by Eric Groff

Created on: October 14, 2008

When you decide you want to buy a computer wether it be for buisness or pleasure or a balance of both, the question looms, should I buy a computer, or should I build my own? For some people that is a very good question and here today we are going to explore that. My personal stance on the issue is to build my own computer and after reading this you will understand why I choose to build rather than buy. First we will start with the basics. There are so many different uses for a computer and along with all those different uses come different price tags. A basic e-machine designed for e-mail applications and simple web browsing generally won't cost you to much whereas if you decide to go full circle and get a mind blowing earth shattering gaming machine you are potentially looking at around $3,000.00 Now before you go getting alarmed about that don't get discouraged yet. That's if you buy a manufactured system from a computer store or from a computer manufacturing company. Most of these companies charge a hefty price for their systems which in turn are difficult to upgrade, even harder to resell and don't offer very much when it comes to flexibility. Now building your own system is a different story. You hold all the cards, you decide what you want and don't want and generally speaking, your wallet won't suffer as much either. Building your own computer gives you the freedom to choose how you want to go about building your computer, where you want to get the parts, how much you are looking to spend and what features you want to include. You also save money on the manufacturing fees tallied into the total cost charged by a computer manufacturing company. With that being said, lets move on now to where should we start when deciding to build our computer. First of all you need to ask yourself a question here. Do I order the parts online? or do I go to a store and buy the parts? Well to answer that question which you are probably wondering right now the answer is simple. Whichever is more practical for you. Buying from stores such as Fry's Electronics or Best Buy are both good avenues to take. Both offer competitive prices along with pretty decent selections. Fry's has an edge over best buy in that they specialize in computer parts a bit more than Best Buy does and they also have a much broader selection of main components as well as much more minor componenets such as IDE cables, case fans, thermal grease etc. Now buying your parts online differs in the fact that

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next Page >>