PRE BUILT PC VS CUSTOM PC for university

Build. If you buy the components then you get warranty on them individually, and you save so much money.

The cost difference between pre-built and DIY isn't as big as it used to be, but the biggest benefit is always that you can decide on the exact components you want to use. Prefer Sandisk to Samsung or WD to Seagate? You choose.

Here's an example of a gaming/productivity build; http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/vmFDK8.

I've purposely omitted a case because everyone has different aesthetic taste or size requirements. I've also omitted a monitor as I assume you have one already?

me personally would buy the parts.Since you say your a little weak in building or knowledge. I would get one of your tech savvy university friends to help out with choosing components an have him help you choose and build as you'll get more knowledge an hands on. throw him a 50 spot for helping that way you keep it local an blank big business!!

Not really, its just the quality of a component itself. For example a hitachi drive would have a far bigger lifespan than a seagate drive. Also the temp of components, like your CPU and GPU affect lifespan, so try to keep them cool.

I've only just got involved in the PC building scene myself after studying A levels at college for games development (There is NOT a career in it where I live, I was foolish), and I have ALMOST finished my custom build of an i7 4790k, 650w gold psu, msi gaming 5, 8 gig of ram etc... And I am also in the UK (You using pounds as currency gave it away ) and I can tell you for my custom build, on the cheapest PC build site that delivers here (Partpicker and PCspecialist) quoted me £1,800ish, which is $2714.00 to the majority of you! And I have so far managed to build it myself, looking out for deals, using Amazon warehouse on parts which are suitable to purchase in "Like new" and "Very good" condition. Bottom line is, for these quotes, I've built my PC all but my graphics card for UNDER a grand, and this is a Mid tower ATX intel build... If you want my advice (Like I said this is my first build, everything I know is from research, I haven't experimented) from your price range, I suggest a ATX tower, the Corsair Carbide 300r is currently £63 in the Warehouse deals atm, a high end AMD processor (I say AMD as the extra cores will help with the 3D work, I understand this is only accountable for rendering so somebody please correct me if I'm wrong) as the extra cores will lend a hand with rendering your 3D designs, so an fx 8 core is pretty popular? I cannot help with the motherboard as I've only researched into Intel, PSU now a lot of people will say Gold plus, but if you're not over clocking, get yourself a bronze certified psu from a well known brand, I recommend Corsair again, but always keep in mind the GPU should be equivilent if not more expensive than you CPU for Gaming and 3D rendering, I suggest opening a new thread for the best 3D enabled GPU, I'm going to grab myself a 970 as its a new release, G1 Gaming has a good price on amazon atm, and I'm pretty sure it will fly through my 3D design, very long answer I know, I hope it helped, and sorry if its a noobish response as like I said I'm only in my first build, but from what I've read, it seems amd for your price!

A custom PC is easier to upgrade and cheaper for the same performance as a pre-built computer.