Getting a gaming rig. Buy or Build?

[jkimball]

superchunk said:

Phrancheyez said:
Don't build.. 'It's so much cheaper! You can have a better computer!!' bullshit..and it'll take you forever, and cost you a lot of time and work, and things will go wrong.

www.digitalstormonline.com

Probably one of the best sites to get it from, their prices aren't that bad at all, and they've got options out the ass. Even their lowest-end performance PC is badass. They set up, overclock, and stress test your machine for 3 straight days before sending it to you. Much less of a headache..

But building it will be a little cheaper.

I like how your 1st line and last line are contradictory. :)

 

Building is always cheaper for higher quality parts. So yes, you will save money and you will have a better computer.

I have a PC I built for ~$800 in 2002. I have spent ~$150 in those 8 years to buy more memory and a better graphics card. So, in total it was a ~$1000 computer that is still running in perfect condition and is on Windows 7 with great performance.

In 2002 it ran any game I wanted at reasonably high levels and performed all of my coding homework perfectly.

In 2008 I build another PC (spec'd in my profile). I spent ~$900 and it too can play any current game at reasonably high levels; many times maxed out. (I have spent an additional ~$150 on Win7 64bit and 2GB memory).

In both cases when I compared similar PCs to one from Dell, HP, etc., they were all a couple hundred dollars more, had questionable parts, and would come with a ton of crap-ware.

Whoa, there. There is a HUGE market between "Dell/HP" and "home built"!  The OP posted two links to iBuypower PC wesbsite. Thery are a large white box assembler with a good reputation. So far, none of the 'home built' solutions presented on this thread  have been able to beat their price!  Personally I build all my PC's, but I have the keyboards,  mice, monitors, DVD burners, cases, memeory card readers etc already.  The OP has NOTHING. So he needs everything from scratch. In 2008 you could have bought a $925 PC from a reputable white box seller and gotten very, very close to what you built yourself.

Claims of 'you'll save hundreds' are quite exaggerated. Compared to a Dell? yes, you'll save hundreds and get much nicer case/PSU. But compared to a whitebox reseller? Not so much. The OP is looking at savings of about zero. It's a satsifaction thing at this point.

to Epoch: Your build looks good. Dont' forget keyboard and mouse. I would go with the AMD PII X4 and save over the intel, thus freeing up enough for the 58xx video.