Origin PC Millenium Versus Doing It Yourself
Whenever a system builder’s product gets mentioned on a hardware enthusiast website, comments about building your own and saving hundreds of dollars tend to pile up pretty quickly. In most cases, that's absolutely true, and power users know they can pare back on costs by building their own machines (that's why we do a System Builder Marathon every single quarter). But many people don’t have the time or know-how to build their own machine, nor the patience to troubleshoot issues on their own. If you fret over service and tech support, there’s certainly a benefit in buying a custom-built system.
But in an effort to address the do-it-yourself crowd with a full disclosure, and to figure out just what a company charges for its services, we’ll be pricing out the parts to build a similar system with our desktop reviews. We'll stick as close as possible to the reviewed systems' components, using parts and pricing from Newegg when available. Here’s a breakdown of the parts and prices for the Origin Millennium as of 12/17/2012:
| Origin PC Millennium DIY Clone | |
|---|---|
| Intel Core i5-3570K | $215 |
| Asus Maximus V Extreme | $369 |
| 8 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3-1600 (2 x 4 GB) | $42 |
| EVGA GeForce GTX 660 Ti | $870 ($290 x 3) |
| 120 GB Intel SSD 520 | $270 ($135 x 2) |
| Seagate Barracuda 1 TB 7,200 RPM Drive | $70 |
| Corsair Hydro Series H80 Cooler | $85 |
| Corsair HX Series HX1050 Power Supply | $210 |
| BitFenix Shinobi case w/window | $80 |
| LG DVD Burner | $17 |
| Rosewill Internal Card Reader | $15 |
| Windows 7 Home Premium | $100 |
| Total Price | $2,343 |
So, you pay about a premium of about $730 for Origin PC's system compared to building it yourself. That's far from insignificant, but we also consider it reasonable for access to a 24/7 tech support number, particularly if you're not confident working on your own rig.
The included one-year warranty covers parts replacement and 45-day free shipping in case there’s an issue with your system out of the box, as we had with our first system. You can extend the free shipping for a full year for an extra $70, or up the warranty to three years for an extra $269.
Sure, much of the Tom's Hardware audience won't need any of that. But if you're shelling out more than $3,000 for a custom-built system that you don't know how to work on yourself, it’s nice to have someone to call when issues arise.
