Build A PC or Buy One?

I thought about it a bit and realized that a laptop would be a bad idea ergonomically. I've been having wrist and elbow pain and it gets worse when I use my girlfriend's laptop.

Plus, I just spent $235 for a WorkRite keyboard tray and arm, so it would be a bit of a waste to get a laptop. The last thing that killed the deal is performance. A good desktop will always be faster than a good laptop and I really want my next PC to be pretty killer and to last a while. Would be nice to have a PC for longer than a year without feeling the need to upgrade.

Anyhow, so now the question is, do I build my own or buy from someone like Dell. If I build, I get exactly what I want and know that all parts are of good quality, plus I pay less. Buy from Dell (I get a discount since we use Dells exclusively here at work) and I get onsite support plus the latest technology (they are now offering dual core Pentium D systems) but not necessarily the best parts (Radeon 850 XT instead of Geforce 6800 Ultra for instance).

So I have a bit of research to do tonight before I'm satisfied with my answer, although I'm leaning towards building the tower and buying a Dell 2001FP flat panel or perhaps the 2005FP widescreen panel.

Comments

[Rob Brewer]

Good luck with your decision. It's a tough one anymore with the incredibly low price of PCs through the major manufacturers. I built my own about a year ago and it works pretty well...after I went through a few AMD compatible boards and finally went to an Intel board and P4 chip. The Dell widescreen panel is pretty sweet - we have two of them where I work now and the users love them. We'd probably get more, but budgetary constraints dictate otherwise!

[Tom Pickrell]

I've just been through the exact same choices. We also use DELL's at work so I have access to the same sort of discounts you describe.

In the end, I've decided to build my own, and in my mind, the decision came down to whether I was willing to OverClock or not. If I were going to build and run off the shelf components with no tweaking, I couldn't find enough price advantage to take on the warranty / support risk that building my own involved.

The success others are reporting with overlocking the Intel 805 (Smithfield) chip finally convinved me to go that way.