The Advantages of Choosing to Build a PC

Many look at the those people who service and build PCs as technological geniuses. That's not always the case. Myself for example. I grew up helping my father and older brother work on cars and trucks. I've assisted in changing engines, transmissions and everything in between. So I should be an ace mechanic right? WRONG. I wish I was. It would have saved me a lot of money over the years but the fact remains that with all of that experience, I can only change oil and spark plugs. Point being: I'm not at all mechanically inclined. I never had a PC in my life until the spring of 2000. I would purchase various computer magazines and I found PCs fascinating. If my computer was running slow, I wanted to know just WHY it was running slow and how to speed it up. So I learned how to upgrade my RAM. When I wanted to upgrade my optical drive, I did that myself. Little by little, I kept reading and modifying my PC and eventually it no longer had any of the original parts to it. The point is that if I can build a PC, I think ANYONE with half a brain can learn how to build a PC.

What's wrong with purchasing a PC that's already built?

Nothing. Purchasing a PC has it's advantages and disadvantages. Let's discuss some of them.

The advantages to purchasing a PC are as follows.... A New PC is likely to include a warranty and possibly "in home service". If you are building a PC, only each individual part has a warranty. A hard drive company for example will NOT remove your hard drive for you, transfer data, and re-install your operating system. It is up to you to do all of that. A purchased PC will be all optimized when you hook it up. If you are building a PC, YOU will have to set up your BIOS and (in most cases) update it (and that can be a bit tricky for a newbie). You shouldn't have to update your BIOS or do much tweaking at all on a purchased PC. Some companies like Dell and HP for example mass produce some particular PCs and offer them for a MUCH lower price than you could likely build one for.