The time has finally come for me to pick up a new system. This is usually a very happy moment in a geek’s life; the time when you get to spec out a new system with some of the latest tech. Reading product reviews, selecting components… it’s fun!
One of the true marks of geekdom is the ability to build your own machines from the ground up. Everything from ordering the parts, to gingerly placing in the CPU and glopping on just the right amount of thermal-conductive paste right through to powering up the system for the first time then installing and pimping out the OS of your choice. I’ve been there, its a ton of fun when you finally get everything working just right. It’s also a fair bit of work.
The more pragmatic geek can also buy a system, spec’d to order from companies like Dell or Lenovo. These systems still have pretty much everything you want, professionally assembled and sent to your door. These usually take a few weeks to ship so you need to be a bit more patient but there’s a lot less work involved.
So, what about price? Most of the time the price is pretty comparable for a complete system. I priced out a system with the following basic requirements from both Dell and a local computer retailer:
- Intel Core i7 860
- 8GB of Memory
- Windows 7 Pro
The two systems came out less than $80 apart with some minor differences in specs, hard drive size, optical drive, video card etc. For the most part it was the same system, and essentially the same price.
So what does it come down to? Is one option truly better than any other? The best advice I can give is that you need to get yourself a system you can trust. If that means you want professionals to put the system together for you and certify it, then that’s the route you need to take. If, however, you’re the Richard Stallman of computer builds and you feel that you need to free each of the components and build a computer that’s independent of “the man” and that’s where you derive the most value, then that should be your choice.
Image courtesy Frigante on Flickr.