Online merchants leverage lower operating expenses to price products far below those needed to keep the doors open at brick and mortar shops. But shipping costs can still kill your hopes for big savings, particularly if you shop across multiple storefronts. Per-item shipping often gets better as more items are added to the order, so the savings attributed to buying online are maximized by purchasing from the fewest possible sources.
A difficult cascade of questions may consume you if you consider many sellers, various components at different prices, and a range of shipping rates. The easy path is picking one vendor able to give you the best deal on your complete list. Keep in mind that single-item shipping rates quoted through shopping engines should drop significantly as order size increases, and if this doesn't happen it's time to check the next vendor on your list!
Local stores must increase prices to cover their higher operating expenses, but many receive items in large enough quantities to save you some of the money you'd otherwise pay on shipping. Consider the example of a single stack of DVD-R media: online pricing might be $6 plus $8 shipping, totaling $14. If a local store bought 100 stacks at a 10% discount, squandered that 10% savings on bulk shipping, and added a huge 50% mark-up, it'd still be able to sell them for $12...saving you $2 and several days of waiting.

"Loss leaders" are another way for buyers to save when purchasing locally. These are items that larger stores like Best Buy or Fry's Electronics sell at a loss in order to lure you in, hoping sales staff or glamorous displays will get you to pick up a few more things on the way out. Relying on one-time deals often requires substituting a lesser part to get a better value, however.
Level Of Service
It's often said that you get what you pay for, and service is one area where local stores have the ability to outperform their online rivals (though not all of them do). Because small shops are constantly trying to build their reputations, and because they deal in lower volume, they're usually willing to go the extra mile to answer questions and earn your business. Larger electronics chains focus on volume instead, and would rather sell you another part than figure out why the one you have isn't working. Online merchants expect you to have enough knowledge to figure things out on your own.
Consider the situation of dealing with a compatibility issue:
- Smaller, locally-owned shops will usually offer advice, inspect the item for free if you believe it's defective, or diagnose it in your system for a reasonable fee (again, that's not to say all of them will). On the other hand, they may not be willing to provide a refund if you try to return a new component in used condition.
- Most online merchants don't provide adequate tech support, instead going directly to the return process while charging a 15% "restocking fee" for any returned item. You'll have paid shipping both on the delivery and the return, and your 15% fee will go towards someone else's "open box" price reduction.
- Favoring irresponsible buyers, "big box" retailers might give you all your money back if you come up with a good enough reason (or plausible excuse) for the return.
Seller Integrity
Local stores live and die by word of mouth, and will normally try to settle disputes amicably. Larger chain stores will generally try to dodge the bullet, though it might take a while for you to reach a satisfactory outcome.
Online merchants need to keep the majority of customers happy, but a minority can fall through the cracks. Many price comparison engines—such as Google Shopping and Amazon—have rating systems linked to viewable buyer comments.
Auction sites are a great place to find discontinued hardware, but final selling prices on newer parts often exceed those of larger discount sites. Manufacturer warranties may not apply (especially to gray-market parts) and seller warranties are only as good as the seller's word. Be careful, though, and learn from my personal experience. I found a seller who had spent more than three years building his reputation as a power seller, and had a favorable rating of over 99%. His "retirement" plan, apparently, was to advertise items he didn't own during his final month of sales, and he was able to abscond with a six-figure salary of ill-gotten gains, a few hundred dollars of which were mine. It has become more difficult to succeed at these scams in recent times, as payment companies with buyer protection will now track down criminals who've cost them insurance money. Yet, we still hear of sellers sending a box full of rocks or paper to prove shipment. Unless the seller has a history of doing this, it's your word against his concerning what actually arrived. Auction sites become a reasonable option whenever the benefits substantially outweigh the risks. Just be sure that you take all necessary precautions, and are prepared for any hardships that might come in spite of your caution.
Purchasing Summary
Online merchants offer the lowest price, but shipping policies favor large purchases. If you can get most items from one site, your savings could be significant. Inexpensive orders are often best-sourced locally due to shipping fees.
Human interface components like keyboards, mice, and game controllers are so dependent on individual ergonomics that it's always best to try a few before making a purchase. Large retail chains may provide an adequate selection of parts to try out, but some buyers use these stores to "window shop" before placing an online order.
