Building PC's

[3Dfx]

If you have a knowledge of PC's... would you

1: Build your own from scratch
2: Buy one from "PC WORLD"

.. Just curious... I built mine, and I have a knowledge of PC's, but my mate who also has a knowledge spent like.... the same amount for a worse PC.

Compare. (btw this was Nov 2002... i was just thinking lol)

ME

XP2200
MSI KT3 Ultra
GF4 TI4200 128Mb
Audigy 5.1
16x DVD
32x12x48 CD-RW
512Mb DDR2700
550w PSU
60Gb HDD 7200rpm
Inspire 5300 speakers

HIS (PC WORLD BUILT... ticking time bomb lol)

P4 2.8 (Older version no HT etc)
unknown mobo
128Mb RAM (unsure about DDR... if so it'll be 1600/2100)
onboard video
onboard stereo sound
Sakura stereo speakers
52x CD-ROM
CD-RW = unsure of speed
80Gb HDD 5400rpm
PSU - unknown


... I told him to build it.. but noooooo...what u reckon? he shouldda built? or bought...

We both spent around £900...

[PriestJPN]

Build it - everytime!

[3Dfx]

Thats my way of thinking too...

I wouldnt trust those monkeys at PC world to open a can of beans..

PS: If u work at PC World.. congrats ya doing a good job and your prices are amazingly low....

[Byatt]

possibly not from pc world, but given a choice of slightly better retailers (evesham, mesh, etc) I'd say it becomes a much harder decision (even though most big companies *still* build gaming pcs with more valuable CPUs than graphics cards in them)

[3Dfx]

*still* build gaming pcs with more valuable CPUs than graphics cards in them)

yeah, whats that all about?

3.0Ghz EXTREME EDITION with Radeon 9600np
Vs
2.6Ghz with Radeon 9800pro

whats faster? ... /me thinks.... 2.6Ghz!

[Knoxville]

Theres more incentive from intel for comapnies to sell they're top cpu's then the lower ones and no incentive from the gfx card industry, besides what does the average punter look at..........3.0ghz...............or.............. 2.2ghz...............obviously the 3ghz system is gonna be faster

[spazman]

to be honest anybody who buys a PC from PC world has absolutley no idea what they are doing. Evesham are good, ive bought from them in the past. The PC i bought was like £50 more than if i bought all the components and i got a warranty too

[IBM]

I know mine's an unusual case, but I ordered a PC from Evesham (retail was only 2 to 300 quid more than building it myself, including build and 3 year warrenty) and it took a month to get to me, arrived with three components wrong, wouldn't boot and with the wrong recovery disk...callout for an engineer was 12 days - slightly more than the 3 days promised in contract...and on the day of the callout I found out that the engineers don't take monitors with them to test systems (I was still waiting for my replacement monitor to arrive from Simply - 'nother story altogether)...so I packaged it all up and sent it back.

Moral of story is that if you're building it yourself then anything which goes wrong is your responsibility, which is a good thing when you don't have to wait on a bunch of spanner monkeys who can't take a box off a shelf without misreading the label...

Oh, and I really don't like PC World....those sales people really get on my tits....8P