On Tue, 04 Jan 2011 14:25:02 -0500, "Percival P. Cassidy"
wrote:


When you build your own, you know what's in it. I know a guy who used to
work for a company that bought pallet loads of same-model PCs (Compaq, I
think), but often no two had precisely the same internals. When that is
the case, a report that such-and-such a model is good is meaningless.
And that's quite apart from whether you can upgrade it -- e.g., by
adding an extra card for some particular purpose.

Apart from notebooks, I haven't bought an off-the-shelf computer since 1986.

Perce

If you like tinker with them, then you build your own.
Almost like souping up a car or arranging a workshop.
Even if I wasn't a gamer, I'd probably still build my own.
Another thing I've run across with some factory models is proprietary
components.
Power supplies and motherboards.
You can sometimes get around the steep price they want for a
replacement. Did some drill/moto-tool work on fitting a power supply
once instead of paying an outrageous price for the company PS.
My daughter brought over her computer - think it was a Compaq - when
it failed. It had an AMD chip.
The motherboard HD controller was bad.
They wanted about $400 for a new MB.
I got lucky googling the model number and found some obscure
technician talk where one tech told another that model MB was
provided by X MB company and was model X.
Don't remember the company but I got that MB for $107 and it worked
fine. No Compaq logo flashing on the screen was the only difference.
My son had an HP that required the original Win95 disks before you
could do a Win98 full version install.
Anyway, if you don't want to tinker with them and have no special
needs it's cheaper buying off the shelf as trader4 said.

--Vic