Self build or Dell?
Discussion
Is self-build still the way to go for a new PC or are the likes of Dell making it just as economical to buy new? I have a couple of hard drives that I will keep, as well as a decent DVDRW and CDRW. I'd be looking at new motherboard, graphics, sound, memory and TFT monitor, so should I just buy those components or trash the lot and go for a reasonably priced ready-built?
Also depends how much your time is worth. I'd rather buy from Dell and get it all working straight out of the box, accepting that I've probably paid slightly more than if I'd ordered a multitude of parts from a multitude of vendors and then spent a couple of evenings trying to work out whether I'd broken it or whether I'd just been shipped a faulty part, working out which part, following the vendor's returns procedure, etc...
gavstar said:
Well as little as I can get away with - the PC will be used for photo manipulation and video editing - not professional, but just home stuff.
I'd self build personally.
If you want to carry across the drives you'll need to open up the Dell anyway.
If you're opening up a new one you may as well just build one.
Plotloss said:
gavstar said:
Well as little as I can get away with - the PC will be used for photo manipulation and video editing - not professional, but just home stuff.
I'd self build personally.
If you want to carry across the drives you'll need to open up the Dell anyway.
If you're opening up a new one you may as well just build one.
Any recommended place to get the components?
Personally, I shop purely on price, bits are bits and they fail so seldom.
www.eclipse-computers.com
www.ebuyer.com
www.komplett.co.uk
Its a case of working out what you want and then finding the cheapest supplier.
In the current iteration of technology I'd go with something like
P4 D805 - £80 odd
Gigabyte 1975X - £120 odd
Then a lot of memory 2Gb odd, Crucial or Kingston should be fine but if you want to overclock the FSB to get the most out of the D805 then something like the Patriot line of memory would be good if a little pricey.
www.eclipse-computers.com
www.ebuyer.com
www.komplett.co.uk
Its a case of working out what you want and then finding the cheapest supplier.
In the current iteration of technology I'd go with something like
P4 D805 - £80 odd
Gigabyte 1975X - £120 odd
Then a lot of memory 2Gb odd, Crucial or Kingston should be fine but if you want to overclock the FSB to get the most out of the D805 then something like the Patriot line of memory would be good if a little pricey.
gavstar said:
Cheers, thanks for the recommendation. Another question....how important is the TFT, and is there really a noticeable difference in day to day use between the cheapo ones and the really dear ones?
Depends on use, for gaming the response matters for most tasks it doesnt.
The really cheap ones I have noticed a lack of clarity in but for £170 for a Dell 19" job on ebay they come very highly recommended.
I've got one arriving tommorow so will know more then.
gavstar said:
Is self-build still the way to go for a new PC or are the likes of Dell making it just as economical to buy new? I have a couple of hard drives that I will keep, as well as a decent DVDRW and CDRW. I'd be looking at new motherboard, graphics, sound, memory and TFT monitor, so should I just buy those components or trash the lot and go for a reasonably priced ready-built?
Personally, i'd go with Dell nowadays. Self build is just too much hassle when something stupid doesn't want to work. You end up losing your price advantage and then spend hours trying to figure out if its memory, processor or motherboard. If you get struck with an intermittant fault then it just wastes even more time.
tinman0 said:
gavstar said:
Is self-build still the way to go for a new PC or are the likes of Dell making it just as economical to buy new? I have a couple of hard drives that I will keep, as well as a decent DVDRW and CDRW. I'd be looking at new motherboard, graphics, sound, memory and TFT monitor, so should I just buy those components or trash the lot and go for a reasonably priced ready-built?
