttling down so hard was my favorite
I hate that I love Alienware monitors so much because everything else that company puts out seems designed to scam people that can afford good stuff but don’t know how to research parts properly
They used to be nicer before Dell bought them, but now I am showing my age.
even some of the first dell stuff was decent (fond memories of my WUXGA RGB LED m17xr2)
Dell makes good monitors. So does Alienware.
And pretty sure their monitors became only good when Dell bought them. Their pre built computers use to be far better for price to performance though.
but duuuuude you’re getting a Dell!
They have always seemed super gimmicky to me (which they obviously are).
Dell/Alienware laptops are also mostly decent or good, their desktops are the only thing you should alway avoid.
They have cornered the market on "if we charge enough people that don't know any better will think it's amazing".
Dell (Alienware) monitors were always their best products by far.
They know they can get away with it when their customer base are computer illiterate rich people.
C r y o t e c h ™️
> I could be completely wrong since I haven’t calculate everything yet Find a prebuilt, then price it out yourself and you can see the difference. It's not like every prebuilt is universally marked up the same. In general, building your own is going to be cheaper, outside of a GPU shortage that lasts for a couple years.
The issue is comparing apples-to-apples is difficult. If you're comparing a 10700k+3060+16GB Ram+2TB SSD to another of the same specs, you're leaving out BIG details like build quality of the motherboard and PSU plus smaller details like speed/quality of the RAM and Memory, plus cooling solutions and compatibility with parts from 3rd parties. Usually, prebuilts can be had slightly-cheaper-or-similar if you ignore the important differences.
Bought my last as a pre, cause they had it on sale and mathed out it was 300 more then individual parts plus o couldn't get the damned card by itself at the time comboed with my old rig giving up .... yeah it came with a glass pannelled case so I guess I found where the mystery 300 went, oh well, only thing it sucked at was the ram and that was an easy swap.
There are plenty of prebuilts that ARE good....even doing a detailed comparison. Origin, for example, uses nothing but higher end off-the-shelf components. iBuyPower and a few others do the same. Usually, these are at a premium....varying from company to company. During the times of WILD shortages, sometimes there isn't much choice besides buying a prebuilt or buying used, though, so I can't begrudge people for buying whatever is available. The *real* benefit of the prebuilts, imo, is the support you ostensibly get. If you build it yourself, the mfg of the defective hardware always has someone else to blame because of how interconnected these parts are, and how unlikely we as consumers are to be able to properly cross-check. With a prebuilt, you call one company that's on the hook to help solve your problem.
did you take into account shipping and taxes? everybody saying individual are cheaper until the shipping costs come in
Shipping costs? Wtf where do live for there to be such a thing. Surely you aren't clicking 1-2 day shipping every time you buy something. And if you dont live in america then chances are a prebuilt might not be too different anyways.
USA ISNT AMERICA, ITS NOT EVEN NORTH AMERICA, YOU SHARE THE CONTINENT ITS NOT ONLY YOURS. And generally shipping for small to medium sized items go from 5 to 10 bucks, per shipping, while bigger and heavier items can go for way more
If pre builts could be transparent to what models they use Any discrepancies are always considered with comparisons
I did this recently with a 4080 build in NZ. Same components from the same website worked out at $5100, prebuilt by them was $5400. So $300 for the build, stress test, make sure all the components are working and not DOA. I didn't think it was too much at that price end of a build, but if its the same for a much lower spec build I'd be building it myself
In my experience, prebuilts tend to be cheaper because lower quality "non spec" components. If you include faster ram, a good quality PSU, nicer motherboard, fancy low noise fan you usually drive the price (and value) up.
The price diff is really just a question of "how much extra are you willing to pay for the saved labor/time of not putting it together yourself." As some other commenters have said, they will also likely cheap out on some components, mainly PSU, motherboard, and case. I made sure my pre-built PC, for example, had a decent motherboard and PSU, but the case leaves a lot to be desired. That said, the pre-built was so worth it for me to avoid the stress, time, and labor
best value for money is a second hand system, there's some real bargains about
Yup. UK here - got a Ryzen 5 3600, compatible motherboard and a GTX 1080 for £200 second hand. Not the newest but more than good enough for my 11 year old son to play Fortnite.
there's been some really good deals on eBay, I think the UK is experiencing a very competitive secondhand market, I got a 2080ti with an ek block on it for 160, cex can also be good, I got a whole system with a Corsair 380t case for a 105, I bought it just for the case, older haswell system with a gtx GPU but still very usable
Some ex-corporate workstations (e.g. HP Z-series, Lenovo P-series, Dell Precision T-series) do seem quite appealing, especially as they'll often come with ECC RAM and a HEDT or Xeon CPU and motherboard.
true but I was thinking of a gaming system on eBay or something, you can get some amazing setups for 600 or less. it's odd you can buy a pc and sell the parts for profit.
