Mac Guy wants to build a Windows 10 PC

[Paulmorgan]

Paulmorgan wrote

Think about this for a minute.

Why do you need a big beefy power supply.

Why do you need 4 empty and open drive bays

I will move 3 of the 4 drives in my existing computer into this computer. Ok, beefy is my word, but my calculation puts me at 675 watts. And extra 175 watts for growth is no where near overkill.

I'm confused as to why people think I should buy a rebuilt? What's in it for you? Do you work for Dell? Bad build experience? I'd like the subtext.

Tom

Nah just people living in cloud cockoo land, how did you get to this calculation of 675w, all very strange, unless you have a build and the hardware to test what a system is pulling under load how would you ever know.

Nah, never said get something rebuilt, build your own but please use a little common sense.

Think about what your new cpu could be pulling stress tested, think what your video card could be pulling stress tested, the other components will not amount to much under load.

Most cpu`s will never pull much more than 100/125w and modern video cards pull a lot less these days than they once did, in all I bet a lot less than 675w for a modern system.

 

[Austinian]

I will move 3 of the 4 drives in my existing computer into this computer. Ok, beefy is my word, but my calculation puts me at 675 watts. And extra 175 watts for growth is no where near overkill.

I'm confused as to why people think I should buy a rebuilt? What's in it for you? Do you work for Dell? Bad build experience? I'd like the subtext.

I'm a bit surprised to see a degree of negativity for your proposed build; it may not be optimal in all respects (few PCs are IMO), but as far as I can tell, it isn't "wrong". Near-perfection can come later, with experience.

The case size and configuration should be totally up to you; extra space in a case does no harm--my case is far larger than it has to be to house its electronics.

The PSU is probably oversized; a good 750w PSU powers my X299 build with a GTX1080 TI with margin to spare, but as long as PSU quality isn't sacrificed for wattage there's little harm in PSU excess.

Also, this may have been mentioned already; do you have a UPS?

It's your PC, you can build, adjust, and upgrade as you please. With a self-built desktop, few things are irrevocable.

 

[afterburn]

Digital Storm is a boutique system builder. You might want to use their site to come up with a suitable configuration and compare cost vs headaches over building one yourself. I have two systems built by them and I'm an extremely happy customer. I have not seen the same range of configurations at other boutique builders.

Here's the configuration that I've been looking at to run Premiere and After Effects.

https://www.digitalstorm.com/configurator.asp?id=2018213

Note the Slade chassis has two external drive bays.

But yow, they are pricey. You're easily paying $400 more for them to put it together.

Tom

If it is only $400 cheaper to DIY (didn't check), then it is actually very cheap and competitive pricing considering the time required to assemble, test and install a system and provide warranty on it.

That said, part of the fun of speccing out a new PC is building the darn thing, at least to me.

 

[afterburn]

It's a lot of mid-range parts/specs. It's modest at a modest budget. It makes me wonder if you won't be better-off just buying something semi-customized from the big OEMs (Dell, HP, etc).

Building your own rarely saves you any money if you calculate in the value of getting something that is fully-sorted out-of-the box, and is guaranteed in-whole to stay going with a holistic warranty.

People build because 1) they enjoy the challenge/act of rolling-your-own; 2) they can optimize the build in a way that isn't common, whether through uncommon parts or overclocking; 3) they're control freaks; and/or 4) they like a totem to stroke. Be sure at least some of this is you before you commit to rolling-your-own.

It can be quite a big cost saving in the long run, maybe not straight away but further down the line you can upgrade with just a new motherboard, processor and ram provided you had started out with quality parts, case, psu etc.

The rationale seems sound on the surface, but I think the claimed "big cost savings" is dubious at best. Or just dependent on a certain set of circumstances that I'm not sure is relevant to this thread.

My experience:

Whereas there was a lone instance in which I simply swapped a CPU... my last 4 builds carried over-only PSUs and/or cases, and not even consistently. The simple reason is that I'm not a gamer, and generally build on a 3-to-4-year cycle. By the time I feel like I need a new build because the existing build is falling short of what I want it to do... not only do I need extra CPU/GPU power, but DRAM needs/standards have changed, socket standards have changed, my dataset has increased in size (through both accumulation and upgrades in my cameras) to the point where I need new storage solutions, etc.

