To build or to buy?

DA7800

Hi all, looking for a bit of advice.

I need a computer for general use (General internet browsing, media consumption, word processing). If I could build something more powerful, like a gaming PC, I would, but money is an issue.

I have an interest in technology and want to go into a computer science field so I would be interested in assembling my own build, but I only have about €400 - €500 maximum to spend at this point in time.

My question is would it be more economical to build my own computer or just buy it from a shop? I would be willing to put aside my desire to build if it meant getting more value for money. I have read that for what I'm after, it may be cheaper just to buy one instead. Is this right?

Edit: Just to be clear I'd be hoping for something with a 500GB HDD, a decent processor, it wouldn't need to he overclockable. Monitor and other peripherals are not included in the budget.

Digital Solitude

Will you be doing any gaming on it?

TerrorFirmer

Build your own. That's a decent enough budget to build a respectable gaming PC, and certainly what you'd build you simply wouldn't find in a store for anything less than almost double the cost. If you put gaming entirely aside, in-store purchases offer much better value in that regard.

Don't have time to list specific links but look at a basic Zalman T3 or T4 case, VS450 power supply, i3-4160, cheap H81 mobo, 8Gb ram, 1TB Hard Drive,Nvidia GTX750Ti.

Should come in on your budget and will offer very decent game performance.

scamalert

well if your not set on desktop you can buy decent laptop for such price-but nothing close to gaming,well not latest games anyway.But it would be portable and last you year or two.

Otherwise Id opt for building my own rig-since experience is worth it and knowing you put it together,only thing is you have to have some parts to salvage since lcd screen,keyboard,mouse,speakers can easily eat up your budget-so in such case you'd be better off with low end pc with all inclusive deal.

But if you have decent pc case with leftovers like memory ddr3 would be needed at least,maybe psu anything in range of 500-650w would do for time being-then id go shopping for other parts.

cheap intel cpu can be gotten for less than 100e with some OC capabilities before upgrading also amd vga would be best bang for money.And most important if you decide to build don't save on MB since it will be your future building point-since while you can get cheap vga or processor.
But when time will come to upgrade youll be happy to have options of extra pci-e slots,usb 3-3.1,sata 6gbs connectors M2 connection,extra ram with,and OC options-speaking here of likes of msi gaming 7 or something similar from Asus,thus its expensive but worth it if you will be doing upgrades in the future.

DA7800

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Will you be doing any gaming on it?

The idea with this build/purchase was that I wouldn't be doing any gaming, because I thought that trying to incorporate gaming elements would be unrealistic given my budget.

I'm more than happy to stick with a general PC and do a gaming build when it's more financially viable, but if some of you think I can get a decent build built with my budget maybe I should?

If I was to do a gaming build it wouldn't need to be anything special or be able to support the latest games on maximum settings.

DA7800

scamalert wrote: »

well if your not set on desktop you can buy decent laptop for such price-but nothing close to gaming,well not latest games anyway.But it would be portable and last you year or two.

Otherwise Id opt for building my own rig-since experience is worth it and knowing you put it together,only thing is you have to have some parts to salvage since lcd screen,keyboard,mouse,speakers can easily eat up your budget-so in such case you'd be better off with low end pc with all inclusive deal.

Not keen on buying a new laptop, I already have an old one running Linux for tinkering around with. This would have to be a desktop.

Also monitor/keyboard/mouse aren't a factor in my budget, they're already appropriated for.

Thanks for the rest of the advice as well.

Digital Solitude

As Terror said, can get a very decent gaming PC for that money

750Ti
i3 4160
MSI H81 P33
1tb HDD
400w PSU
Zalman T1
Crucial 8gb RAM

Roughly €500

scamalert

If such is the case id go with Terror advice on parts-stick maybe ssd on low end if possible,since no rattling and speed it provides is well worth it,even for web or word stuff,only downside you wont get much space for $

Ant695

Whether its for gaming ir just general use building your own is definitely the cheaper option and is also good experience. I had to spec a replacement computer for a report for college a few weeks ago and self built came in about €100 less than shop bought with double the hard drive and double the ram.

the_syco

A lot of the pre-built instore jobbies aren't that upgradeable (Dell used to do onboard graphics, with no PCI-E slot), and the PSU is sometimes only good enough for what's currently in the case.

IMO, build your own, and you can upgrade at a later stage with some 2nd hand bits.