Why can’t I build a computer cheaper than I can buy one?
John K asked:
i’ve been looking at building a computer, but when I add all the components into my shopping cart to equal a system like this one
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Gamer_Infinity_9000/
from cyberpowerpc, it costs more to build it myself… what’s up with that?
i’ve been looking at building a computer, but when I add all the components into my shopping cart to equal a system like this one
http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/Gamer_Infinity_9000/
from cyberpowerpc, it costs more to build it myself… what’s up with that?
Go with tigerdirect.com the prices are unbeatable!
It’s because you want to buy one of each part at retail prices in order to build your system.
The computer manufacturers can buy the parts (at wholesale) cheaper that you can, so they can sell you the system cheaper than you can build it yourself.
tigerdirect.com has great barebone kits which are usually ready or near ready for an awsome pc
It depends. It depends on how much you are paying for the parts and the quality of the computer. Low end computers are cheaper to buy pre built, but higher end ones are cheaper to build yourself.
Those companies buy in bulk and get bulk discounts usually. The parts are cheaper per part sold this way than if you were to buy the parts individually with retail markup. Nature of the beast I’m afraid, this is how they make their money selling these pre-built systems.
The major benefit to building your own system is that you can select the brand and quality of the parts and as the old saying goes You want a job done the right way, do it yourself.
In Aus i would build it using a lot of generic parts, that brings the price down, the ony brand name I use are: hard drive, cd-rom, dual layer burner, graphics, sound cards and mobo. Ram can be generic,fans, heatsinks, cases, cabling, all the small stuff that work just as good as a brand name
Its a two part answer. First and foremost as others have pointed out the major manufacturers are able to buy parts at wholesale and you are not. Other than that though when you are putting a system together almost invariably you are going to be getting better quality parts than the cheaply assembled systems.
My other piece of advice is check out Newegg.com and Directron.com as both of them have excellent prices and service.
Its due to the economies of scale. Computer companies when building systems can order large quantities of hardware and lower the cost of each item.
For you to enjoy the same benefit you need to shop around for the cheapest price for each part of your system and not buy it all from the one store.
Listen Carefully
The real way to know if building a computer is cheaper is to check memory, video card and other minimum component specs of the already built one with the parts you are gonna buy.
Why.. because online pages or normal dealers always use lower quality parts with lower specs like memory that people might only see the quantity of memory instead of the speeds that the memory goes on.
The cheaper place to buy parts is and if you see the site you just gave is cheaper comparing all parts specs then the ISSUE must be that the place get really cheap parts of the same quality by buying them in Big Quantities and they gain just a little from each computer they build, if that is the case. You might want to buy from the site you gave since there will not be any other cheaper way except for similar sites or shops like the site you got.Unless you want a high end pc like quad 3.0 ghz and specific details that the site you gave wont have.
But in general newegg is one of the cheapest place to buy parts and if you compared from buying parts locally or already build pcs locally you will save from 100-500 if the computer uses the best parts.
It’s because of the volume they deal in. What kind of warranty do they offer, and how much extra is this? I looked all thru the site, for the last 45 minutes. The deal they offer is for a Asus board, good,(old), board, but it has the old 650i Nvidia chipset. The graphics card is a Geforce 8800GT true, but it’s a major brand model. I can come up with that! Who makes the dual layer Dvd R/RW-CD/R/RW drive? Mattel? They offer Corsair ram memory, but it’s value select! I see the offer for Windows Vista,(not a Vista fan!), but you have to go into some offer deal to get it free,(didn’t check, so I can’t really speak about it) Do they give you a OS for free? Like good Ol’ WinXP? Here’s what I came up with:
1.Mobo with Nvidia 680i chipset Geforce 8800GT 512MB vid card,(PCI-Express style): This mobo has Two PCI-Express x16 slots,(same as theirs), Two PCI-Express x 1 slots, and Two PCI slots. Has support for up to the Core2 Extreme Quad, and a FSB of 1333MHz. Four ram slots with 8GB max,(64bit OS), DDR2 at 800MHz. Four Sata connectors with up to 3.0Gb/s support, Raid 0,1, 0+1,and 5 solutions. Four Onboard USB 2.0 connectors, with 8 possible. One 1394 Firewire port, and Geforce 680i LT SLI 8-channel audio. $400.00
2.Processor: Intel Core2 Duo E6750, 2.66GHz, 4MB cache, 1333MHz FSB-http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3241551 $200.00
3.Ram: Corsair TwinX-2GB’s of DDR2 at 800MHz,(and definately not the Value Select!!) $50,(after rebate!)
4.Harddrive: Hitachi Deskstar 320GB-Sata 300-(yes, that’s Sata II, 3.0Gb/s), 16MB buffer- $75.00
5.Dvd/R/RW-CD/R/RW Dual layer drive: Except this is a Lightscribe,(burn labels right on your disk), also. $45.00
6.Case: Now we come to the case. Personal preference comes into play here for people on looks, cooling, hardware installation, and functionability,(might be a new word!) This one comes with a 500 Watt power supply: $119.00
Still don’t have operating system,(I prefer WinXP) Total comes to: $789.00, minus shipping tax costs. Of course you’d have to pay for these, with the company above.
I believe it’s a much better mobo, and ram. You still need an OS, and I forgot a cpu cooler.