A Company's PC or Assemled PC

I have no plans to buy a new PC now but I have some plans for future. So I am just confirming, is it good to assemble a PC or go directly for a company's PC like Dell or HP.

Why I am asking this is because when we build a new PC, nobody tests it but if we buy a Company made PC then we are sure that it is pretested many times.

Another thing is a company tests for the best fit to their motherboards and then they assemble the PC. But in our case we just buy what we know is good, without having much advanced information of the computers H/w. Well I am not talking about every1 but most of them doesnt have much H/w Info.

I know its cheaper to assemble a PC instead of buying a company made but do we get enough softwares with assemble one?


Replies will be appriciated.

 

It depends on how much your interested and whether you feel confident enough. Building a PC can be cheaper but you'll need to be careful in choosing the components and during the build itself.

Its easier to buy prebuilt, so what you can do is post here any one you think of buying and have opinions on the hardware. As long as you don't fall for any salesman pressure to buy and get other people opinions of the exact model then you should be fine.

 

Confidence is key, if you feel you can definatley do it for less go for it. It's often safer to go prebuilt naturally as if something goes wrong from the start it's no your fault, they fix it. If HP or whatever has something that looks intising for your needs concider it anyway.

 

Thats what I am talking about. I know HP spends nearly 3 billion dollars in R&D of PCs. They must have experts for each thing, who checks each thing and then recommends HP to insert in the PC. Do you think anyone here can assemble PC so professionally, somebody has a complete knowledge of all the H/w of the PC. I can bet, no one is perfect in all the fields here.

Ok, you said post things here and get opinions.....does it make sense?

After spending 1000$, will I get satisfied that I am getting full usage of my system.
Bcoz, people says that particular H/w is good, go for it. It is reputed company and I have used it as well. does it gives you full suport? I mean do you know that if it is fully compatible with other things?

 

Depends on what you want to do with it and how much you want to spend. If you just want to surf the web and play music and movies, it's gonna be really hard to beat the low-end boxes companies like HP and Dell offer. However, if you're looking into a high-end gaming rig, then you'll really save some cash building your own. Alienware and Falcon Northwest, not to mention VoodooPC make nice boxes, but they'll really eat your wallet.

 

I'm curious where you heard HP spends 3 billion dollars a year researching PCs...

Either way, after you have built and studied 4 or 5 pcs, I'd say you can make them as good as any factory worker or machine.

 

And in some ways better, we all know companies cut corners and give you shoddy or lowend components to cut costs.

 

It tells about $4 billion investment of HP.
http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/execteam/bios/robison.html

 

I'm not doubting HP hasn't spent that much. However, you're making assembling a PC like there are competing standards between companies. There are certain standards agreed upon in computing by which everyone abides. The designs of slots and ports are such that you have to put them in a certain way.

You're making assembling a PC much harder than it really is and more like some sort of voodoo. I'm not saying you don't have valid points: yes, the entire system deals with one company, and there's nothing wrong with that. However, anyone that can do the following can build a computer:

1.)Read and follow written instructions
2.)Use a screwdriver

If you answered 'yes' to both, you are capable of assembling your own computer. Hell, I saw my dad put my first box together, and that really wasn't that hard. It might be a little daunting at first, but, seriously: if you see someone put one together, it's not as tough as you might think it is.
Of course, you're going to get the DIY bias as we do cater to that line of thinking. It's a hobby (and occasionally, career) for us.

 

You are right, each company have got something good and bad in their computers. If we assemble a computer then we can put all the good things.
I would love to go for an assembled PC too:ff: .........but my point is, How we can assure ourself that we are getting best out of our PC because no body tested it.

 

If you trust a company like Dell to test their PCs more than you would trust a skilled technician like Big B or myself, you have a lot to learn about the computer industry. Home-class Dell, HP/Compaq, and most other OEM PCs are designed to last only a few years, and typically the power supply ( a relatively inexpensive component) is the catalyst. The biggest challenge in assembling a new PC is designing it beforehand. With a resource like hardwareforums, you can run your component list by a whole lot of skilled people who already have experience with a large subset of hardware before you go buying them, so that concern is more or less alleviated.

 

I know that you guys are running this website and have got a lot of hardware knowledge.
Its like I have programming knowledge and if somebody asks me how to make a partucular program and I tell them that make this function and create those objects, you will get the answer.But if that guy goes to an IT professional, who has an experience of 15-20yrs and took help from them then may be he will get the more functionallity with less codes and end up with more easy program. I am not saying that he will definately get the better program from that IT professional but he will have a place and person to blame.
Other thing is that, if I ask you guys that i want to go 4 PC then each person will come out with different solutions because each person gives different preferrence to difference products.

