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greenmedic88 on 27 September 2008
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Building primarily makes sense to those who are particular about which components they use and want the added scalability a custom rig tends to provide.

I have to assert that it is NOT the best choice for the vast majority of PC users, or even PC gamers.

It's not always just about sourcing the cheapest game capable rig, which varies depending upon what games you want to play.

The irony comes when builders source cheaper components as many brand name manufacturers do to keep costs down on thin margins, often the source of premature component failure down the line.

So, super cheap builds in the $500, even $600 range, without an OS are not the best choice, IMO unless you're using quality components found at bargain prices.

But in 2-3 years, it's to be expected that most PCs in this range will be replaced anyway, so this is less of an issue.

The trade off for a custom build is that you can hand pick your components, balancing price to performance, including available deals on quality components, but at the added and real cost of time, effort and risk (the real possibility of destroying expensive components).

For builders, the trade off is worth it, particularly if you are experienced at building, customizing as well as sourcing parts and optimizing performance.

For the vast majority of people, they are far better off finding a good deal from a reputable PC manufacturer and then simply upgrading the video card to something that will provide far better GPU capabilities than the typical underpowered stock cards pre-configs ship with, yet well within the safe efficiency range for the PSU, which in pre-configs, is usually just adequate in terms of quality, rails, and output.

A sub $500 PC with even a 350w PSU still fits the bill. You could probably even run a 9600GT, which if you shop around, can be bought for about $100, give or take. Should run everything but game like Crysis on optimal settings.

I've done enough upgrades on a mid-range Q6600 based HP that I'll eventually just build a second PC using the new components and restore the OEM PC to its original configuration with an upgraded video card.