Personally, i'd go with Dell nowadays. Self build is just too much hassle when something stupid doesn't want to work. You end up losing your price advantage and then spend hours trying to figure out if its memory, processor or motherboard. If you get struck with an intermittant fault then it just wastes even more time.
and was staggered by how neat, tidy and empty the thing was. Unlike Dell servers of a couple of years ago it doesn't howl like a jet car on afterburner when it's running either - it's way quieter that the self build server it sits next to, which consumed plenty of time and cash trying to quieten (www.quietpc.co.uk recommended btw!). I lost any saving on the self build server when the original Gigabyte MB I fitted proved to have a dodgy SCSI bus and I had to rebuild it with an Asus one - on paper everything should have worked, but it had dual SCSI controllers and failed intermittantly when accessing both at the same time. I think I had to exchange some RAM as well as the first lot didn't work too well. Apart from anything else, you'll research and spec the best components, then before you've bolted them together one will be obsolete and you'll be pissed off. Better to just buy a "box" that just works and don't get hung up on what's the best of everything.
I've always self-built, but the notion that you're saving money is just bunk these days. If you're picky about components or have a load of components (decent case/PSU, drives, etc) to carry over then it's still an option.
Been looking for a new machine for myself - nothing fancy, but fast and with 2Gb RAM for vmware stuff. Dell do a very nice dual core 3Ghz machine, 2Gb RAM, etc for around the £500 mark. I'm strugging to put together component prices for the same at that cost, before you consider the Dell comes with a 17" TFT (which I could offload to bring the price down further) and XP for that price.
Been looking for a new machine for myself - nothing fancy, but fast and with 2Gb RAM for vmware stuff. Dell do a very nice dual core 3Ghz machine, 2Gb RAM, etc for around the £500 mark. I'm strugging to put together component prices for the same at that cost, before you consider the Dell comes with a 17" TFT (which I could offload to bring the price down further) and XP for that price.
I used to buy components. Build it, install the software & drivers.
Then I realised "Sod it. My time is far to important to me to watch Windows install." When I figured out how much I'd charge someone else for the machine including my time; Dell was cheaper.
I use one of their XPS laptops, it's a very solid machine. Overkill for anything other than LAN gaming though
I think I'd only go through the hassel of components these days if I wanted an 'odd' machine for some reason (i.e. slow processor, LOTS of RAM and HDD space or some similar thing) that I couldn't get via Dells website. Or I was patching up someone elses system.
I'd suggest either Dell or Apple for the display, both seem to be using the same supplier of panels. Eitherway when you get it run it through the calibration routines in the manual and install it's drivers/colour profiles. Sounds strange but you are editing photo's so you want it showing as near as possible to real colours without upping the brightness any.
Then I realised "Sod it. My time is far to important to me to watch Windows install." When I figured out how much I'd charge someone else for the machine including my time; Dell was cheaper.
I use one of their XPS laptops, it's a very solid machine. Overkill for anything other than LAN gaming though
I think I'd only go through the hassel of components these days if I wanted an 'odd' machine for some reason (i.e. slow processor, LOTS of RAM and HDD space or some similar thing) that I couldn't get via Dells website. Or I was patching up someone elses system.
I'd suggest either Dell or Apple for the display, both seem to be using the same supplier of panels. Eitherway when you get it run it through the calibration routines in the manual and install it's drivers/colour profiles. Sounds strange but you are editing photo's so you want it showing as near as possible to real colours without upping the brightness any.
I'll always homebuild because I want specific components, and never buy a whole box in one go.
Unless you know what your doing a Dell will be better for you, there desktops are nice and quiet , well put to gether, if not always expandable or top quality(performance) parts.
If you self build buy a decent, quiet, case, and a good heatsink/fan, I hate noisy PC's that OEM's chuck out.
Unless you know what your doing a Dell will be better for you, there desktops are nice and quiet , well put to gether, if not always expandable or top quality(performance) parts.
If you self build buy a decent, quiet, case, and a good heatsink/fan, I hate noisy PC's that OEM's chuck out.
I spent ages sourcing the best prices and components when I built my current machine, needed assistance from mates when putting it together, as it was not straightforward, had issues with my chosen supplier (who sound like 'scam') because of their non-existant customer service. I'd have been better off with a Dell or other out of the box machine. A year later my mum bought the same spec machine from Dell for half what I'd paid. Now I know prices fall, but I wasn't expecting that much of a drop in that period.
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