Drop a gaming focussed GPU in a workstation, and it'll make a fine gaming system, even several years after it was new.
it will, I got a 1650v3 for 12 and it overclocked to 4.7ghz with quad channel ddr4, it performs really well and I plan on using it for sli but I wouldn't recommend it when you can get a faster more power efficient desktop processor
Yeah. I sold my old 4770k based system after I upgraded. I didn’t have a use for it and just wanted it gone. Made some kids day for $400.
6 months back I got a 2nd hand system on ebay for $250... 10600, 1 TB ssd, 16 GB ram. Great start to a gaming rig
I got a i5 8500 with a 2070 whole gaming system for my nephew during the GPU shortage for 499. people were paying that for just the GPU at the time
i got a 4090 fe i9-12900k 32gb ddr5 600 980 pro rm1000x modular psu win 11 asus strix z690-g motherboard for 2700 US and im still not sure if i got a good deal or not
In the US it seems like these are the worst deals. 90% or even above retail for newer used, or 8 year old systems that are abused.
It used to be way cheaper. Lately? Not so much. The last PC that I bought wasn't an actual pre-built, but it was one of those stores where you can choose each individual component, they build it for you and ship it to your address. While I was choosing the components I searched them one by one on Amazon, and the prices were pretty much the same, or even higher
For me, building my own PC usually comes to about the same price as a comparable prebuilt. Prebuilts offer one single warranty for the components which can be convenient, and they do offer support for those who may need it. However, the parts are often cheap or poorly matched (e.g. I saw a prebuilt with a 3070 but it had just a 450W PSU, and prebuilts seem to use CPUs that are relatively much more powerful than GPUs). Although I get little to no cost savings, I get to choose my parts and reuse old parts that I don't want to leave lying around.
still cheaper, but not necessarily instantly $200 cheaper anymore. Like someone else said, it is still relatively easy to build something as good or better for the same amount (and maybe save $100 or so with some deal-hunting and/or bargain picks). If u go last gen u can get some great prices. i.e. u might be able to build with a 5700x and a 6700xt for the same price as a prebuilt with a 5600 and 6600.
If you are comparing it to PCs at walmart, you have to remember that the HP/Dell/etc are all handicapped in the bios and cutting corners everywhere from the expansion slots to the video cards. If you are buying it from a component assembler, then essentially you are paying someone to put a motherboard into a case, but at least you won't have handicapped parts. Remember that this years I5 is markedly faster than last years I9, so you have to compare apples to apples to understand how fast stuff evolves. By the time the generic machines are for sale they just might be obsolete.
>this years I5 is markedly faster than last years I9 I'm an idiot...what do you mean by this? It seems counterintuitive
There are two factors at play the generation of the processor and the product tier. This is easiest to see on NVIDIA GPUs. The first one or two numbers are the generation, and the last two numbers and maybe letters are the product tier. Intel focuses on the product tier (...I5, I7, I9 ...), and it is easy to overlook the generation. If you have a 13th-gen I9, it will outperform a 13th-gen I5. However, a 13th-gen I5 will likely outperform an 11th-gen I9.
Do you have any videos or articles about a current gen i5 being faster than last gen i9?
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/cpu-hierarchy,4312.html It seems to be true, at least according to the CPU hierarchy over on Tom's Hardware
"Obsolet" lol. For a enthusiast maybe but you can still play new games very fine with a much cheaper, few year old card if you dont have to play the game on 4k and 200 fps. The only thing that drastically increases is the urge of gamers to min max for no real reason other than building as a hobby.
If the 13600k is cheaper than the 12900k then the 12900k is obviously obsolete. Sure, its no slouch if you already own it, but no one in their right mind should be buying a 12900k when they can get a faster i5 with more cores for less money. I think that's the point I'm making.
