Build or buy? What do you do?

I build my own...

Reasons?
Pick your own parts. The sky is the limit.
No 'restrictions'. I mention this in contrast to DELL. I buddy bought a dell i7 box recently.
Couldnt load XP on it. A BIOS restriction? I dont want any proprietary garbage embedded in my BIOS. Plus.. that dell BIOS had about 4 SETTINGS. You can't tweak anything.

Plus..if he put any other OS on it other than what shipped. You 'break your warranty. Open the case? 'break you warrenty'.

BITE ME DELL!!

I prefer to build my own..and do with it what I please.

Just my .02

Recently I upgraded my TV pc. I swapped out an ol' celeron cpu/mobo for a Wolfdale 2.8 'duel core pentium'. Ya right.. Its actually a C2D with only 2MB of cache. For a machine thats only going to do TV duty, it works out great.
That upgrade? CPU/MSI mobo/4GB of corsair XM2 800Mhz memory..
Total - $159.00 (not counting tax)
Got the mobo/cpu on sale at frys. $82 bux. Memory..67 bux at CompuUSA

Now THAT is what I call a budget build...

Loaded up WIN7 Ultimate.. works like a charm.
Of course I used the existing case/PS. Also have a wireless RF gyration mouse/keyboard.

They only thing I may add later is a better discrete video board.
The intel x3100 video does the job..but its 'intel video'..and sucks..just cuz its intel. To many problems with that chipset. It can't properly pick up the DDC id from the 52" sharp LCD... (Stick to CPU's intel! You SUCK at video!)
Plus... The dynamic video memory allocation fails to give up more than 256MB of memory for video under WIN7. When testing with XP, it gave up 384(IIRC).

I bought my first computer, an IBM PC, in 1984 for $2500. Within 6 months I gutted it and built an XT clone. Since then I have built many computers for myself, friends and family. I got lazy and bought my last computer from Dell. It's an OK machine but I added additional memory and replaced the original hard drive in it as well as added a second drive. As others have said, the prices on complete systems are very competitive nowadays so it comes down to being able to customize the system the way you want it. I haven't decided if I will buy or build my next system, I'll decide that when the time comes.

I've always fixed my own computers and have never taken a computer into a shop to have it repaired. The one exception was about 12 years ago when I had a Fujitsu laptop that the hard drive died after about 2 months, they insisted I send the laptop to them to replace the drive and wouldn't just send me a replacement drive so I could install it myself.

dood said:

Plus..if he put any other OS on it other than what shipped. You 'break your warranty. Open the case? 'break you warrenty'.
BITE ME DELL!!

It's not so much that you break the warranty....but if you change the OS or enough parts Dell cannot honestly support you with those changes. For most home users, not an issue. For techies....more of a concern.

dood said:

I prefer to build my own..and do with it what I please.

Fair enough.

Geeks build
Non-Geeks buy
Geeks need nothing but manufacturers warranty
Non-Geeks need someone to walk them through everything
Geeks build a computer to fit their particular need
Non-Geeks buy a computer based on the salespersons perceived need.

nate42nd said:

The "crapware" issue is a good point. I have liked not having to uninstall 15 programs I will never use, and Win7 makes it even nicer since MS is taking the "minimalist" approach with Win7.

For both of the Dell's that I purchased (1 in 2002 and 1 in 2004), both of them came with the actual Windows installation media. So, rather than remove the crapware...I simply started from scratch and reloaded the OS onto the box.

nate42nd said:

The BIOS is another good reason to build (if you are into overclocking and tweaking) becuase OEM BIOSs don't have many features.

It's not necessarily that the OEM BIOS's don't have many features...its just the OEM's provide warranty and support for the systems...so these features are locked out or non-existent on purpose to prevent the end-user from damaging their hardware and trying to claim a warranty repair.