Deciding between a customized DIY PC or a branded one for a desktop
This is a personal finance blog and since a personal computer is an indispensable tool nowadays, almost everyone needs to have a workable computer at any one time, it will be good to offer some personal opinions regarding PC purchase. Earlier I mentioned that the more economical life cycle for buying a personal computer is every 5 years and not 3 years, at least for the majority of us. The reason being that after the Pentium 4 generation, hardware technology advanced faster than software requirements, with the exception of first person shooter games that always require the latest processor and graphics cards technology.
The great majority of people get stunned after looking at the jumpers’ settings on the motherboard, not to mention the trouble shooting issues. There is different quality of power supply units and casing, so you need to compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges. The greatest myth is that a customized DIY PC is significantly cheaper than a branded one for a desktop, that is definitely not true for a mid range performance at any one time, not sure for a low end and high end gaming system though.
If you Google online, there are people facing problems with both branded and DIY. The reasons being that one in 100 000 (or any other number) of the components (processors, graphics cards or hard disk) is going to be a lemon, you can’t tell by naked eyes if the branded PC or an individual components that come in a retail box that is used for a DIY PC is going to be the lemon that fails after one year of uses. It is virtually impossible for the QC and QA people at some factories in China to conduct quality checks on every single processor that comes out of every Intel factory, though for my case so far based on three PC purchases, the Intel processor never fails after many years, usually the hard disk fail or CRT monitor first, then it is more economical to buy a whole new set first. As a result, I do not know how long other components of a PC can last.
My first PC purchase, the hard disk fail first after seven years, second PC purchase, CRT monitor and scroll mouse fails after 4 years, then use the CRT monitor from first PC purchase, hard disk fail 2 years later. Then the third PC purchase, is a ThinkPad T43 laptop that still working well currently after around 4.5 years.
The fact is if you calculate all the total prices of each individual component, a customized DIY is not significantly cheaper than a branded PC. Don’t believe me, just do the calculations yourself, but make sure you include the price of original Windows 7 Home Premium. With a customized PC, you do more customizations and do away with unnecessary parts that you don’t need and hence cheaper. But one should compare apples and apples, like adding up all the parts that make up brand and model of the components of a branded PC, for example, an Acer Aspire M5800 or Dell Inspiron 580, the prices are around the same, if not slightly cheaper than a customized PC where you can buy the cheapest price of the same brand and model of each individual components.
Surprisely, contrary to popular belief, a DIY PC is not substantially cheaper or even slightly cheaper than a value brand like Acer or Dell. This is definitely true for a mid range performance at any one time, as for the low end and very high end gaming specs – whether it is around the same or much cheaper than Acer Predator or Dell Alienware, that I have not calculate.
Of course, a customized PC can let you put in the best and fastest motherboards, processors, graphics cards and hard disk. However, there will be compatibility issues, just like you form a soccer team using the best and most expensive players from around the world like David Becham, Michael Owen, etc does not mean that the team is fast and can win every single matches. And also, the great majority of users who will get stunned by jumper settings on a motherboard and troubleshooting which component fail when the PC does not boot up will do better to buy a branded one.
Whether you need extended warranty, either by the PC manufacturers themselves or retailers depends on the specs and what you intend to use the computer for, and of course the person involved. The rationale is simple to understand. If the specs are good, then you can use it for more than a few years, then it is wise to buy extended warranty and especially if you are only use it for surfing the Internet and office applications, then the same PC can last for even more years.
For simplicity, let us assume that there are only three major types of PC users.
1. Those that just need a PC for surfing the Internet and office applications
This group of people usually belongs to the fairer sex and does not really or totally did not play games and uses engineering software. They usually buy a low end system without a dedicated graphics card. At the same time, they will not be competent to troubleshoot should a DIY PC got some problems.
2. Those that just need a PC for surfing the Internet and office applications but at the same time got play some games and not really a hard core gamer, along with using some applications software like Photoshop, Adobe Premier, SolidWorks, AutoCad etc.
I belong to this type of PC user, as a result, at any one time, I need to purchase a mid range performance to ensure that the specs can last for at least four years. Given that after the Pentium 4 generation, hardware technologies advanced faster than software requirements, a mid range performance costing around $1500 should be able to last for the next 5 years at least.
As a non hard core gamer, the specs that can be bought for $1500 will be able to play games up to three years from now, with graphics settings turned on to highest level, based on the latest first person shooter game. Since not really a hard core gamer, can always play the latest game three years from now five years later, after the next PC purchase.
Do take note that other games types like real time strategy and role playing games hardware requirements follows behind first person shooter, meaning to say that when the latest first person shooter game requires processer speed of 2.0Ghz, main system memory of 2GB and dedicated graphics card memory of 256MB. The latest like real time strategy and role playing games usually only requires half of that like for example, processer speed of 1.6 GHz, main system memory of 1GB and dedicated graphics card memory of 128MB.
The level of knowledge may not be competent enough to diagnose which component got problems or went wrong if the PC fails to boot up or kept hanging. In addition, should they be any problems from spywares, malwares or viruses, a brand PC means that one can more easily reformat the computer by using the recovery CD. In which a DIY has to DIY the reformatting yourself. Any hardware issues can call the technical support and have the person to come down for troubleshooting.
As mentioned before, even after factoring three years or five years extended warranty onsite, the branded PC is around or slightly more expensive than a DIY version of same specs, using the exact brand and model for each of the component inside.
3. Hard core gamers
Even if you need to use engineering software, you usually don’t need this kind of specs. For a high end gaming system, it may really be significantly cheaper to buy a DIY version rather than Acer Predator or Dell Alienware. In addition, this group of users usually got sophisticated knowledge regarding stripping and assembling and troubleshooting a PC. At that level of specs, Acer Predator or Dell Alienware may be much more expensive than a DIY version consisting of the same specs. They also need to over clock and installed liquid cooling system. Take note that if you are not involved in competitive gaming but like gaming, it is OK to just buy a mid range performance and have some lag.
The unwise thing about spending more than $1600 on a desktop PC is that the components that made up the computer are like cars, they will experience wear and tear due to prolonged usage and cannot reasonably expect them to last forever. That is computer will become slow and lag after several years of using and also, today specs seen in Acer Predator or Dell Alienware series will become tomorrow mid range performance and that day after tomorrow low end budget PC. As a result, for the great majority of PC users, it will be wise to spend $1500 today for a mid range performance and $1500 for another mid range performance five years later rather than $3000 for Acer Predator or Dell Alienware, or a DIY PC with specs similar to them.
Yes, because there is a Hollywood movie called Alien vs Predators, and Dell high end gaming system happens to call Alienware. It follows that coincidentally, Acer decides to call their high end gaming system the Acer Predator series since they complete in the same market like how the two species fight against each other in the movie.
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