So I'm getting irritated with the whole "not being able to run Solidworks on a laptop" thing, and I'm starting to entertain the idea of building a new desktop. I've got all the peripherals, so all I'm looking at is the tower.

I've priced out a few builds in the past, but now I'm starting to think I may be able to take a different approach. How much would I save by buying a new case, mobo, and hdd, and buying last year's graphics card, a cheaper power supply, etc.

I'm going to be moving across the country in a few months, so I'm trying my damnedest to keep an E30 from following me home, as moving two cars is going to be hard enough, much less three. Can I save an appreciable amount of money by making a basic system now and upgrading in the future?

My son builds all of his computers via New Egg. Great prices!

Yeah, that's what I was looking at. I guess what I'm wondering is, is there any sense in buying used components?

I just did this this past summer, I know a good bit, and if I don't know it I have a few people to ask that surely will. You can save a lot of money by building and can you tube the actual assembly process or find someone who has done it before. Newegg is the place to shop, they sell kits as well, which is the route I took. Last years graphic card should work well. Most motherboards have integrated graphics that aren't great but you can having a working pc with purchasing a graphics card right away.

Used parts are borderline for me, if you stay on top of it and search hard enough and have patience you can get new stuff for really good deals, that outweighs the risk of used stuff for me.

Buy the cheapest brand name desktop you can that is currently on sale. $250-$300 will get you a nice dual or quad core AMD with 4gb's of ram (if not 6 or 8) and a 1tb harddrive. Add a $100 or less GPU (probably get away with $50 if using solidworks), a $25psu, and another 4gb stick of ram for $20. Voila.

I've never built my own computer as it's not worth it IMO. I do take a inexpensive computer and add onto them all the time though. You'd be hard pressed after buying a case, operating system (even oem will set you back minimum $80 for Windoze 7 home) and then all of the other bits that go into a computer to come in under $400, then you'd have to build it (not hard, but there are some critical steps). I like skipping the "hard" stuff and just popping a couple of extra components in AND have a warranty from one manufacturer

^Is xxx computer company going to honor a warranty on something that has been modified?

Yes - just take your extra components out before sending in for service.

I just built a quad core i5, 16g of ram, 6g/s SATA, ATI 6850 1G video, 650w power supply Hackintosh for under $700 by watching for good deals/free shipping on Newegg.

If I could have used AMD processing (os-x won't) I could have done it for under $500 easily.

The best advice I can give you... go to Tom's Hardware, find their lastest budget gaming rig build, tailor to suit your personal needs, take out the SSD (you don't need one) and start shopping Newegg and Tiger Direct to fill the parts list.

Wait another 2 weeks on hard disk purchases - prices are coming down.

I like the idea of buying a cheap pre-built manufactured PC and upgrading it in the box.

Most of the time this gets you a new copy of Windows included, and you can use the computer as funding allows.

I built my computer years ago thinking I could upgrade it as the years went by...well technology advanced so quickly that I couldn't keep up...and now I'm left with an old reliable computer that I pretty much need to upgrade everything but the hard drives.

PHeller wrote: I like the idea of buying a cheap pre-built manufactured PC and upgrading it in the box. Most of the time this gets you a new copy of Windows included, and you can use the computer as funding allows.

The trouble with the cheap pre-built systems is that you get an OEM copy of Windows (not portable, single install with no media) pre-loaded with spyware and junk you don't want or need since the low price is partially because of ad revenue for them pre-installing all that junk.

You also get a cheap, low wattage power supply and bargain basement components right down the line so when you go to stick that extra drive and massive SLI video card in there you discover that precision electronic magic requires stable voltage - or you don't realize it and just complain that it reboots itself every now and again and mumble about how Windows sucks

If you can snap things together you will get more for the same money assembling it yourself and if you absolutely must run Windows because of software restrictions or ability to run games ... you can get a real copy of Win7 with no junk in it for $99. Otherwise, Linux is the way to go.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: The best advice I can give you... go to Tom's Hardware, find their lastest budget gaming rig build, tailor to suit your personal needs, take out the SSD (you don't need one) and start shopping Newegg and Tiger Direct to fill the parts list.

Thisssssssss. ^

Tom's Hardware frequently has "best videocard for "x" price range". Etc.

Personally, I wouldn't ever buy a used VC because they have a finite life span and just "go bad".

A couple of months ago I built a Core i5 with 16GB of ram for ~$350 on Newegg. Just couldn't justify the upgrade so I didn't order. Of course, I already own an Antec 900 case, so I didn't have to price that, but I've frequently seen the Antecs for less than $50 (maybe not Nine Hundreds, don't recall).

I would DEFINITELY build, not buy,unless getting a laptop, which I won't get into here. Tom's HW is your friend. Look at 6 month old shootouts. Personally, I'd stick with AMD/ATI video cards (Sapphires are usually cheap), as I've tried 3 GeForce over 10 years, all D.O.A.

Buying a generation or two older usually equates to building a PC from Newegg for $600 today that would've cost you $2000 8 months ago. I've done it three times, and they all screamed at the time. Get Win 7 from there too unless you are going Linux (which I've done, and loved).

Slightly relevant, but off-topic - has anyone here built their own Linux cluster? I've got at least 50 P4 Dells that I could pick from, and was wondering what the real-world result would be.

If you somehow don't build a PC with an Athlon II 631. You are an idiot.

/clarkson

I used to build most of my own PCs, but not to save money (as someone pointed out above, you can buy something cheaper) but in order to control the quality of the components.

