When did buying a prebuilt PC become a taboo in the PC community?

[Amarys]

Can you build your own laptop? Because that's all I use

Thought so

Yes, I did... they're hard to upgrade though as most newer parts aren't compatible with older ones.

[Super Kami Dende]

I called it ironic since you called those who say custom builds are always better idiots.

I said the ones that think it makes them superior. Not all People that build their own PC's are insufferable assholes.

[bullseyed]

It's only taboo for people who know what they are doing. If you don't have the skill, it's understandable. If you don't have the "time", that seems more like an excuse.

Assembling PCs is a sub-minimum wage job, done primarily by underage employees in China.

There isn't a "skill" for doing it.

- - - Updated - - -

I think a lot of it comes from where you buy it from. You are almost never getting good value when you buy a premade PC from somewhere like PC World or (Insert non-UK mainstream store here).

You're almost never getting good value when you buy PC parts online, as there is an additional middleman between you and the distributor (like newegg or amazon) who has to pay for their site, employees, etc.

Most assembly companies buy from the same distributors, so you're supporting a company with wages either way.

- - - Updated - - -

Stop being so precious.

The only taboo with buying a pre-built is if you buy from somewhere like Alienware without doing a single shred of research. You are being hilariously ripped off by these companies.

Alienware hasn't been a company in, what, over a decade? They are a brand managed by Dell and have been for a very long time. HP bought VooDoo PC around the same time. Both acquisitions happened in 2006.

Currently there are better companies like Skytech Gaming who offers pre-built PCs as well as PC Part Picker Assembly where you pick what you want, they assemble it and do clean wire-management and ship it to you. They also do the assembly in SoCal to support American jobs.

[Flarelaine]

Unfortunately, anecdotal cases of a handful of systems is not really data usage.

There are a few people here (myself included) who have built hundreds, if not thousands of systems, and had to repair thousands more. I can tell you that pre-builts are virtually always lower quality. Even the expensive 'luxury' ones skimp somewhere with something stupid.

Your mileage may vary. Working for a government bureau, I'm thankful for brand PCs (except that time we could not talk Procurement out of buying Acer... yikes*) and haunted by garage assembly one-offs that inexplicably keep popping up in our workload. Prebuilt brand stuff is probably more expensive, especially after the procurement markup, but it makes my life easier. They DO tend to skimp on RAM, I admit that.

I would never get a prebuilt for my home PC, but when you have to keep a few thousand workstations in operation, brand PCs with warranty suddenly sound very alluring.


*We had to send 9 out of 10 back to have the motherboard replaced.

[Ragedaug]

Assembling PCs is a sub-minimum wage job, done primarily by underage employees in China.

There isn't a "skill" for doing it.

Yes, yes, it's all very easy, but you still have to learn what you are doing to know what plugs in where, thus requiring a "skill". I'm guessing you are inferring a different definition of "skill" than I'm using. I'm using the word to mean, "a developed aptitude or ability" or "a particular ability".

Those underage employees in China aren't just handed a bin of random parts and cables and told to figure out where everything goes, they are taught how to assemble it. It doesn't have to be unique or difficult to be a skill.

On top of that, those underage employees in China aren't acquiring the parts. It can be very daunting to unskilled person to know which of the thousands of parts to buy. Figuring out what pieces to buy tends to be where most folks give up.

And finally, if you have a problem with with the PC you are building, there's no "tech support" to call. You have to figure out what broke. Sometimes that's simple, sometimes that's challenging.

[BigToast]

I hang around in the PC building communities on reddit, facebook, etc and recommending a prebuilt PC is a recipe for downvotes or getting made fun of. Not everyone has the time or the skill to build a PC. The amount of posts on tech support forms from people screwing something up is really high. Nobody can recommend a prebuilt without being shit on.

Why on earth would you suggest prebuilt machines on a PC BUILDING COMMUNITY SITE? What exactly is the point of that? Why on earth would you create a thread about this?

I get the question if it just like you got shit for suggesting a prebuilt on your WoW guild discord or something, but really?

Duh.

