PreBuilt vs HomeBuilt

That link takes us to the base model. I take it you selected other components to get to $861. Regardless, you can usually build something that will perform better than a pre-built for the same price. The only exception would be if that prebuilt was on sale and then maybe it would be somewhat equivalent. Building it yourself gives you the flexibilty to look for combo deals and separate items on sale. I usually save quite a bit by looking for combo's on Newegg and items with instant savings.

home built is always better unless you have 2 left thumbs or cant find sum1 to put it together for you for a small fee. reason being your warranty is on a per part basis and wont be voided if you open the case to do basic maintenance like cleaning the dust out.
some companies like hp, dell and others will claim invalid warranty if they get a return that has been opened in any way shape or form. basically any excuse to charge you extra.
if its home built then every part is covered separate so unless you open a hdd cage or dismantle a dvd drive there covered for basic wear and tear.
also home building will take a lot of the fear out of computers.
1 of the things i used to do with an adult learning class was take the mystery away by opening a case and showing the students what was inside...
now theres a bunch of silver surfers in the north east of england building there own systems and building there 40+yo kids systems because they have no fear of whats in a pc...
they may be getting on but they defiantly enjoy the challenge of building something with there own hands.

so yeah if you have the time, and patience building your own is much more rewarding and a lot cheaper or you get a lot more power for the same money as a prebuilt.

I build my own PCs not because it is cheaper, but because I have full control over what parts goes into that PC.

For example, I did not want my HTPC to look like your typical PC. Instead I wanted it to have the look of an audio or video rack component. I bought the Silverstone Crown CW02 aluminum case with no power supply ($350) because of it's compact size (but capable large enough to fit a full size ATX mobo, barely) and the fact that there is no tag identifying it as a Silverstone product which means it has a "clean face".



The Silverstone Crown CW02 is easily the most expensive single component in any of my PCs. That excludes my monitors which basically ranges between $800 - $1,300 each.

Go for a homebuilt if you are really serious. The reasoning behind this is that you can pick the parts that best suit your needs or what you are going to be using it for not to mention that ordering parts online is usually always cheaper than getting them retail.

You also learn a thing for two building one yourself. It's more rewarding and as said above you know exactly what is in your PC. It's a whole lot easier to build a PC now than it was when I was younger. I build a 100MHz 486 and the motherboard had dozens of little jumpers you had to set for the bus speed, cpu speed, cpu multiplier, ram speed, ram divider, etc. Now you just plug everything, the BIOS sees it and knows what to set it at. The hardest part is cable management and bolting everything down. This forum can help you build what you want and make sure what you buy is compatible and also the best bang for your buck.

If you plan on overclocking or learning to overclock, then a home built is almost definately required as most retail computers (Dell, Acer, ...) have custom bios's and lock out options in order to prevent overclocking.

Which is why I've never owned an OEM PC.... um ever actually. Minus laptops.