Quote:
Originally Posted by GSXRJJordan
Problem with that is upgradability, and video card choices. They usually skimp on video cards until you get "up there" in the power.
And you always have problems if you try to upgrade, because they use proprietary mobos, cases, sometimes even power supplies.
Not saying you shouldn't look into it, just that I've always found I could do it cheaper/better/cleaner.
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You have to look into what you're getting of course.
It sounds like you might be talking about Dell, I know they like to do that with their computers, or at least used to. I've never experienced that with HP or Alienware.
What was really cool is that Best Buy let me open up the case in store, so I could check out the power supply, gpu, motherboard, ram, and everything.
The HP I got came with a pretty sweet GeForce when I bought it around this time last year. It wasn't the absolute top of the line, but it was still pretty high up there, and to this day I can run any new game without problems, plus what's awesome is that I can watch tv on my pc, even record shows and movies, now I'm always watching cable in the corner of the screen while browsing the web, an option that the Radeon I was planning to buy didn't have. Plus I was able to get a 22" monitor instead of the 20" I was going to settle for with my budget.
The case is also better with more room for expansion and a nicer cooling setup. The power supply was one of my main concerns since nowadays most gpu's require a lot of power, some even a secondary power supply, and decent power supplies aren't cheap. To my surprise the HP actually has a more powerful supply than what I was going to go with. The case and the power supply are actually where I probably saved the most money. So basically I got more than I wanted/needed, and it cost me less.
That's why, from the best performance for you money standpoint, I don't really see the point of building your own pc, unless you already have some of the major components laying around, or want to be build something really crazy.