Hiii Friends.I am planning to buy a new Desktop PC.Some of my friend suggested to go for an assembled PC for its 'Flexybility' and others are in favor of Branded ones for its reliabilty.So what is your opinion and plz give few suggestion why ???

well it depends. if you are really comfortable with handling the hardware and also troubleshooting the software than go for the home build.

keep in mind that when you do build your own, first month is gonna be in shit load of problem in worst case scenario. just make sure you have another computer attached to internet available before you completely transfer to the new one.

screw after each good configuration make a brand new ghost image. keep atleast four images. one with only windows install, second with all the software, a third one is a copy of the second image but keep it updatinf after each windows update and any other driver update. and a last image for daily updates.

first month is a little bit of work but after that its all bliss.

the flexibility and dependability all depends upon what kind of hardware you got and how good are you managing it.

there is no definate answer for how dependable the custom built are. some will say very dependable and some will say the otherwise.

but surely you can get a lot of stuff with lesser price with home built and ofcourse they can be overclocked better than branded computers.

I've bought branded PC's in the past, and had really bad experiences with them. So now I go for assembled ones. Because, with assembled PC's you get what you want, and you know whats going into your PC.

How one can make assembled PC more reliable?

Put good parts in it. Compare, and see which part is better. Put a good hard drive, a good mother board, good ram, and all the other related hard ware.

one of those specially assembled PC's, made with the best parts, will probably cost a lil more than an off the shelf one, but you'll end up with a better product.

Depends also on the quality of stuff u want.......................Last year i bought a £4000 computer from dell, and the reliabilty and build of the computer is just suberb and in adition to that i have a home built pc from pakistan which is also very good but with the home built stuff u just have a problem with the software ur going to put in the pc........unless you use pakistani copies.....but if you purchase the original software it works out to more then wha you would pay to have your pc built.

as i said if you are the genious like me (hehehehehehe) then you will have a month of rough time ahead of you. ( I really am nerd when it comes to computers and software)

why I say month? well not that for a month you will be constantly running into troubles but some of the problems arise after some specific event. for example i just built a new computer for me and it run great. untill 5 weeks later it started crashing for no apparent reason. and i could not figure out how to solve the problem cause i really didnt know what is causing the problem. untill 4 days ago i figured out a solution. and now i am back on the track.

it cost me like 1500 canadian and it can kick ass of any hp in the same range.

best thing about the home made is the quality of the parts is much better than branded. And ofcourse moding is very rewarding.

well here is my spec of the computer just in case if you need quick fix without research.

amd 3200 939 (i originally planed for the 3500 but money become an issue. but i can play all the games without a hick up.)

dfi lanparty nf4 ultra-d (if you are not over clocker than go for msi or asus for same class. read their reviews from tomshardware.com or [H]ardocp) i personally favour lanparty.

if you got money then get the highest model of video card that you can afford but nothing less than 6600 gt. (well you got choice of 6800 ultra or 6800, x800)

i dont like wasting money on sli cause i know i will never have enough money to buy two top of the line cards. :) plus two 6600gt still dont match one 6800.

hp dvd writer. lg dvd plalyer. 160 gb sata western digital. and viper gaming case which comes with a pretty good power supply.

zalman cpu fan 7000 or higher.

what is your budget and what do you wanna do with the machine?

I hardly play games.But I am interested in multimedia and I love video making,editing etc.Besides these some other aplication softwares will be used like adobe photoshop and all.But no game.
I think I should go for 512 mb of RAM but some of my friend suggest to go for 1 GB of it.

As far as budget is concerned,it hardly maters.I want quality and composition.

branded one...dell for example will need special drivers and would be a pain in the but. to do anything your self.

branded PCs usualy arent designed for home. they are designed for industry. if you want 500 pcs it would be better to buy from some one like dell as they will offer support and could be sued for damages if its their fault. why they make home pcs is becouse its a market they can sell in. its all about the mony. there is no reliabilioty difrence most branded PCs would be using inferior quality components inside the PC then the assembled one. hence you have less reliability.


the only advantage is it makes you feel good to have a pc with a label. but any one with some hardware knowledge would laugh at you as a idiot for buying a branded PC..trust me i do that lol.

assembled PCs would have a far greater bang for buck (Gigaherts is not everything also size of ram isnt key to performance either),
the assembled PC would be far more reliable then a branded one.
upgrading the assemled PC would be easier and cheaper.
branded PCs charge a bomb for component which only cost 20-45% of the price the brands charge you. for the upgrade
assembled PCs would be far more flexible on the hardware.....you can choose what you want....
assembled PCs are designed for UR need and in reality DELL pcs are not custum made for everyone. they come of the shelf and choices they so proudly parade are only limited and only a few variables occur so they make few of every combination...... assembled PCs doent.
also all the essential hardware will have at leats 1 year warrantee hence if it stops working you take it to the shop you got it from with the reciept and they will replace it for you. (my cuzin had 30gig hard drive, it got messed after 6 months by then the 60gig harddrive was 2 pound more expensive hence he paid 2 pounds to upgrade to 60 gig drive.)


last but not least assembled PCs are easier to maintian (you ask your mates for installing and get a replacement free of charge via warrantee)

also if you like branded PCs for their slick look and think custom PCs are shabby then check these cases out
http://www.cclonline.com/categories/CAS-MTN

and for a video editing its not aboutthe ram its about how fast your PC can dump data from the ram (PC concius) to the hard disk (PCs Memory) and depending on the budget:

cheap: buy a 74Gb western digital raptor...its one of the fastest...for application storgae and media storage for editing and buy a 160 gig drive for data storage.

medium: buy 2 western digital raptors and combine them in a raid 0 (your amtes shiould know..if not not that dificult doent get scared) this uses the two drives simultaniusly and hence increases the rate the data can be transfered. buy one large drive for data storage.

expensive: buy 4 raptors and do em raid 0........very fast..

expert: buy a scsi drive they are WAY faster.
expert level 2: buy two and configure them in raid 0
expert level 3: buy 4 and raid zero....

(note scsi drives are usualy about 26GB but doent be put of. as they are hundreds of percent faster then a normal drive and better when it comes to video editing and raptors are also in same league only slightly inferior...)

TIP OF THE DAY.

make sure your system is cool. processor temop should be 45degC +-15degC. modern mother boards just restart the PC once a certain tempreture is reached to prevent the prcessor melting (60degC + is the red area)

any more question feel free to drop me a PM or ask me here.

Thank you Yaha.Your suggestion are great and i will definitely consider them.

thnx for the apreciation.