[Thunderball]

Your mileage may vary. Working for a government bureau, I'm thankful for brand PCs (except that time we could not talk Procurement out of buying Acer... yikes*) and haunted by garage assembly one-offs that inexplicably keep popping up in our workload. Prebuilt brand stuff is probably more expensive, especially after the procurement markup, but it makes my life easier. They DO tend to skimp on RAM, I admit that.

I would never get a prebuilt for my home PC, but when you have to keep a few thousand workstations in operation, brand PCs with warranty suddenly sound very alluring.


*We had to send 9 out of 10 back to have the motherboard replaced.

There's a distinct difference for home gamer vs corporate orders. Most corporate buyers dont care much about the quality of parts, but care way more about support and warranty, because otherwise they will have to deal with that stuff themselves, and it's really unlikely that it's going to be cheaper supporting them inhouse instead of ordering from big company and getting the support from them. That applies mostly to office machines though, if you order more demanding equipment you're mostly in for a world of hurt.

P.S. motherboard failure is almost never a fault of the builder, unless it's a proprietary order with a design flaw involved. They all use the cheapest stuff, and it's prone to have issues that you can never predict.

[Ragedaug]

Your mileage may vary. Working for a government bureau, I'm thankful for brand PCs (except that time we could not talk Procurement out of buying Acer... yikes*) and haunted by garage assembly one-offs that inexplicably keep popping up in our workload. Prebuilt brand stuff is probably more expensive, especially after the procurement markup, but it makes my life easier. They DO tend to skimp on RAM, I admit that.

I would never get a prebuilt for my home PC, but when you have to keep a few thousand workstations in operation, brand PCs with warranty suddenly sound very alluring.

This is basically what I'm talking about as well. This is why I always recommend my family members buy brand PCs (none of them know or care what the peripherals inside their PC do). I haven't bought a prebuild for myself in over 20 years, but there's no way I'm going to do "tech support" for each of my family members with each having random hardware and no recovery media.

[cuafpr]

I thought it was less taboo now than ever? Pre-built PC's are fine nowadays, and with some places letting you pick and choose parts it can still be "custom" and cheaper or the same price as doing it yourself. The exception being the higher end you go the more you save building it (or last time checked things out that was the case.. 2016ish). I've built my PC's for years, but I've debated going pre-built when I retire my current Rig just to save time/hassle.

[nessfalco]

I hang around in the PC building communities on reddit, facebook, etc and recommending a prebuilt PC is a recipe for downvotes or getting made fun of. Not everyone has the time or the skill to build a PC. The amount of posts on tech support forms from people screwing something up is really high. Nobody can recommend a prebuilt without being shit on.

Because you're talking to people in PC building communities...what else do you expect? It's like going to a baker's forum and telling them to just buy store-made crust. There are times where that may be a worthwhile tradeoff, but the majority of people in a PC building community or going to want to...build PCs.

[Itori]

Theres nothing wrong with buying a pre built pc, theres infact benefits from it. Youre getting an already assembled peice of hardware with an os installed and in most cases added games pre installed, a warranty incase anything goes wrong. The real downside is youre limited to aesthetics and the price difference can be up to 1000$ more with a pre built.

[mrgreenthump]

I don't think it has never really changed. At least from what I remember all the way from early 2000s. If anything there is actual acceptance towards some prebuilt system makers nowdays as you can configure the system or they actually use quality components.

What really made prebuilt systems hated was that they skipped on costs wherever they could. And their fees were way of the mark on what you were getting in terms of components. We were seeing 1k extra constantly when you summed up the component costs even on a relatively low cost system. And you knew you were getting the cheapest possible PSU. You still see this, but competition from smaller companies and availability of information nowdays make it a lot harder for that kind of companies to exist.

[nocturnus]

The value of pre-built computers depends entirely on how much you earn.

If "value" was of import to me, a premade would always be much cheaper, considering the amount of time I need to spend on an assembly.

[Kagthul]

Can you build your own laptop? Because that's all I use

Uhh.. yeah. You can.

