own PC today?
There are a proliferation of desktop
PCs, Laptops, Notebooks, Netbooks,
and Tablet PCs on offer that not only
give great performance but also come
packaged in various impressive styles,
formats and sizes to suit the vast
majority of PC owners’ wants and
needs.
Today’s PC is without a doubt a very
‘Personal Computer’! There are
computers aimed at gaming, video
and photo editing, quiet PCs, Media
Center PCs, PCs with remotes. Why
would you even consider building
your own PC!
Not only that but the media are telling
us that Laptops, Netbooks, Notebooks
and Tablet PCs are taking over and the
desktop PC is on its way out….. but is
that really the case?
Well sure, today’s choice of ready-built
off-the-shelf PCs is truly fantastic. But,
great leaps and bounds have also
been made in the PC components
market too. After all, that’s how we
have such a vast selection of ready
built PCs on offer!
Component wise there are so, SO
many really impressive pieces of kit
out there for any budget and I still
firmly believe it makes perfect sense to
spend a little time designing the
perfect custom built PC to suit your
needs and then creating this beauty
with your own fair hands.
Hey buddy, why would I want to do
this with all that’s on offer straight off
the shelf? Heck, I can pop down to my
local store, select, purchase, take it
home and be up and running in no
time at all!
Well, yes that’s true, but in the long
term, I still believe there are many
valid reasons to build your own
computer.
So why do I believe this? Why should
you go to all the effort and hassle of
building your own computer?
Well, quite simply, you will get exactly
what you want for how much you
want and you will end up with a PC
that is tailored precisely to your own
personal requirements and budget
that you will be able to upgrade when
you want in the future.
Manufacturers of retail PCs can force
component suppliers to ridiculously
low margins meaning that they have
to save on quality to satisfy the
consumer’s demands for cheaper and
cheaper systems.
Yes, there are people out there who
will do all of this for you for a small
price. But, if you do this all yourself
you will end up with a PC that you
personally know inside out, will be
able to fault find and repair yourself
should the need arise, have individual
guarantees for each and every
component that makes up your PC
and know what parts to change when
you next want to upgrade.
Personally, I have two desktop PCs on
the go at any one time, one for
current use and the other in the
background for swapping over with
after completing a new build or
upgrade thereby never losing the use
of my main PC.
I have only ever bought one ‘off the
shelf’ desktop PC, the rest have all
been built myself – once you’ve done
this for yourself you will get such a
kick out of it you will never want to go
back to purchasing a ready made
system – believe me!
A lot of people are switching over to
laptops for their main PC and there is
no denying that they are very handy –
I have a couple myself which I
regularly use for on the move,
business or casual computing.
However, you cannot beat a good
quality desktop PC setup for getting
down to some serious work or
gaming. Nice comfortable desk and
chair, large desktop mounted monitor
adjusted with the top of the screen
level with your eyes, ergonomic or
gaming keyboard, responsive mouse,
awesome graphics cards, fast hard
drives and always up to date
performance wise – heaven!
And how quickly does that nice shiny
new laptop become outdated and no
longer suit your needs?
There are no real options for
upgrading one of these beyond
memory and drives… and if you are a
serious user you’re going to want to
upgrade on a regular basis.
There are lots of online resources for
helping you build your own computer
so you will not be on your own when
it comes to anything you are not sure
about – so don’t be afraid… give it a
go why don’t you!
So let’s look at the Top 5 reasons for
building your own computer shall
we…..
1. Future Proofing
Selecting a quality case and power
supply are key elements of a future
proof PC. Many off the shelf retail PCs
will, especially in the case of the
power supply, use lower quality
components that are not likely to have
anywhere near the lifespan of a
quality unit. Plus, the power supply
ratings of many are dubious to say
the least.
With a quality case and high power
rating quality power supply you are all
set for a future upgrades without
needing to replace these long lasting
components which you should find
will last you for a good 7+ years. The
author has many PCs built like this
with quality power supplies and has
never experienced a failure and a
couple of these are now close to or
beyond 10 years old!
A quality case will also be much more
flexible than the typical type that retail
PCs use even though I must admit
some of the retail cases are
exceptionally aesthetically pleasing to
the eye.
Typically, though, there is little room
for adding another graphics card or
upgrading the present card with a
high end extended height / length
GPU.
2. Motherboard
Retail PCs tend to use low end
motherboards tailored specifically for
the high volume retail PC vendor and
are generally less easy to upgrade,
have poor support and are difficult to
locate drivers for etc., although the
processor should be fine as a quality
AMD or Intel part will still be fitted
whatever the motherboard make.
Even good ‘Named Brand’
motherboards destined for retail PCs
will tend to be tailored for high
volume and made to a price and
specifically tailored for the retail PC
manufacturers.
Also the BIOS can be very limited on
pre-built machines and you may well
be locked out of many functions such
as overclocking etc.
3. Bloatware
A particular hate for many of us is the
pre-installed bloatware that seems to
come with every retail PC and is
generally a pain.
A clean fresh install of Windows 7
from your own installation disk will
give you a much nicer computing
experience, no unwanted advertising
software and adware
Also, increasingly, there is no system
disk supplied – the installation
software complete with all of the
advertising and bloatware is stored on
a hard drive partition and should you
need to carry out a repair or reinstall
it will just load all of this rubbish back
on.
It has got to be much better to install
your own and have a proper backup
disk and no adware.
4. Warranty and Support
This is generally a very painful drawn
out process if you should happen to
suffer a problem with long extended
phone calls trying to obtain support –
at least if you purchase your own
component parts they will all come
with their own warranties and you will
be able to swap out or replace them
yourself with no hanging around
waiting for support at the whim of
your supplier.
And, if you want to upgrade at any
time there are no problems with the
guarantee not being honored
because you have been inside your PC
invalidating the warranty!
5. Your Own Creation
The best reason of all has to be that
it’s all been put together with your
own fair hands
Boy does that feel good eh!
The sheer pleasure and satisfaction it
brings on successfully completing
your first build
You will come to know all about the
inner workings of your PC and you will
have chosen the components and
how your PC looks and it will all be
exactly to your very own specification.
In Conclusion
Upgrading is far easier generally with
a PC you have built yourself as you will
have created it with a future upgrade
in mind and will not be frustrated by
graphics cards that won’t fit in the
space available, power supplies that
haven’t got the required connector
type or output power capability or
RAM that simply won’t work in the
retail manufacturers motherboard as
you can’t identify what the heck it is!
You will be able to choose quality
hand picked components, not parts
made to a price.
Also you will have the ability to choose
your monitor and get a quality screen
rather than a monitor made for the
masses.
If your computer breaks down you
will now be aware of what goes on
inside and with a little online research
and help should be up and running
again in no time at all.
You won’t save money purely down to
economies of scale – the retail
manufacturer buys in high volume
and can purchase at much better
prices than you can but you will still
be able to build yourself a much
higher quality PC for the same price.
By spending time researching the
components required to build your
own computer you will gain an
understanding of how your PC works,
how it does what it does and how to
fix it if it should go wrong.
You can configure your machine in
ways that will not be available on
retail PCs such as maybe using a solid
state hard disk drive for your
operating system and a large
mechanical hard disc drive for storing
all of your data etc.
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