I mean, my current build is 100% new with no carryover simply because by the time I came to near-completion... it was simply better to buy a new PSU to complete it and leave the old PSU in the wholly-complete and unscavenged old build to re-purpose it as a new version of my home server.

I mean, if you're a gamer and/or an enthusiast with a particular focus on having a maximized-system/personal-totem, and therefore update your build on a yearly (if not more-frequent) basis... then yeah, building your-own and swapping things out as better versions come along is of course going to be cheaper than replacing the whole thing at shorter intervals, with needless replacement of parts that do not significantly impact the user's use.

OTOH, if you're a photographer, and your processing needs grows with (or perhaps outpaced by) your need for storage... then the savings from parts carry-overs might be very little to non-existent.

I`ve built enough to know that cost savings can be very real.

For performance per $$ its very hard (if at all) to beat the large OEM systems, imo. Computers are from them are virtually disposable items with ditto price tags. Pick a standard system that suits your needs without configuration changes/upgrades, and you're off to the races for a price you cannot beat by building your own system.

Now quality/reliability/durability per $$, it is a completely different story. Now if you want performance and quality, there are some builders out there that make really nice , upgradable systems but they are also very expensive, much more than building your own system.

That said, I understand your argument. But, how much upgrading is really needed these days? My build is based on X99 around a 5960X processor. It's two years old, the CPU was introduced 4 years ago. Even pitted against the top mainstream coffee lake cpu, this old Haswell generation processor keeps up and is only marginally slower at some tasks at stock speeds to the point that its barely if at all noticeable. Basically what makes sense today to upgrade is memory, storage and video. CPU's and motherboards only need replacing when something breaks or you want something new.

 

[Wayne Larmon]

Digital Storm is a boutique system builder. You might want to use their site to come up with a suitable configuration and compare cost vs headaches over building one yourself. I have two systems built by them and I'm an extremely happy customer. I have not seen the same range of configurations at other boutique builders.

Here's the configuration that I've been looking at to run Premiere and After Effects.

https://www.digitalstorm.com/configurator.asp?id=2018213

Note the Slade chassis has two external drive bays.

But yow, they are pricey. You're easily paying $400 more for them to put it together.

Tom

If it is only $400 cheaper to DIY (didn't check), then it is actually very cheap and competitive pricing considering the time required to assemble, test and install a system and provide warranty on it.

I agree. My desktop system is from Puget Systems and I don't begrudge any additional expense. Because I have built machines from scratch and they always ended sub-optimal. Or didn't boot at all and I ended up (after a year of frustration) buying all the parts a second time to find out what the problem was (which turned out to be three CPUs that were DOA. The fourth one (from a different supplier) worked. The fifth one went into the original system.)

The parts that really impressed me about Puget were:

1. They do an extensive burn in on every system and give you pages of test results. They also do a thermal image when it is running at its hottest and give you that also. If it flunks the full load burn in, then they stop and don't ship the machine until something is changed such that it passes.
2. After sale support. Even after I got the machine, the on board USB 3.0 ports were flaky with several flash drives. A Puget tech walked me through updating the drivers. After that didn't help, they sent me a PCIE USV card free of charge.
3. Even more after sale support. I had been configuring a brand new system with AIG in mind. The same salesman that worked with me in 2011 for my existing system contacted me to see if I had any questions. I told him that I was debating between upgrading my existing system (new video card and upgraded power supply) and buying a new $4,500+ system. He told me that there should be no problem upgrading my existing system. And didn't pressure me to buy the parts from them (I upgraded and got the parts on sale from Best Buy.)
4. And that it has run flawlessly (almost) 24/7 since I got it in 2011.

That said, part of the fun of speccing out a new PC is building the darn thing, at least to me.

Well... that stopped being fun for me several decades ago. I got tired of expending a lot of time and money while trying to save some money.

Wayne

 

[Thomas Kachadurian]

Digital Storm is a boutique system builder. You might want to use their site to come up with a suitable configuration and compare cost vs headaches over building one yourself. I have two systems built by them and I'm an extremely happy customer. I have not seen the same range of configurations at other boutique builders.

