tweek said:
I used to build my machines but got tired of dealing with the hassles that inevitably show up. further I don't see any savings in building.
Well one savings is only upgrading what needs upgrading and when you come across a great deal.
This computer I'm on now first had a Intel Q6600, bought on sale, and run at 3.2Ghz (stock is 2.4ghz) giving it performance of chips three times the price. Swapped my Nvidia 9800GTX w/ a 4870x2 when it was on crazy sale. Then I bought more RAM, extra harddrives, and a Q9650 overclocked to 3.6Ghz, and put the Q6600 in my parents computer that had a E6850 dual core processor. Later on I replaced my 2GB ATI 4870x2 dual GPU card with two ATI 6870s and added an SSD boot drive and added a third 24" to my dual 24" setup, and again not a problem because I bought a good modular powersupply from the get-go and this Antec 900 has plenty of room. A bit later I sold one of the 24"ers, gave the other to parents, and bought a 30" single setup. Now I'm replacing the motherboard, RAM, and processor in a major upgrade but still don't have to invest in a bluray player, PSU, case, or drives AND the old equipment since its all modular you guessed it is an upgrade for a family members computer (trickle down economics yo).
Its what I tell people when they ask what one of the major advantages of a desktop over a laptop is, and that's MODULARITY which gives it way longer life. eSATA and USB3 comes out? No biggie, add a PCIe card with it. Better GPU w/ displayport come out? No problem, swap it out, no need to throw away the entire computer.
And when you buy a pre-built machine, quite often they will skimp on each and every single component that the public doesn't know to look for. Expect your powersupply to have only the connectors it needs and just enough voltage for the best card you can configure it with at the time (and perhaps only 6pin instead of 8pin option if they don't sell a card that needs 8pin), possibly no extra RAM slots for expansion, you may get an SSD or 2TB harddrive but it'll be the cheapest thing they can find, they may say they throw in 8GB of RAM but fail to mention it is ridiculously high latency cheap crap, etc. And many times they don't allow you to overclock (and if you do, the inferior components often severely limit you), which means you have to spend a LOT more money for the same performance, although granted it will run cooler and quieter.
So really there is a tremendous savings when you compare real performance (meaning benchmarks of a system a knowledgeable person built and OC'ed vs a pre-built) over the life of the machine. :mrgreen:
But I can certainly understand the appeal of a "turn-key" ready built machine with zero assembly or setup required where if it stops working six months from now, you don't have to figure out which component is bad and call ATI or Corsair or whoever, you just call Dell and say "Yo, it don't work" and they fix it.
if you wanted to check that out but they are Mainly for gaming PCs allthough the people that run the site are on youtube so they render videos aswell 
