To build or not to build
If you are looking to buy a new PC, whether it’s for playing games, editing, work-related, or something else. There are a few different choices to choose from, and none of the choices are wrong.
You can buy a pre-built PC where everything inside is already put together and it’s ready for use.
You can also choose the components that you want to have in your system, built for you with those components.
And then there’s a fully custom build which means that you would build everything from scratch by yourself, which is the most recommended method if you are of course familiar with PCs. Also building a PC by yourself can have the most enjoyable experience on the way.
In this guide we will help you decide which one of those three methods is the best choice for you, we will list and name all the advantages and disadvantages of all three methods above, so you can choose what’s the best option for you.
Building your own custom PC
You want to get a new computer and you’re thinking: “Hmm should I build my PC or should I just buy a prebuilt one”?
If you’re asking me, I would always go with the method of building my own PC.
Why?
It gives you the best price-to-performance
There are many different reasons why you should build your own PC. One of the most important reasons is because it’s gonna give you a better price-to-performance ratio than a pre-built one.
There’s a possibility that the pre-built computer is cheaper than the custom one, but that’s just in case the pre-built PC is on sale. But in most situations, that’s not the case.
You can customize by your personal needs
Another important matter of building your own PC is that you can customize it exactly how you need it to be. It often occurs that the components that are put in pre-built aren’t exactly as balanced as you’d like them to be.
For example, gamers need a stronger graphics card, and people who are using their system for editing need a stronger processor. It’s just a general example to help you better understand the difference.
Another huge advantage is that you get the components that you need and not just agree and get some components that don’t suit your needs. In other words, it’s totally your choice of what you want and what you don’t.
Pre-built PCs have a shorter warranty period
Individual processors from both Intel and AMD have 3-year warranties. PSU warranties usually last 5 years. Motherboards have 3 year-warranties as well and the GPUs also have a 3-year warranty.
So if you’re building your own PC, you get individual warranties on each component, rather than a fixed one for all parts together.
In the meanwhile, pre-built and custom-built PCs offer 1 or 2 years worth of warranty and you would have to pay extra for a longer warranty. There is always a disadvantage in having individual warranties, though and that will be discussed later on.
Learning and knowing how to build a PC is a great experience
In today’s world, that is driven by technology, not knowing how to build a computer, or not knowing much about them is going to make your life, most likely, harder. A lot of people have no clue what is going on in their computers.
By attempting to build your own computer, you will gain knowledge that will help you and might even lead you into more computer-related stuff.
Also, building your own PC you will get to know how it works. That way if anything happens to it, you will probably know what to do and how to fix it, which is going to save you from additional repair costs that can be very high.
After you finish your build, you will surely have more respect for yourself and care about your computer.
Don’t build your own PC
Here is why…
Building a computer is time-consuming
One disadvantage of building your own PC is that it’s a much more time-consuming process than getting a pre-built computer. If you have no experience whatsoever with building computers or their components, the first step would be to take your time and get to know them.
After that, you will need to know which components you need to suit your needs and how you are going to put it all together properly.
Luckily, there are a lot of guides out there that explain in detail how you are supposed to build your computer. There’s a walkthrough for every step, but if you haven’t done it before, it will probably take you a couple of hours to figure things out and build your system.
Another problem you will face is waiting longer for the shipment of your components because you ordered them individually, not together. A lot of people who build their computers like to take their time and purchase their components from different stores so that they can get the best offers for them at the lowest price possible and save some extra money.
Even if you order it all through the same site, for example, Amazon, there’s no guarantee that the parts will arrive together or at the same time. So you will have to wait for all the parts to arrive before you can actually go ahead and start building your system.
So to conclude that, if you don’t really have the time to choose your components and wait for them to get shipped individually. In that case, pre-built or custom-built PCs are probably the best choices for you.
Building a PC is somewhat risky
One detail that makes most people not build their computers is the fact that it’s more difficult and requires some responsibility to make everything work properly. While on the other hand, with custom-built or pre-built computers, only the manufacturer or the store you buy it from is responsible for everything to work how it’s supposed to.
If you buy a custom-built or pre-built PC and get it shipped, but it doesn’t work, then you have to send it back and the manufacturers will fix it for you. But in case you are building your own and it doesn’t work, then it’s your worry about how you’re going to fix it.
So even though there are many benefits of building your own computer, if you’re not going to take some risks that go along with it, then you should probably not build one.
Warranty problem
Even though it’s really nice that you get much longer warranties on your individual computer parts, there are some downsides to it. The reason for it is that if something goes wrong with the computer, and you have a custom-built or a pre-built PC, you can just go ahead and ship the entire thing and it’s the store’s job to find what is wrong with it and fix the issue.
But if the case is that it’s your own PC that you built, then you’re first going to have to find out where’s the issue yourself and that’s really hard sometimes because you’d have to test components individually sometimes, which again takes time and some knowledge to do.
And then finally, once you’re done with that you’re going to have to take out that individual part and send it for repair or replacement, whichever is needed in the particular situation.
