Redtortoise39
New member
Just a poll here. Do you personally believe it's better to buy a PC for recording or to build one yourself? I'm not rich, but what is the better option in the long run?
Buying a PC or building one?
- Thread starter Redtortoise39
- Start date
AFAICT, IF! You spend a deal of time searching out the best deals on MOBOs, CPU, memory, cases etc yes you CAN save money compared to a stock machine but this is not it seems as true as it was say 5 years ago.
I have "made up" several PCs in the last 3 years, nothing in the Deep Thought category but powerful enough for my needs. The best one is an Asus MOBO with an AMD 6300 "Black" 6core 3.0G CPU. Pretty nifty (but now totally wasted as the musician son has buggered off to France!) .
There are always issues, unforeseen glitches and time devouring problems with a home build. I have always gotten them sorted eeeventuually! But this can eat into Real Life Time. But! If a bit of problem solving floats your boat, go ahead, build one! But these days you will not save a lot of money IMHO.
Dave.
I have "made up" several PCs in the last 3 years, nothing in the Deep Thought category but powerful enough for my needs. The best one is an Asus MOBO with an AMD 6300 "Black" 6core 3.0G CPU. Pretty nifty (but now totally wasted as the musician son has buggered off to France!) .
There are always issues, unforeseen glitches and time devouring problems with a home build. I have always gotten them sorted eeeventuually! But this can eat into Real Life Time. But! If a bit of problem solving floats your boat, go ahead, build one! But these days you will not save a lot of money IMHO.
Dave.
gecko zzed
Grumpy Mod
I've only ever built my own desktops (except for the very first one I had, which was built for me).
I was fortunate in having a computer store about five minutes away, and through them I've had help and advice to get me through it.
But I haven't had any disasters.
The store has now closed, so that source of immediate help has vanished.
I was fortunate in having a computer store about five minutes away, and through them I've had help and advice to get me through it.
But I haven't had any disasters.
The store has now closed, so that source of immediate help has vanished.
Pinky
and The Brain...
I work in IT and have all the knowledge to build my own, but instead have purchased my last two machines (both have lasted me the past 5+ years combined). The issue with building your own is keeping the costs down to stay competitive with the OEMs. I found that I couldn't, on paper, get a top of the line (for the time) processor with everything else I needed for much less than just buying the best desktop Best Buy had on the shelf. If I didn't want top of the line, ie- midrange i5 or AMD, then building it myself would have saved me enough to make it worth my time. If you decide to upgrade any internal components, like a power supply, you can toss the spares in a box as backups for after the warranty expires or resell them if you don't foresee using the warranty. I never needed to or intended to, so I resold things like the hard drive, power supply, and memory that came with the OEM computer, which I had better components already. It was all a wash when I figured it out financially later. The OEMs buy and sell in huge quantities, it's tough to compete with that. My processor alone was $350+ new at the time were I to buy it retail.
Consider also the cost for Windows if you don't own a copy you can install on the new computer or migrate your existing install to the new PC yourself. It was still cheaper for me to buy top of the line off the shelf despite having my own copies of every Windows OS out there available to me (legally).
Consider also the cost for Windows if you don't own a copy you can install on the new computer or migrate your existing install to the new PC yourself. It was still cheaper for me to buy top of the line off the shelf despite having my own copies of every Windows OS out there available to me (legally).