How much money is saved building your own rig?

[GoldenRivet]

I have always built my own rig since i first started PC gaming.

I have a life long friend - i have known him longer than i havnt known him - he is under the computer / tech department for a major manufacturer in the Forth Worth Texas area... i always seek his advice in such matters

I typically spend about $4,000 - $5,000 on a computer every 4 years, for that price you could get a top of the line AlienWare.

I dont really save money, but in doing it this way, as was pointed out earlier i get the rig i want instead of the rig some company is willing to manufacture for me.

When my current PC was new... it trumped alienware's finest. I am due a new build by Late 2010 (just my opinion).

I order parts from NewEgg.com as i am able to afford them over about a 6 month period - then when all the parts are here, my friend and I grab a six pack of our favorite beers, spread everthing out and get to building through the night.

Usually takes us a few hours to get everything right how we want it and get the first game installed.

I have decided that my next rig will have at least one TB drive, as the information it could hold will easily outlast the next hand full of computers i build (assuming nothing gets cooked)

[goldorak]

GoldenRivet : for the kind on money you're spending your next rig should definitely have a SLC SSD (or two in raid) . And use a 1 TB drive as a backup solution. This baby will fly and have performance that no overclocking will give you. Just think that even with an i7 at 4Ghz you're still hampered by mechanical drives that have access times measured in miliseconds.

[PeriscopeDepth]

I had a terrible experience with cyberpower from a system I bought last year. CPU cooling fan arrived broke due to shipping, which I guess I can see past. Bad stuff happens when shipping. The machine also arrived with a bad stick of RAM, which they took back and sent me a "new" one... Several times now. But apparently they don't care whether the new one is also defective and/or compatible with my motherboard. There's a reason they're so cheap, their warranty states they don't necessarily use new parts.

Definitely building my own gaming rigs in the future.

PD

[longam]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

I dont really save money, but in doing it this way, as was pointed out earlier i get the rig i want instead of the rig some company is willing to manufacture for me.

Replace manufacture with assemble

[LoBlo]

I'm such a novice that I'm nervous about trying to build my own. I want a quiet rig that at the same time can max out 100% the settings of my favorite games without problems (microsoft flight simulator X is a hardware hog).

Thanks for the advice guys, its appreciated.

[Arclight]

The noisiest thing in there is usually the graphics card. Get one with a dual-slot cooler, or something custom made, those are very effective compared to a small sink + fan combo.