So my motherboard fried on me a couple weeks ago and I've been trying to decide whether I should go about buying a new computer or just building one from the ground up. I already know a newer motherboard will take DDR3 RAM and I'm hoping to get at least 4 GB. I also plan to upgrade my Nvidia 9600 GT with something that will allow me to play wow at 60 FPS on ultra.
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Motherboard fried.. need help deciding what route to takeFollow
A couple of questions to ask yourself on the build or buy dilemma can help narrow it down for you.
1. What, if any slavageable hardware do you have in your existing computer? Is the DVD burner SATA? if not, scrap it, a new sata one is $20. How big are the hard drives? Under 250gb, probably better to buy new 250gb for $40, how old are the hard drives? if older than 3 years, new drives are the way to go, as drives last 5 years on average. Is your case equipped with 120mm fans, or smaller noisy 80mm fans? if it has 120mm, that will save you $80.
2. What is your skill level. Are you interested in building a computer, and do you have someone local to help you with any of the tricky things if you have never built one before? Or do you consider it a hassle, and are only considering it to save money, or to end up with a better machine than you can buy? If building a computer isn't something you personally want to do, buying may be the way to go.
3. Whats your budget look like realistically? For $1,000 you can build a pretty decent midrange gaming PC. For $1,500 you can build a solid state drive, 580 GTX equipped monster PC. You can probably buy a mid range PC for $900 ish or so, and get a bit better warranty support. A high end purchased computer will start at at least $2,200 for the same thing you can build. If you are looking to get a high end machine, it makes sense to build your own. Also if you are looking for a machine that you can upgrade, rather than buying a complete new one in a few years.
If you give me an approximate budget number to play with, I can write up a potential build for you to look over, and find some comparison PC's for purchase to give you an idea of where you would be at for each of them .
Admin edit: also, your sig is really, really long. Please shorten it by about half...
Edited, Jul 26th 2011 11:17pm by Kaolian
1. What, if any slavageable hardware do you have in your existing computer? Is the DVD burner SATA? if not, scrap it, a new sata one is $20. How big are the hard drives? Under 250gb, probably better to buy new 250gb for $40, how old are the hard drives? if older than 3 years, new drives are the way to go, as drives last 5 years on average. Is your case equipped with 120mm fans, or smaller noisy 80mm fans? if it has 120mm, that will save you $80.
2. What is your skill level. Are you interested in building a computer, and do you have someone local to help you with any of the tricky things if you have never built one before? Or do you consider it a hassle, and are only considering it to save money, or to end up with a better machine than you can buy? If building a computer isn't something you personally want to do, buying may be the way to go.
3. Whats your budget look like realistically? For $1,000 you can build a pretty decent midrange gaming PC. For $1,500 you can build a solid state drive, 580 GTX equipped monster PC. You can probably buy a mid range PC for $900 ish or so, and get a bit better warranty support. A high end purchased computer will start at at least $2,200 for the same thing you can build. If you are looking to get a high end machine, it makes sense to build your own. Also if you are looking for a machine that you can upgrade, rather than buying a complete new one in a few years.
If you give me an approximate budget number to play with, I can write up a potential build for you to look over, and find some comparison PC's for purchase to give you an idea of where you would be at for each of them .
Admin edit: also, your sig is really, really long. Please shorten it by about half...
Edited, Jul 26th 2011 11:17pm by Kaolian
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I agree with the Dark lord has to say. I think its important to look at alienware's Aurora for $1199.00 http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?oc=dpcwsx1&c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&model_id=alienware-aurora-r3 . since Dell bought them the price for the alienware have dropped. plus the build cost is about the same if you were to piece a system together. Plus you get a warranty from dell. i do not know your level of tech skills but for alittle more you can get a longer warranty. THe one thing i would suggest doing is this. get aleast 8gb of RAM. then buy a second hard drive and a dvd player from newegg.com. i have found that dvd burners do no last if you use it alot of playing movie or music cd. spent the 20 buicks and buy one. The second hard drive i use for data( downloads,music, patches and backup go here). the aurora is pre-wired you just pop it in and the wires are already there and ready to go. I own two aurora and i love them. plus these units have water cooling for the cpu.
Edited, Jul 29th 2011 10:04pm by lonk
Edited, Jul 29th 2011 10:04pm by lonk
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