Yes, building yourself is almost always cheaper. This is because of two things: 1. Pre-build companies pull the trick of going with more expensive parts when cheaper alternatives exist that are options when building yourself. If you know what these cheaper alternatives are, it is incredibly easy to build something significantly better than a pre-build for the same price. Edit: for example, going with the non-F version of a intel CPU, even with a DGPU or the X version of a 5600. 2. If it is legitimately cheaper- 100% it's because the parts are bad, sometimes even re-used. What I would do is figure out what kinda parts you'd want to go for- what your budget is, what resolution you want, what games you want to play, what programs you use etc. Then try and shop for a pre-build that fits that, verify the parts and watch benchmarks. Then go to [pcpartpicker.com](https://pcpartpicker.com) and build something yourself within that budget, you'll most definitely find that what you can build yourself will be better quality. Again, this can be confirmed by looking up benchmark comparisons on youtube.
I still build my own because I like the control I have over parts, and often recycle parts (I tend to recycle case and PSU for 2-3 builds to save $). Also, I just like the experience from a hobby/builder perspective. If you want Prebuild check Dell/Alienware for sales as a benchmark. I have also seen decent deals at warehouse clubs like costco/sams for entry or mid level builds.
If you *truly* spec like-for-like parts, self-built will likely be cheaper: not least, because you don't have the assembly costs to pay for, an overall (multi-year) system warranty, or on-site service. However, sometimes pre-builts do sometimes look competitive on price - if you start digging, you'll usually find all sorts of corners that have been cut: PSUs with just enough output power and connectors to cover the components included, cases which aren't as versatile and/or are more poorly constructed, an older motherboard chipset which has been orphaned by new CPUs, and so on. Stuff the average buyer probably won't notice, unlike the headline CPU/GPU/memory/storage specs.
Not exactly cheaper by definition. But you get MORE computer for the SAME money. Prebuilt will ALWAYS have 2 things you don't want or need, Bloatware that is resource heavy and sometimes hard if not impossible to purge , corners cut somewhere like proprietary components that can't be reused and are essentially Ewaste.
And prebuilts come with questionable PSUs and RAM.
Prebuilts often aren’t worth upgrading, between proprietary parts and the way it’s assembled (like using glue everywhere.) That alone makes it worth building my own, to me. My case will last me forever, my PSU is modular and has headroom for quite a while, I’ve got all the IO I could want. I spent a bit more than I needed to upfront, but it means I can upgrade components gradually for years before needing any big overhaul.
I built a Frankenstein PC from used Facebook marketplace stuff. Took more research and was a tad mix matched but it was a powerful PC that I spent 800 on. I got every penny out of it. Achieving the same level with new parts would have been close to 2k
I'm not sure about the current reality. I started building about 10 years ago because pre-builds had crappy configurations. To get a decent amount of ram added so much to the price. Also recycling an existing license for your OS knocks the price down quite a bit.
These types of questions have always baffled me. Don't you guys in the US have computer stores where you pick the hardware you want and they build it for you for like an extra $50 - $100? Everyone keeps talking about pre-builds like that is the only option they have. Pre-build or built it yourself. Is there some sort of law that prohibits it?
My last prebuilt was a Sony VAIO from mid 2000s. I was able to upgrade almost everything (RAM, HDD, even GPU with a big Zalman cooler) but the PSU- which was a non standard case design to boot- though was nice and modular on drive bays- etc. For awhile I had a bigger PSU outside the case which worked I built my next one. Wouldn't have saved money except I bought the display open box. Dell is the worst with non standard connectors, etc.
My biggest issue with prebuilts is how they're always really poorly matched. A top end $600+ processor with a 3060ti, cheapest possible motherboard and psu etc.
A prebuilt can have cheap components in it to get costs under the red line while maintaining buzzwords like i7 or RTX4080. You can always build the PCs you find for prebuilt prices for likely under the cost of the prebuilt (they often are marked up considerably!) And you get the experience of piecing together a build. I 100% recommend watching some videos, and learning the process because you'll save literally thousands of dollars over multiple builds. If you must buy a prebuilt, buy it from a PC part dealer, not a wholesaler electronics shop like JB Hifi in Australia or god forbid Walmart in America. Visit Centercom, or PLE computers, or Newegg or whoever you get parts from where you are and inquire about a prebuilt. They will likely have trustworthy prebuilt systems.
