Build or Buy? 5 Price Ranges Compared

[Brian Boru]

MUO article with parts lists for both bought and built:

Is It Cheaper to Build a PC or Buy One? I Compared 5 Price Ranges

How much does it cost to build your own PC these days? Compared to pre-built models, are the savings worth the effort? We investigate.

www.makeuseof.com

Basic Gaming PC
Entry-Level Gaming PC
Mid-Range Gaming PC
High-End Gaming PC
No-Holds-Barred Gaming PC

Concludes that buying is better at the 2 extremes—Basic and No-Holds—but build is better where most of us would be shopping.

Do you agree?

 

[Lutfij]

The 1TB drive in the basic system, listed by NZXT doesn't show a make or model, so the price difference is questionable, same story with the PSU, motherboard. There's a self gratifying feeling when building a system and you get to pick and choose what goes into your build, with room for upgrading. Some places do strike your warranty off the list if you tamper with the build while under a warranty period.

As for the iBuyPower brand in general, I tend to call it iBuyCrap instead. Also, same story with the basic PC build.

This author uses solely, Newegg. If author used PCPartPicker, I bet the results would be much more arguable towards a build your own route.

One thing I do want to point out, all these big brands tend to enjoy economies of scale so they can afford to cut prices of their own in house parts, while other parts can be marked up or in the case of the author's article, cut corners, as user is uninformed of what's inside the build apart from generic parts listed.

 

[Colif]

One thing I do want to point out, all these big brands tend to enjoy economies of scale so they can afford to cut prices of their own in house parts,

Dells home made RTX GPU are best avoided. Its not always a good deal.

Cyberpower home brand PSU best shot into sun... even their forums tell people not to use them.

As you said, better to be able to choose what goes in. Some shops actually let you do that. Most only have a list. Avoid pre-mades like the plague.

Concludes that buying is better at the 2 extremes—Basic and No-Holds—but build is better where most of us would be shopping.

those mostly make sense. Though I am sure some could make an extreme one themselves.
Basic pc are hard to make cheap and good, so yeah... I can see that.

 

[Lutfij]

^ 💯 x 💯

Cyberpower home brand PSU best shot into sun... even their forums tell people not to use them.

Hey, don't use our PSU's but throw them into our builds cos we need to allocate them somewhere.

^ is probably what they tell themselves.

As you said, better to be able to choose what goes in. Some shops actually let you do that. Most only have a list. Avoid pre-mades like the plague.
I know Overclocker.co.uk allow you to do that, like PCPartPicker but for the former, you choose from their own inventory whereas the latter allows you to choose from any site.

 

[Colif]

I know Overclocker.co.uk allow you to do that, like PCPartPicker but for the former, you choose from their own inventory whereas the latter allows you to choose from any site.

one makes PC, the other just lets you pick parts for you to make one... I did look, figured was possible pcpartpicker offered that service... other free sites have that you wouldn't expect

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www.systemrequirementslab.com

Big OEM prey on the complete lack of knowledge most people have about computers. So sure, crap PSU or worse, custom motherboards that don't accept normal power connectors. Make PC so users can't reuse parts after. Dell still selling cases that should have been land fill 10 years ago.