Originally Posted by Demetrius
10,000 RPM WD hard disks = not cheap
BFG 7800 GTX = not cheap
2 GB crucial ram = not cheap
Trust me, I've had my fair share of 90 day warranty home built PC's, and finally gave up when it came to replacing parts. When my DVD burner broke, Dell had a new one at my door the next morning via overnight shipping. Plus I get a very nice discount through my employer so the pros greatly outweigh the cons.
$3200 for a self built computer with a 90 day - 1 year warranty on separate parts, or $2000 for a Dell with 4 years of complete system warranty and the same performance. I'll take the latter.
When you're a college student strapped but you can't live without a nice PC, you tend to change your habits... cause I love building PC's just like anyone else.
Agreed. I have built every PC I've ever had since I was 12 or so, but when I just bought a PC for my gf, I ended up going with a Dell. The performance can easily match whatever I would put together, and the deal I got was better than buying the parts separately, not even counting warranty or the labor to put it together. There just isn't much profit in actually building the system these days unless you have existing hardware you want to keep. Dell gets components in bulk for so little money, they don't have to charge the consumer anything for the labor of building it. It's driving Mom and Pop computer stores into the ground because thats where they made their money; labor.