it used to be that if you wanted a truly high-end well-built pc
it was a no-brainer that building it yourself was a far better solution than
ordering a pre-built that came off an assembly line somewhere but these days
the pc gaming industry is stronger than ever and previously expensive features
like ssds and many core cpus are
commonplace as mainstream consumers demand snappy experiences whether
they're gaming or just trying to get some work done i mean it's quite easy
these days to find pre-builts with these features and a discrete graphics card
for less than 700 us dollars so is the pre-built versus diy question
really all that easy to answer anymore let's start by looking at how current
pre-built might have an edge over custom rigs other than of course the
convenience you get from not having to put it all together yourself if you want
a pc that's somewhere between the low and mid-range a pre-built can be a
compelling value because pc manufacturers can order large
amounts of lower range commoditized parts at low cost it's rather difficult
to achieve the same cost savings if you go out and buy those parts on your own
but if you want something on the upper end of mid-tier or even in the actual
high end it's gotten a fair bit easier to find these types of systems off the
shelf it isn't just the fact that NVMe drives and powerful graphics cards are
more common in pre-built these days it's also that there are plenty of options
out there that use the same components you'd find at a major retailer for
building a system yourself aio liquid coolers motherboards with lots of
connectivity options and even premium cases do note however that these features are
more common in machines from smaller boutique builders rather than these
super big name brands this actually brings us to the things you need to
watch out for if you're shopping for a pre-built
if you're not buying from a boutique builder and instead are getting
something from dell hp or another major manufacturer you're probably going to
discover some things that frustrate you as they did 10 or 15 years ago these
companies will often cheap out on the power supply and a bad power supply can
make your system far less reliable so it should be one of the first things you
check on before buying however the situation has gotten a little better if
you buy from a specific gaming lineup from those companies additionally you
might find a variety of weird quirks none of which will be endearing
prebuilts from large manufacturers can have proprietary cases and motherboards
with very limited upgrade paths we've seen even some that don't use a standard
atx power supply connection so you can't
change out the crappy included psu even if you want to but lest you think that
frustrating issues are restricted only to large manufacturers there are some
issues that plague both the big boys and the boutiques alike thermal management
can be poorly thought out with weird or insufficient fan placement and cable
management might not be the same standard as you'd like if you just did
it yourself if you're the perfectionist type and when you consider the premium
you're going to pay for a mid to high-end pre-built pc over a diy rig
these kind of oversights can make the additional cost hard to justify then you
get to the question of customer experience many people buy pre-built
because they may not have as much knowledge about the components that they
might need as a do-it-yourselfer but it's a crapshoot as to whether you'll
get good advice about what to buy from a manufacturer or a system integrator and
the larger companies are notorious for trying to upsell you with extended
warranties and support options in fact we had an experience over on our
sister channel lions tech tips where dell charged us for additional support
we specifically told them we didn't want
multiple times but this isn't meant to scare you out of buying a pre-built if
you really want one or just aren't comfortable building your own pc there
are definitely well-built options out there that give you good value for the
money we're just saying to think about all
aspects of what you're buying and not just jump on something because the
components on the spec sheet sound impressive it sounds corny but a pc is
more than the sum of its parts just like
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