This is very important to me, and I know you guys care for your members, so hopefully you can help. I am getting a desktop, that much is guaranteed, I haven't asked yet if I can build it. That is probably my biggest fear is that they will say no. I want to persuade them, but not in a desperate manor, throwing all these statistics at them. At the moment, my plan is to ask my friend, who has built a computer before. I think that will be a major point as they probably won't trust me to build it by myself with no experience to this sort of thing.
My second point is where you come in. Can you give me the best possible example of the following. Find a pre built desktop on Amazon, then build the same build on PC Part Picker and post the price difference. The bigger the price difference and the higher the difference the better. For example, £1500 on Amazon == £790 on PcPartPicker is great. I think this will really show the value for money of building a PC.
Finally, I would like to know any other ideas! I have one, as my chosen motherboard comes with a complete guide to building the PC that has really good reviews.
Thanks to everyone who can respond, this is really important.
NOTE: Don't be like "Oh yeah, I upgraded some of the parts for extra performance". I don't require that, it has to be the exact same in order to be an exact comparison and have a closer price difference. They know nothing about PCs so I can't try to explain to them how one graphics card is better than another.
Go shopping for me? Where the hell did you get that from? All I want is a quick example to help me significantly because I clearly suck at shopping for bad deals :( I can't find any terrible deals on amazon
Well, there are hundreds of thousands of computers for sale on amazon. So are you asking people to go find a random machine and then compare it to a self-built machine and check the prices of all the components for you, add it up and see if it is significantly cheaper by your standard. Then repeat until it meets your requirements?
Just find the highest priced machine and go to newegg or partpicker if you want an example.
However, you're much better off to decide what you want and need and make a realistic presentation of the cost difference.
Are you asking for people to show the price difference between a computer that has been assembled using all the good deals/cheap sources versus bad deals/expensive sources.
In that case a silly A8-5500 machine was last in my pc part picker for no apparent reason. (think it was a low power server example)
Choosing all the good sources, it comes to $225 (with mail-in rebates and promo discounts) sticking with the same sources, but without the cost saving measures its $275. Choosing all the bad sources, it comes out closer to $350
Sorry Zang, you have misunderstood me. I may not have been clear enough. What I would like is for somebody to find a poor deal on Amazon.co.uk (I know it's trusted), then to throw the exact same parts used in it into PcPartPicker for a significantly reduced price. Sadly, I seem to have found lots of good deals atm, which does not help.
So, let's say you find a computer on amazon that cost £800. What I would like is for someone to find a computer that is significantly more expensive prebuilt on amazon then it is on PcPartPicker.
i assume by "them" you mean your parents? part price vs pre-build price should not be your only consideration to present a case to them in allowing you to assemble your own pc vs buying one.
first parts warranty vs pre-build warranty parts warranty are usual longer as standard and can go up to 5 years on gpu's zotac as standard and 7 years on psu from brands like corsair and seasonic 5 years on mobos like asus, lifetime on ram everyone, 6 years on fans noctua. that and if something goes in a pre-build you have to send the WHOLE unit back (not very cost effective) and extremely inconvenient
also quality assurance, custom parts generally have a better build quality from the ground upwards witch falls back onto the whole warranty thing and normally they will last past warranty, because better coolling design implementations more of and better power phase designs for cleaner power delivery etc etc. all this contributes to the hardware's longevity vs pre-build parts that are normal oem parts (stock parts that are cost effective basically for the system build to resell) and not custom.
also you got a friend who can oversee you on your first build as you mentioned.
Why is everyone so into building PCs? After research, there seems to be minimal difference in price/quality. I know it's a hobby, but it seems everyone says the performance is way better too.
Because nobody is assembling and selling machines for the fun of it. Sellers take on warranty/return costs as well as needing a profit margin. It is a rare amazon seller that is getting deep OEM discounts to cover these costs.
This means they are skimping on the product somewhere in the build.
Build it yourself and you get higher quality parts, better warranties, better performance, and you get smarter as a result of learning how.