Here's the configuration that I've been looking at to run Premiere and After Effects.

https://www.digitalstorm.com/configurator.asp?id=2018213

Note the Slade chassis has two external drive bays.

But yow, they are pricey. You're easily paying $400 more for them to put it together.

Tom

If it is only $400 cheaper to DIY (didn't check), then it is actually very cheap and competitive pricing considering the time required to assemble, test and install a system and provide warranty on it.

I agree. My desktop system is from Puget Systems and I don't begrudge any additional expense. Because I have built machines from scratch and they always ended sub-optimal. Or didn't boot at all and I ended up (after a year of frustration) buying all the parts a second time to find out what the problem was (which turned out to be three CPUs that were DOA. The fourth one (from a different supplier) worked. The fifth one went into the original system.)

The parts that really impressed me about Puget were:

1. They do an extensive burn in on every system and give you pages of test results. They also do a thermal image when it is running at its hottest and give you that also. If it flunks the full load burn in, then they stop and don't ship the machine until something is changed such that it passes.
2. After sale support. Even after I got the machine, the on board USB 3.0 ports were flaky with several flash drives. A Puget tech walked me through updating the drivers. After that didn't help, they sent me a PCIE USV card free of charge.
3. Even more after sale support. I had been configuring a brand new system with AIG in mind. The same salesman that worked with me in 2011 for my existing system contacted me to see if I had any questions. I told him that I was debating between upgrading my existing system (new video card and upgraded power supply) and buying a new $4,500+ system. He told me that there should be no problem upgrading my existing system. And didn't pressure me to buy the parts from them (I upgraded and got the parts on sale from Best Buy.)
4. And that it has run flawlessly (almost) 24/7 since I got it in 2011.

That said, part of the fun of speccing out a new PC is building the darn thing, at least to me.

Well... that stopped being fun for me several decades ago. I got tired of expending a lot of time and money while trying to save some money.

Wayne

it's it's funny you should suggest Puget Systems because their Photoshop suggested computer which is an eighth generation i7 with the 1060 video card with 6 gigs of RAM, a 650 watt power supply, and an 860 SSD drive is $2,800. My build with more or less the same components but a 960 PCIe Drive is going to be under $1,300.

Tom

 

[Wayne Larmon]

Digital Storm is a boutique system builder. You might want to use their site to come up with a suitable configuration and compare cost vs headaches over building one yourself. I have two systems built by them and I'm an extremely happy customer. I have not seen the same range of configurations at other boutique builders.

Here's the configuration that I've been looking at to run Premiere and After Effects.

https://www.digitalstorm.com/configurator.asp?id=2018213

Note the Slade chassis has two external drive bays.

But yow, they are pricey. You're easily paying $400 more for them to put it together.

Tom

If it is only $400 cheaper to DIY (didn't check), then it is actually very cheap and competitive pricing considering the time required to assemble, test and install a system and provide warranty on it.

I agree. My desktop system is from Puget Systems and I don't begrudge any additional expense. Because I have built machines from scratch and they always ended sub-optimal. Or didn't boot at all and I ended up (after a year of frustration) buying all the parts a second time to find out what the problem was (which turned out to be three CPUs that were DOA. The fourth one (from a different supplier) worked. The fifth one went into the original system.)

The parts that really impressed me about Puget were:

1. They do an extensive burn in on every system and give you pages of test results. They also do a thermal image when it is running at its hottest and give you that also. If it flunks the full load burn in, then they stop and don't ship the machine until something is changed such that it passes.
2. After sale support. Even after I got the machine, the on board USB 3.0 ports were flaky with several flash drives. A Puget tech walked me through updating the drivers. After that didn't help, they sent me a PCIE USV card free of charge.
3. Even more after sale support. I had been configuring a brand new system with AIG in mind. The same salesman that worked with me in 2011 for my existing system contacted me to see if I had any questions. I told him that I was debating between upgrading my existing system (new video card and upgraded power supply) and buying a new $4,500+ system. He told me that there should be no problem upgrading my existing system. And didn't pressure me to buy the parts from them (I upgraded and got the parts on sale from Best Buy.)
4. And that it has run flawlessly (almost) 24/7 since I got it in 2011.