Thought so

Well, that's embarassing.

- - - Updated - - -

The value of pre-built computers depends entirely on how much you earn.

If "value" was of import to me, a premade would always be much cheaper, considering the amount of time I need to spend on an assembly.

45 minutes? Hell, a full assembly in my incredibly cramped Evolv Shift, first run, was only 90 minutes.

[Jotaux]

I think its because of the price. It's way cheaper to buy the parts and assemble yourself or get a computer shop to assemble them. My current PC I had issues assembling because the motherboard needed a BIOS upgrade to be compatible with my cpu. So I took it to a computer shop and they put it together for $25.

[nocturnus]

45 minutes? Hell, a full assembly in my incredibly cramped Evolv Shift, first run, was only 90 minutes.

Considering my hourly fee, yeah, definitely cheaper to get a premade or have my parts built by the company for a small premium.

[Aleksej89]

Generally speaking its awful value (as far as gaming PCs go).
Usually it has some older and/or mismatched components (that cause bottle-necks) and on top of that the sellers charge you extra (when compared to buying parts separately).

Also buying the components and choosing them involves a moderate amount of reading/learning - something you skip when buying prebuilt which often leaves users clueless about their own pc components.

[Absintheminded]

I hang around in the PC building communities on reddit, facebook, etc and recommending a prebuilt PC is a recipe for downvotes or getting made fun of. Not everyone has the time or the skill to build a PC. The amount of posts on tech support forms from people screwing something up is really high. Nobody can recommend a prebuilt without being shit on.

With any prebuilt you're either paying for:

A) the brand name, in which case many of the components are bottom-shelf

or

B) a premium for someone else building a computer with your specified parts for you

In both cases, you lost money. If you or anybody else is that concerned with imaginary internet points, then watch a 30-minute video among thousands on youtube on how to plug in components and DIY. Otherwise, let people be people.

- - - Updated - - -

You don't have to build it yourself you know, you can order the parts and have the nearest hardware store build it for you. I did that with my last PC and they charged me 20$ or something.

That's actually a very good deal. I've built computers for friends before, and while some did reimburse me for my time, I asked for nothing in return simply because it's fun assembling $2,000 worth of components and watching it come to life.

[Jastall]

It's the same thing as, say, people who do their own maintenance on their cars and those who send it to the garage. In an ideal world, DIY work is definitely cheaper and you don't need to worry about the quality of the service or tools, since you pick and choose. For an enthusiast it's obviously the better option even if might take more of their time.

For an non-enthusiast, time and interest are factors, however. Yes, it doesn't take eons to built a PC. But say you're a first-timer who usually shopped pre-built, and want to try your hand at building. You shop for parts! But what, are there compatibility issues? You don't know the first thing about motherboards, how do they work, is that GPU going to connect with it? Ah drat, when you ordered your parts you forgot about cooling fans, gotta wait for those to arrive or hoof it to whatever surviving store sells those around you. Once you got your parts, cool, but uuhh where do these wires go? You have a rough idea of where to put the CPU, but that power supply's bigger than you expected! Assuming you do everything right, where do you get your OS now, do you have to buy it? What's that booting menu thing? And soooo many other potential questions, problems and pitfalls that not everyone can solve easily.

Now, there are answers to everything I just said above, and fairly easy to find one too. There's hundreds of tutorials on Youtube, it's how I managed, yet I'm not particularly tech savvy and just about the clumsiest and less crafty man on Earth. Some websites like PCPartsPicker are a godsend. But not everyone who is into computers knows about such things, far from it, and learning all of that takes more time and demands more of your interest. Whereas if you make some decent income dropping, say, 150-200$ more for your midrange PC that mostly plays Fortnite, GTA V and Skyrim at good frames might be worth the initial lack of hassle.

Obviously the more high-end your PC the more I'd expect someone to be an enthusiast who builds it themselves, if only because high-end prebuilts are even more outrageously overpriced. But that's a small minority of PC gamers.

[Ragnarohk]

Uhh.. yeah. You can.



Well, that's embarassing.

It is. But the more you know...