Custom PC vs Retail

I say this to everyone regardless of spec or price.

Pre built PC

You get it, it's probably been tested so it will at least power on. You only have to deal with one company if it breaks in warranty. Quality of parts, well these are built to budget so sure you might not get the best this or the fastest that...

Build it yourself.

It might not work once built. You have to work out why. For this you need some technical knowledge as you may have to send back to the manufacturer or online shop. If faulty you need to make sure you have it right so that they replace it free of charge. Sending back 'faulty' parts that then work from their own testing wastes your time and money. This can be time consuming and loose you money if work machine.

Planning when you buy a parts. Read reviews, check specs. Look for patterns in reviews. I.e cooler loud? Does this matter to you? Will you need to replace it? How much are other coolers? How loud is really loud? Check many sites for best averages, newegg, amazon, etc. Look at failure rates to best avoid a bad product/batch.

Many more questions.

• Know you needs and wants. Power VS performance.
• Think about the future. I.e is CPU socket close to end of it's lifecycle? More CPU planned for this CPU socket? Spend more on new tech or go for old?
• keep to your budget
• Overclocking? Make sure your parts of quality, capable of being stressed. Blowing up parts is your problem.

Fail to prepare and prepare to fail

Side note about PSU (Power supply unit): A PSU is most efficient when being used at 80% capacity - even gold rated. They just more efficient at this load. If PSU too BIG then the pc will use more power than if using smaller psu. Try and work out what the parts require together (most state this. Might be idle rating not load rating). Use this as your guide and then add a bit extra for upgrades or adding new peripherals. If PSU too SMALL the parts won't run properly if not enough power, system might refuse to boot and may work at reduced power and fail quicker.

Well if you are able to build your own PC then the support or lack of it is not an issue. You become your own support.

Well if you want you can go to sites like geeks.com and get CPU and motherboard combos. That should help with that. You will need a Windows CD with a good key. For the motherboard just read the specs and be sure you get the correct memory and the correct hard drive and dvd drive. There are now SATA and IDE drives. IDE is the old standard. It is the 40 pin wide cable and the SATA is the newer small cable. YouTube has a lot of vids to show you how to build a PC. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=How+to+Build+a+Computer&aq=f

I bought an excellent prebuilt machine from http://www.endpcnoise.com/ . They let you customize the order to a significant degree without it being much different from building it yourself. Or, you can order the parts from them and build it yourself.

These days you don't need to have the best hardware. For around $1000 you can buy a prebuilt computer that is really nice without the hassle of building it yourself. You might look at the refurbished market if you need to save money.

1. Retail is generally the most expensive PC. You get support but in the time it takes to remove all the crapware from the prebuilt machine you can have your machine put together already.
2. Don't buy a custom. It can sometimes cost more and take longer to receive in the mail.
3. Don't 'just go for high parts' use something like Falcon Guide or Simple Falcon Guide to determine what parts you should use at what price range. (They're all compatible and typically the best you can get for a given price point.)