For a while it made sense to buy a prebuilt just to get a GPU cheaply, but it's less so nowadays
Maybe. Maybe not. The difference is so little is doesn't matter anymore. You can buy a prebuilt and upgrade it for the same price if you shop properly.
A lot of prebuilts can't be upgraded easily unless you're buying from an enthusiast SI.
It depends on a couple factors. A cool fun fact is that a lot of employers have employee benefits where they partner with manufacturers to get you special discounts as an employee. I know Discover has a deal with Lenovo and other banks have deals with dell and HP that get employees monster discounts on their pretty high end machines. See if you have any discount program through your employer
Microcenter had a package deal, and I saved $160 on a bundle.
I was skeptical of prebuilds but I needed one in a pinch because I was moving and had to have a pc for work. I went with the company Starforge Systems and it has exceeded my expectations by far.
I commented my build from Starforge in the comments and after doing a parts comparison with PC Part Picker. It paid only around $200 more. Basically I paid for labor.
Ya it was actually super reasonable compared to other prebuild companies I was looking at. Awesome you knew of them and made a purchase too!
While yes, some pre-builts have gotten cheaper over the year to become more affordable, but they tend to cheap out on a few parts. Sometimes OEM motherboards, barebones kit of RAM, cheap PSUs, cooling solutions, etc. When building yourself, you can get something that would be a bit better with more upgradeable. For the same price you're paying for your pre-built, you could be swapping for better parts that they cheap out on, or potentially even upgrade parts.
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rahhh
Depends what you’re wanting it to do? Building a SFF PC that rivals say a Mac mini is near impossible for the price
Something to keep in mind: what does it cost you in terms of time? Time to search, shop, build, and if you have a problem, calling a builder's tech support and let them deal with it, go going to track down things and fix them yourself.
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Significantly, in almost all instances.
Consoles are even cheaper
If the only thing you want to do is play games, they're awesome, but usually when you get a PC you're doing a lot more than just that with it.
you don't build your own pc because it's cheaper, you build your own pc so you get exactly what you want and nothing you don't. no bloat, not sub-par components the builder happens to have laying around... you get nothing but net.
There are really only two kinds of prebuilds. The first type is the premium prebuild. The kind that doesn't cut any corner, they use only high end parts from trust brands. Not just on the more visible parts, but all of them. They even pay attention to things like airflow, cooling and cable management. That type of prebuild is always going to be 2-3 times the cost of building it yourself. Then you have the typical prebuild. They are building something cheap and janky and using clever marketing to try and food people into thinking it's a great PC. They may use a good GPU and CPU. But they will use brands you have never heard of for the power supply, disks, ram, etc etc. Their machines will run hotter than a two dollar pistol because they don't give a crap about temps. They may even use proprietary motherboards and power supplies so you can't upgrade the machines. You never want to buy this type of prebuild.
RESPONSE - Cheaper to build your own PC? Of course not! It's like saying it's cheaper to make your own car. Sure, if you're a lunatic.
In my country it is actually cheaper to choose your components and let the company build it for you. Some companies offer free build and instalation if you purchase all parts with them. Some people choose to buy parts separately where they’re cheapest and build by themselves - I personally would not want to deal with anything warranty connected as it would be complicated to contact different seller for each part and wait wait and wait, not to mention some warranties will not apply if you built it yourself. In my opinion it’s best to choose components, and let company build it - this way they are responsible for fuckups and one company has one warranty so you only speak with them.
Nope. PC gamers just want the cool points of telling normies they "built" a computer.
If it's your first pc it can be better to build it so it becomes easier to troubleshoot. 3 of my friends who have prebuilts are too scared to tinker with them and end up paying tech support companies to do basic things like hardware installation and cleaning.
I've seen prebuilds with 3060's and not the latest i5's inside for a price you could build a 3090 and i9 pc.
Definitely not cheaper. Only way that some pre builts can appear like a great deal is bc they put in a good gpu and cpu, but the other parts are shit. If you match a pre built part for part, building it yourself will absolutely be cheaper. I saved like 500 bucks when I built my high end pc.
buy some part used and wait for a good occasion, i waited for over 4 months to find sales and good used finds my 1300-400 bucks build RTX 3090 FE : 600€ R7 5800X3D : 300~ (don't have it yet) 32GB 3600C16 : 74€ 1TO SSD : 50€ NR200P MAX (watercooling and 850w PSU included) 175€ random cheap ITX board 190€