- Step One: Size Up A Case
- Step 2: Select Your CPU
- Step 3: Select Your Graphics
- Step 4: Select A Motherboard
- Step 5: Select Memory
- Step 6: Select Storage
- Step 7: Select A Power Supply
- Other Components
- Step 8: Choose Your Vendor
- Step 9: Preparing For Assembly
- Step 10: Build The Platform (CPU, Cooler, And DRAM)
- Step 11: Install Motherboard And Power Supply
- Step 12: Install Cables, Cards, And Drives
Cheers!
Cheers!
Wonderful as usual toms.. Appreciate it..
Great article! No doubt this is going to help a lot of folks.
Thanks, guys!
I think you missed a section for "SLI - XFire", but it's great overall. Since its a guide for folks with little to no knowledge, I think it would help them to dispel myths and get some facts over XFire and SLI.
Cheers!
First I put the motherboard into the PC (not fastened) to see where the standoffs are going to be placed onto the case. Also I note what routes I'm going use for my cabling. Then I take the motherboard out and insert the standoffs and port plate into the case. Also I take my case cables (power sw, reset sw, USB, front audio and mic cables and put a twist tie around them all and place them near where they are to be plugged into the motherboard. These cables are easy to lose track of.
Next I place the power supply, and "bay devices" (optical drives, non-removable storage, etc) into the case and have those cables attached and either hanging over the outside of the case or routed behind the motherboard tray. This obviously depends on how you determined the cables will be routed earlier.
Then I take my motherboard, put the CPU, RAM, and cooling system on as much as I can. Then I place the whole thing into the case - usually at an angle at first, leading with the side with the RAM (which is normally going behind the case bays in smaller cases) in first.
At this point it's just a matter of aligning the motherboard with the standoffs and port plate. Plug it all in (including the case plugs which are conveniently out of the way and together).
Power it all on and volia!
Otherwise, it was a good article. People who are uncertain of building their own PCs can learn a lot from it.
The 647W is measured at the wall socket, as the article mentions input power. After taking into account the 85% efficiency of their power supply in this example, the PSU is only outputting 549.95W to the PC components at max load. Adding some headroom they come to the 600W PSU recommendation.
Personally I'd like a little more headroom, but the calculations in the article are correct.
Building your own is great fun, and most serious users should probably give it a try at least once in their lives. Given that, I'd recommend an annual "refresh" of this article, with updated info and re-validated links to corresponding reference articles and resource forums.
A great service to your readers!
I wanted to comment on the power supply part of the article. One is the efficiency and the total cost to use versus the front end purchase cost. A less efficient system will obviously create more total heat as wasted energy. But aside from possibly making someones room rather uncomfortable, it also increases your airconditioning energy use. A good rule of thumb is that an AC system will use 50% of the heat energy. To add the total annual cost, multiply that times the percentage of the year that the AC is on. So your example of a 647W system with 85% PSU would give (550W used):
647W - 550W = 93W at plug
93W * 50% = 47W AC energy
Total Energy (summertime) = 93W + 47W = 140W
If the AC were on the while year and the PC were on continuously, this is about $140 annually, or almost $12 per month added electricity in the summer. If you did the same thing with a cheap 70% efficient system, you get $248 annual cost which is $20.63 per month summertime cost. At a difference of $8, it does not take many months (of continuous on!) to make the more efficient PSU make much more sense.
The other topic I wanted to comment on is ESD. I am an engineer and work with ESD issues everyday. It is a very real an poorly understood issue by many because of the often hidden or delayed failures that it causes. ESD many time causes walking wounded damage without an immediate failure, which finally fails several months later. And if you look at websites sell PC parts, many people complain of DOAs. Many, many DOAs are caused by ESD. Memory, CPUs, motherboards, HDDs, and other sensitive systems are often returned as DOA, driving up the cost of the PC enthusiast market and adding frustration. In research texts, they estimate the global electronic failures due to ESD to be 40-60% of the total failures over product life.
So that little $5 ESD wrist strap is money well spent. Buy one and reduce your heartburn.
Charles
So that little $5 ESD wrist strap is money well spent. Buy one and reduce your heartburn.
Charles
The only problem with wrist straps is that most people don't want to be "tied" to anything. They're a great idea that's really rarely needed. Feel free to say otherwise if you live in the desert.