 

Actually I have 10 years of professional IT experience, about 18 years overall and I own my own consulting firm, but that's not the point. My point was that large companies don't necessarily have your best interests in mind when they design a certain model of PC, their primary concern is for their own interests and those of their shareholders. With a group like HardwareForums or HardOCP, you get experienced people who care about you -- especially in the case of hardwareforums, since we do this on an annonymous, volunteer basis. We have no other reward than knowing we've helped someone.

So do what you will, buy a Dell if it makes you happy. But in that case, why bother posting here about it?

 

Christ, I am so bored I've taken up the challenge to put together a virtual PC which is cheaper (AND BETTER) then most Dells, HP's, Compaqs etc

This is the shopping list:

PC Case
PCICASE CS2600-SL Hyperline II Silver ATX Tower Case - No PSU £17.01
Motherboard
PC Chips M848A SKT A SiS746 AGP LAN 6channel audio £17.99
Processor
AMD Sempron 2400+ (SDA2400DUT3D) Socket A Processor 256KB cache FSB333 - OEM £40.92
Heatsink+Fan
Ebuyer Value CLA-XP28 AMD Cooler Althon upto XP2800+ £2.25
RAM
Two Kingston 128MB 333MHZ DDR PC2700 Dimms £15.12
Graphics Card
Aopen Aeolus Mx4000-v64/agp8x 64mb Tv-out - Retail £14.88
DVD-ROM
LG GDR-8164BB 16x52 DVD-Rom Internal IDE (Beige) - OEM £11.99
Floppy Disk
Mitsumi OEM Silver Internal Floppy Drive 1.44mb 3.5 Inch £3.47
Hard Disk
Maxtor 6K040L0 Diamondmax Plus 8 40GB 7200RPM ATA/133 2MB Cache - OEM £23.23
PSU
Hiper 350W Single Fan Low Noise PSU £14.97
Keyboard
Ebuyer Extra Value TSK800A standard keyboard in beige £1.29
Mouse
Ebuyer Extra Value 5 Button PS2 Scroll Wheel Mouse £1.25
Power lead
Generic AC Power Lead (Kettle Type) Suitable for ATX PSU £1.07
Floppy Cable
Ebuyer Extra Value High Quality rounded floppy cables Double head 24" red £0.59
ATA Cable
Ebuyer Extra Value IDE cable Rounded UDMA Ultra 133/100 18" Black £1.69
Operating System
Microsoft OEM Windows XP Home Edition inc SP2 - 1Pk £49.99

- Much better then any Dell! Theres an AMD Sempron 2400+ (1.67GHz).
- The whole system runs off a 333MHz Front Side Bus.
- 256MB of RAM is more then enough for light PC usage.
- nVidia Geforce MX4000 - much better then any onboard Intel graphics
- 7200RPM hard drive with 2MB cache (bigger cache then most cheap PC hard drives)
- DVD-ROM & Floppy
- Solid, Attractive case (I actually own the black version of this case)
- Better PSU compared to most cheap Dell/HP computers
- Upgradeable!

Shipping Band: £5.79
Shipping Surcharge: £1.20
SubTotal: £224.70
VAT: £39.39
Total: £264.09

NB: You could save £50 by taking away Windows, and installing Linux!

 

I appreciate that you have such a big knowledge about IT and you are sharing it with us on this website for free.
The reason why I opened this thread is to debate on this issue and make myself clear which one will suits best for me because big businesses like Banks etc. they goes for companies built PC. they donot bother to assemble a PC.
Well! if this is the end of this thread then no problem......

megamaced~!.....That PC is very cheap and cool ae~! Nearly $500 NZ. Will that run windows VISTA?

 

Yes it could, but it would need some more RAM and possibily a better graphics card. 512MB RAM would be enough for Vista, so add an extra £15-20 to the grand total

The system requirements for Vista haven't been published yet, so this is only speculation. I've read that it will need a 64MB graphics card though. The nVidia MX4000 that i've included in the list IS 64MB, but I don't know if it has the horse power! Graphics cards are not my forte!

 

No, it wouldn't have enough guts to push Vista's highest-end graphical interface, but it could push the lower end ones just fine. You need a DirectX9c certified graphics card to push "Aero Glass", Vista's eye-candy interface, such as an Nvidia 6xxx series or an ATi 8xx series or higher.

 

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/evaluate/hardware/vistahardware.mspx

You can get VISTA hardware requirements here~!

 

Yup so basically with 512Mb's of ram that rig will fit as an entry level vista machine. Not to shabby for half a grand.

 

So to clarify then. That little expieriment I conducted proves you can get a better PC for your money when you build it your self. That PC is more upgradeable then your average Dell, and therefore has a better life span.

Not only that, but you will feel an overall sense of achievement once you've built it, and successfully installed an OS