I know not a lot of us can understand why someone would buy a pre-built over just building. Speaking for a friend of mine who thought he knew a lot about system building just built a new system about a month ago and is still having issues with stability and getting nowhere from the CSR's of the motherboard and RAM. He doesnt have the hardware to go swapping around parts to trouble shoot them and is almost to the point of sending back the motherboard from an exchange or refund. Hes already done this with the ram and it didnt help his situation.
With that said, people often forget about pre-built warranties. Most places that sell parts will not exchange the part or refund your money once the part is open like ram and CPU's and your forced to deal with the manufacturer immediately. A lot of store warranties are also very very limited and if a problem isnt discovered and completely diagnosed within the first week, you'll be shelling out extra cash for restocking and shipping.
Build enough PC's and you'll come across these situations. If you're not a veteran builder, its going to be really hard to trouble shoot certain issues. If you dont have extra parts laying around, it can be almost impossible to troubleshoot issues especially if you lack the wisdom of having seen these certain problems beforehand. Something as simple as knowing what the beeps are when a computer fails to post could be a nightmare for a green system builder
At any rate, I would strongly suggest Falcon NW. Theyre one of the best around who havnt sold themselves out and still do what they do best. Of course your going to pay more than you would if you built it yourself, but if you can afford it and your a serious gamer this is the way to go.
I'm finishing up my last year in college and I just picked out a computer as a graduation gift. I'm not an insanely avid gamer, but I like to be able to run my stuff on pretty good graphics settings and be able to Alt-Tab to check the forums and whatnot. A friend of mine told me that Dell gives student discounts to high school students who are heading towards college, or students/faculty at said colleges.
If you're looking more-so towards a purely gamer-catering business to build a system, that's cool, but I ended up going with Dell because they are customizable enough for my level of hardware knowledge. I'll have to check with my friend, since he told me a while ago, but I think I found mine on www.delluniversity.com
It just had me create an account and verify that I was a student by using my student email. So yeah, just some advice. If you're looking for a purely gamer-oriented seller, that's cool. I was pretty pleased with the deals Dell has on Alienware, and the fact that they tack on the student discount on top of the sales that are already going on.
I know people will knock the overpriced Alienwares out there but I got this one from Wal-Mart online for $1500 (and free shipping!) instead of building my own again and it is great! I know I will need to upgrade the PSU in the future to expand the GPU, but the ATI 5870 it comes with will play everything out there just fine (FFXIV on highest settings) for a long time. Plus, I added for $67 the extended Wal-Mart warranty, so it is covered for just about everything (even shipping if I do ever have to send it back) for the next three years. It is solid, quiet, very fast, and comes with no extra crap programs but free 6 month of Mcafee. I know its cheaper to build the same thing, but knowing for three years I have nothing to worry about for less than $1600, I think its a decent deal. Also, if for some reason it is damaged in shipment, take it to nearest Wal-Mart and they instantly give you your money back (which I had to do with a Cyberpower I first got from there that was DOA!). I kinda hate being a Wal-Mart supporter, but for pre-built gaming computers and customer service, they are great!
It does appear that they are out of stock right now, but here is the link in case you wanna check it out:
What power supply does that use? And what motherboard? If they won't tell you, it's probably because they don't want you to know. If you build it yourself, you could get something nicer for under $1200.
If it's out of stock, it might not be coming back in stock, as both the processor and video card might well be discontinued.
Comments
I know not a lot of us can understand why someone would buy a pre-built over just building. Speaking for a friend of mine who thought he knew a lot about system building just built a new system about a month ago and is still having issues with stability and getting nowhere from the CSR's of the motherboard and RAM. He doesnt have the hardware to go swapping around parts to trouble shoot them and is almost to the point of sending back the motherboard from an exchange or refund. Hes already done this with the ram and it didnt help his situation.
With that said, people often forget about pre-built warranties. Most places that sell parts will not exchange the part or refund your money once the part is open like ram and CPU's and your forced to deal with the manufacturer immediately. A lot of store warranties are also very very limited and if a problem isnt discovered and completely diagnosed within the first week, you'll be shelling out extra cash for restocking and shipping.
Build enough PC's and you'll come across these situations. If you're not a veteran builder, its going to be really hard to trouble shoot certain issues. If you dont have extra parts laying around, it can be almost impossible to troubleshoot issues especially if you lack the wisdom of having seen these certain problems beforehand. Something as simple as knowing what the beeps are when a computer fails to post could be a nightmare for a green system builder
At any rate, I would strongly suggest Falcon NW. Theyre one of the best around who havnt sold themselves out and still do what they do best. Of course your going to pay more than you would if you built it yourself, but if you can afford it and your a serious gamer this is the way to go.
I'm finishing up my last year in college and I just picked out a computer as a graduation gift. I'm not an insanely avid gamer, but I like to be able to run my stuff on pretty good graphics settings and be able to Alt-Tab to check the forums and whatnot. A friend of mine told me that Dell gives student discounts to high school students who are heading towards college, or students/faculty at said colleges.
If you're looking more-so towards a purely gamer-catering business to build a system, that's cool, but I ended up going with Dell because they are customizable enough for my level of hardware knowledge. I'll have to check with my friend, since he told me a while ago, but I think I found mine on www.delluniversity.com
It just had me create an account and verify that I was a student by using my student email. So yeah, just some advice. If you're looking for a purely gamer-oriented seller, that's cool. I was pretty pleased with the deals Dell has on Alienware, and the fact that they tack on the student discount on top of the sales that are already going on.
Good luck, dude!
I know people will knock the overpriced Alienwares out there but I got this one from Wal-Mart online for $1500 (and free shipping!) instead of building my own again and it is great! I know I will need to upgrade the PSU in the future to expand the GPU, but the ATI 5870 it comes with will play everything out there just fine (FFXIV on highest settings) for a long time. Plus, I added for $67 the extended Wal-Mart warranty, so it is covered for just about everything (even shipping if I do ever have to send it back) for the next three years. It is solid, quiet, very fast, and comes with no extra crap programs but free 6 month of Mcafee. I know its cheaper to build the same thing, but knowing for three years I have nothing to worry about for less than $1600, I think its a decent deal. Also, if for some reason it is damaged in shipment, take it to nearest Wal-Mart and they instantly give you your money back (which I had to do with a Cyberpower I first got from there that was DOA!). I kinda hate being a Wal-Mart supporter, but for pre-built gaming computers and customer service, they are great!
It does appear that they are out of stock right now, but here is the link in case you wanna check it out:
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=14335610
What power supply does that use? And what motherboard? If they won't tell you, it's probably because they don't want you to know. If you build it yourself, you could get something nicer for under $1200.
If it's out of stock, it might not be coming back in stock, as both the processor and video card might well be discontinued.