The one good thing about building or having someone build you a custom computer is you get exactly what you want. Unfortunately it may not be your dream machine in six months when the newest wave of products hit the marketplace. Even so it is nice to be able to design your own computer. There is however a big downside to doing this. When you buy a computer from a major manufacturer you get a basic “Bumper to bumper warranty”, and some components come with longer warranties. Most sales outlets are pretty good about helping if the computer is under warranty. Most stores also sell “extended warranties for a very reasonable price”. You do need to be careful and read the small print!
When you buy components separately from different sources you can be forced to deal with third party support people who may not be that helpful. Clients tell me that many times the maker of one component that fails may blame another part for the failure. Try getting a motherboard replaced under warranty. Some sellers are better than others, but they all make the process as difficult as possible. Let’s say that you build a system with a 500 watt power supply. Your research may tell you that it is plenty of power for that system. The manufacturer of the power supply may say that you really needed to buy a 750 watt power supply. If you don’t mind the extra hassle a custom build may be worth it to you. Personally I like to take in the broken one and say “Give me a new one”.
In my opinion most custom builds are over-kill to start with. The only exception is the serious gamer! There is no real end to what they may need to keep up with all the new tech that becomes available.Other than gaming, let me give you an example. A computer with a third generation i5 processor rated with 3.3ghz and eight Gigabytes of ram will do almost any task required by a normal user. Yet they are now on their 8th generation processor line. Here we are talking about desktop processors. There are many laptop processors that are designed to use less power. Even a laptop with a 3rd generation i7 processor will do almost anything that you throw at it. If all you are after is speed, throw a solid state hard drive in your computer and gain 3 to 5 times the speed.
I always advise my clients to do some research before buying any new computer. One of the most important considerations when buying a new desktop computer is how easy it is to upgrade parts. It is much cheaper to buy more ram or a faster processor than it is to buy a new computer.