My home desktop PC died this morning.

Post Reply New Topic

My 12-step sponsor is telling me that I should try to revive that ancient artifact that has kept me going for the last decade.

But I am actually happy my computer died. Even though it means I will be without a PC at my home for the next couple of months, it gives me a perfectly valid excuse to pinch pennies for about four paychecks, gather up a couple thousand bucks, and get that awesome gaming PC I always wanted, along with a monitor that can handle it, an excellent gaming keyboard/mouse and a couple of controllers.

I am thinking of going without a computer at home for about three months so that I can stockpile $3000 for this goal. I will be 20% of the way there when my tax refund arrives in a couple of weeks from now.

Any advice on what to look for and what to avoid? I have never purchased a PC for myself before. A part of me is tempted to pick up my gaming desktop from Best Buy, but that probably is not the greatest option. I know nothing about building my own computer, so that option is not going to work for me.

Thanks in advance to anybody who is able to help.

Building one yourself is a learning experience and gives you more bang for your buck.

Imho, unless you're a scientist, a 3-d animator, running your own server, or a hard-core gamer, 3k is way, way, way more than necessary to spend on a single system these days.
You can get a totally decent set up for well under 1k and still have money left over for really nice peripherals & whatever software yer heart desires.

Maybe that's just me though...

My 10 year old desktop died recently also. I explored the idea of replacing it with a gaming PC, and googled-up tons of options with a wide price range. One of my prime concerns was/is that the new machine play nicely with the majority of popular games. That is to say, I have about zero tolerance for things like crashes and lock-ups.

I did not ever buy one (my Xbox 360 meets my gaming needs), but one of my selection priorities was to go with a machine that was more likely to be included in the pre-release, in-house testing by the major gaming studios. I figured that way any bugs arising from hardware issues or such would be more likely identified and addressed before release. So I tended to favor gaming machines from major vendors with popular graphics cards.

Say Kaddish and buy a new one.

I'm in the process of building a PC at the moment and there is plenty of information online. I particularly recommend this guy:
http://www.youtube.com/user/CareyHolzman

He has a great two and a half hour gaming PC build video. It's long, but very detailed and informative.

The thing to remember is that unless you do what it takes to acquire the technical knowledge and experience for yourself you will always be at the mercy of the people who do know. Even now, just from looking at PC parts for a few weeks, I can look at that 3 grand PC you want and tell if it's built to last or if it's an overclocked piece of crap that will pack up in a year or two.

It's not rocket science and you don't need any special training or qualifications to build your own PC. 10 years ago, I bought an HP laptop completely on the basis that HP were a sponsor of my favourite football team and the only part of the specs I understood was the price tag. If I can get the technical knowledge to build a PC, anyone can.

I have an uncle who is very good at building PCs. I think I will ask him to give me a lesson in doing that in a couple of months from now. If I buy him Pad Thai noodles in exchange for that, I think he will accept that.

Building your own PC is one of the most rewarding things you can do, and nowadays it's not nearly as hard as it may have been say 10 or 15 years ago (which is ironic since the first PC I ever built was using hardware that is now 15 years old ). But anyway, I built my current desktop about 5 years ago, and though it's gone through many alterations and upgrades, it's still largely the same as it was when I first built it, and it still runs great.

OK. I looked into building my own system. It is doable. I still will have my uncle come over to watch me while I do it, but I decided that is the route I will take.

Why $3000, a lot of you are saying? Well, I don't just plan on replacing the box. I want a 35" monitor, surround sound system, the best gaming keyboard/mouse/controllers...... I also need to replace the chair at my computer desk, which is literally falling apart on me after a decade of faithful service supporting my 250lb 6'3" frame, although that can easily be counted as a separate expense.

If you want a surround system, try to see if you can find something that's cheap because of a dent in the box or something similar. I got my Marantz 7.1 amplifier for half the price because of some damage to the box and got the subwoofer cheaply through my brother who worked in a hi-fi store. If you build the sound system from components, you'll love it.