The cheap boxes are cheap for a reason, they tend to be assembled from the cheapest available components and by the time you've replaced everything that's marginal or plainly crap, you're in it deeper than you would if you had built it from carefully selected components in the first place. Also, the difference between a really cheap case and a decent one isn't that much in money terms, but worlds apart.

That said, the last machine I built was our home server. I'm probably going to build a media PC if we stick with the cable company as I don't want to pay for another HD cable box, but for day to day use, I just buy used Macs...

Hammers, welders and mass quantities of duck tape only works on the cases...

I like this thread, I'm looking at my own scratch build for when I have room for a tower.

I'm also considering upgrading the almost 4 year old family Dell tower, but by the time I'm done with it the case and dvd drive will be the only thing left over.

Ok smartA@# comments aside I have built 2 boxes that have done very well over time. They were built on the same rules

1 Get Everything you can off the mother board. Let the processors process and let the other things do their job. Don't confuse the issue.

2 Buy as much video card as you can humanly afford.

3 Ram is your friend, love your fiend, get more of the same types of friends.

HiTemp has a point with prices as they are now it doesn't pay to build just buy. Unless you are doing something special

BoxheadTim wrote: That said, the last machine I built was our home server. I'm probably going to build a media PC if we stick with the cable company as I don't want to pay for another HD cable box, but for day to day use, I just buy used Macs...

Ewwwwwww. You were ready for that, weren't you?

If you want a Unix-like box that just works and also runs Windows, you can do a lot worse than buying a Mac.

Of course given that I'm earning a living programming the darn things, I tend to have slightly different requirements when it comes to reliability than the average computer user. So in a sense it's the same reason why the majority of the pro mechanics get their tools off the Mac Tools or Snap On van and not necessarily at Harbor Freight.

One of the problems with upgrading a pre-built system would be cooling, once you throw a quality cpu and graphics card in the case its going to get really hot really quick and hurt your components and performance, there are lots of good cases for cheap on newegg and other sites.

In reply to Uncoiled:

Good point, not to mention that the cheap pre-built systems often have very noisy cooling systems.

From my experience building, selling, and servicing computers over the years, I can wholeheartedly say that most people would be better off with a white box than a Dell. As has already been touched on here, an OEM computer is built with cheap components. They may have 1TB HDDs, but they're slow drives with the least cache available, the videocards are often onboard or CPU based, RAM is usually limited to as little as you can really get by on and it's slow, and most of all, the power supplies are crap. The power supplies that go into OEM computers are low power and rather unreliable. When I worked in the computer shop years ago, I'd replace about 10 power supplies a week, all in OEM computers, and most of them were still around a year old.

The last desktop I built was in 2005. I retired it when I moved to a laptop when the power supply died in 2010. That whole computer was about $350, and didn't feel slow, even when I retired it. I did have a Windows XP license I brought over to it and I reused the old optical drives to save a few bucks.

By the time you buy a $300 Dell, put a $50 videocard in it, another $50 in RAM, and replace the power supply just out of warranty for around $50, you've spent $550. Why not spend that on good parts?

I'll vouch for Newegg. Often, their prices aren't very much above wholesale prices on stuff, and their selection is the best online.

BoxheadTim wrote: If you want a Unix-like box that just works and also runs Windows, you can do a lot worse than buying a Mac.

You can have the best of both worlds by choosing components carefully, assembling it yourself and running os-x. I am typing this on the hardware equivalent of a $4500 mac workstation for a 3 digit cash outlay and some careful planning.

OS-X is fantastic as a development platform but the cost to buy their hardware is prohibitive (for me anyway). I have no issue whatsover with shelling out the $29 to but the OS though. It is a bargain.

MCarp22 wrote: If you somehow don't build a PC with an Athlon II 631. You are an idiot. /clarkson

Needs more info. That chart just makes me feel like an idiot if i buy the 631 over the Celeron G530, and i even LIKE AMD cpus...

I think all of the hardcore computer nerd dudes are way, WAY over exaggerating the reliability issues with oem type computers, as well as not factoring in every little nugget of spending required to actually build a box if they have done it before or "have parts" lying around.

Poor oem cooling? lol. The guy is building a solid works station, not some mad tite 20,000 3dmark2020 gaming rig. Obviously for the HD situation, you'd try to find one that came with a 7200rpm HD, but any computer I've bought off the shelf has had a 7200 in it, it's not like they are hard to find.

Getting by with 4gb's of ram? Oh noez, throw another 4gb stick in for $20. Anyone who thinks they need 16gb of ram besides for mental masturbation is, well, ya... sure, it HELPS, but 8gbs is nothing to sneeze at.

As for junk with the oem software, they are just programs, you go "uninstall" and they magically disappear! It's not like they are hidden, and if they are, I don't know which oem's you are buying from.

Nice power supplies for a regular old gpu (SOLIDWORKS DO YOU PEOPLE NOT READ?!) and an extra HDD/peripherals is $25. The motherboard has built in gpu? Oh the horror, plug in your new $50gpu, it automatically turns the onboard off and you are good to go.

You guys are too focused on gaming stations/professional level work stations. Yes, he is using solidworks, but what I have described is a perfectly legitimate route to take, AND THE EASIEST. I don't expect everyone to be able to build their own computer, just like I don't expect everyone to have the skills to compete in the $2XXX GRM Challenege. Anybody can slam some ram and a psu into a computer though.