Hi Jim, I've generally found custom building your own pc, especially a gaming pc, is much more reliable, and is more advanced than any store baught solution manufactured off an assembly line from Del, Compaq, HP, etc... You litterally get to choose every item that goes in to the computer motherboard, processor, sound card, hard drive, etc.. You can pay as much or as little as you wish. For example, the Maxtor hard drives are usually cheaper than Quantum and Western Digital, and sometimes show up in Wal-Mart e-machines. Well, I happen to know from personal experience the Maxtor hard drives have a very high failior rate where as Western Digital has been very very reliable. Another area that really matters to us is the quality of sound. Especially, when playing environmentally ritch games like Shades of Doom. Your typical Gateway or Del computer gives you an AC-97 chipset. Ok, for most users, but are crap for games. Instead of going that route you can just pay the bucks and have an Audegy or X-Fi sound card which produces extremely ritch audio. Finally, if you become a computer hobbiest, home builder, etc you can get discounts on software which allows you to upgrade faster than the general public. Me upgrading one of my systems to Vista this early. It is this ability to pick and choose everything that makes a custom build system much more powerful in the long run. The person who knows about building computers can often pick and choose higher quality materials which ends up with a more solid and robust system. Having been building systems for myself and others for the passed 10 years one thing you get to know is different manufacturers products, and can actually bench test them side by side. For example, AMD processors are generally pretty good, but I think the Intel Pentium sometimes does a bit of a better job, but at a much higher price. However, if cash is tight the little bit of edge from the Pentium isn't worth it.
Jim Kitchen wrote: > Hi Thomas, > > That is cool that you can build your own computer and get a discount on the > price of the OEM software. I have never built a computer. Took one apart > once though. <grin> My brother used to build computers for me. The dos > computer was good for eight years. The windows only two. I have been very > happy with both of my Dell computers. I have never even broken the seal on > either of them. Just plug in the Triple Talk USB synthesizer, joystick or > external hard drive and away I go. No need to see what's inside. <grin> > _______________________________________________ Gamers mailing list .. [email protected] To unsubscribe send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can visit http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org to make any subscription changes via the web.
