Does Building Your Own Computer Still Save Money?

[Angrboda]

I have the same desktop computer I had long ago. I heard that it does not save money anymore. I am skeptical but I really don't know. It is still fun and seems worth it to evade proprietary confinement (many brand restrictions when replacing or adding parts), but does it still usually save money?

Indeed, it does not save you money. It may even cost you in terms of both time and money. Money from mistakes, poor choices, lack of the ability to access economies of scale, and uncovered equipment failures. It can cost even more in terms of time. Prebuilts have their combination of parts tested and verified. Your parts are not, and you will encounter issues you wouldn't have, diagnostic time you wouldn't have, and not have access to a stable set of answers. All that costs in terms of time, and the cost is far more significant than you can appreciate. (There was a time when, due to the inexpensiveness of an AMD CPU line, a particular chipset, the KT133 chipset was very common. Despite shared design features, after a while I stopped buying KT133 boards as I realized the money saved from not buying a better chipset was easily swamped by the cost of almost constant debugging during the break-in period.)

In sum, while getting an OEM machine is no guarantee of a trouble free machine, if you choose wisely, the end result will be endless hours of worry free reliability and dependability. That point is only reached with a homebrew after a period of shake down, given that you had enough sense to buy a combination of parts that will end at that goal. (I've been building my own machines for 15 years and if I were to build my own today, it would require an intensive research project lasting several weeks. Granted, my chance of a good result is likely tenfold that of you, but it's still an enormous project.)

If you're just interested in building a machine for the pleasure, fun and learning experience, sure, why not. Just be aware that you will be paying for the ride all the way. And I would recommend getting a prebuilt first, and then think about playing; if money is an issue, get a netbook. Then you'll have reliable computing power, and when done, both desktop and mobile solutions.

I don't intend to monitor this thread, so, if you feel you'd like more input from me, feel free to message me. (A friend on another forum asked for some general advice in part selection for his DIY project. I rattled off about 20 or so items. I'll copy it here if you like.)