That said, part of the fun of speccing out a new PC is building the darn thing, at least to me.

Well... that stopped being fun for me several decades ago. I got tired of expending a lot of time and money while trying to save some money.

Wayne

it's it's funny you should suggest Puget Systems because their Photoshop suggested computer which is an eighth generation i7 with the 1060 video card with 6 gigs of RAM, a 650 watt power supply, and an 860 SSD drive is $2,800. My build with more or less the same components but a 960 PCIe Drive is going to be under $1,300.

I hadn't cross checked system prices--my decision a few weeks ago was whether or not "to upgrade or to buy a new system". When I made the decision to "upgrade" I stopped researching a new system. The price difference you cited is more than I'd pay for quality assurance. (And I don't know why they default to the SATA SSD instead of to the PCIe SSD. I immediately switched to the PCIe drive when I was configuring.)

Thanks for the heads up!

Wayne

 

[sygnus21]

Well... that stopped being fun for me several decades ago. I got tired of expending a lot of time and money while trying to save some money.

Everybody busy trying to justify this or that while forgetting the real fun of building your own PC is customizing it to your whims. If I were looking to save a few bucks I wouldn't build the systems I do. And some of these systems turn out to be show pieces.

To each is own.

 

[silentstorm]

I don't game, don't do 3D, don't do panos or stitching, don't do complicated Photoshop and (currently) don't edit video. But I just upgraded my old i7 2600K machine with a new power supply and 1070 Ti (with lots of help from this forum) solely to experiment with Topaz A.I. Gigapixel. (Currently being discussed on the Retouching forum.)

And I'm happy I did. It is exhilarating to revisit my beloved early 2000s four and six megapixel images that I could never print as large as I wanted to and be able to upsize them so they are usable at higher resolutions (and on my 320 PPI 4K laptop.)

A.I. Gigapixel wants all the GPU you can throw at it (if you are upsizing to the 50+ megapixel range.) It is very GPU intensive.

Wayne

Thanks Wayne. I'll want to try AI Gigapixel too. There are many 5MP files from the older camera.

 

[afterburn]

Well... that stopped being fun for me several decades ago. I got tired of expending a lot of time and money while trying to save some money.

Everybody busy trying to justify this or that while forgetting the real fun of building your own PC is customizing it to your whims. If I were looking to save a few bucks I wouldn't build the systems I do. And some of these systems turn out to be show pieces.

To each is own.

+1. Saving money is nice, but to me it doesn't add to the fun of building. The fun is in the building, putting something together with your own hands and end up with having a great looking and working machine that's exactly suited to your requirements that you can work on all day, every day with the satisfaction you did it yourself instead of pulling the same square box from a rack like the next guy that sits under your desk and hopefully does what it needs to do and that you first need to 'take to the cleaners' to remove all the crap they put on that you didn't ask for to make run to its potential.

 

[PhilDunn]

Well... that stopped being fun for me several decades ago. I got tired of expending a lot of time and money while trying to save some money.

Everybody busy trying to justify this or that while forgetting the real fun of building your own PC is customizing it to your whims. If I were looking to save a few bucks I wouldn't build the systems I do. And some of these systems turn out to be show pieces.

To each is own.

+1. Saving money is nice,

That's an often referred to benefit. Unfortunately most people don’t factor in their own time in research, building and having to maintain a home built computer, and other things that affect total and true cost.

but to me it doesn't add to the fun of building. The fun is in the building, putting something together with your own hands

To be fair there is little skill needed in assembling a new computer in terms of assembling the parts.

 

[Paulmorgan]

Well... that stopped being fun for me several decades ago. I got tired of expending a lot of time and money while trying to save some money.

Everybody busy trying to justify this or that while forgetting the real fun of building your own PC is customizing it to your whims. If I were looking to save a few bucks I wouldn't build the systems I do. And some of these systems turn out to be show pieces.

To each is own.

+1. Saving money is nice,

That's an often referred to benefit. Unfortunately most people don’t factor in their own time in research, building and having to maintain a home built computer, and other things that affect total and true cost.

but to me it doesn't add to the fun of building. The fun is in the building, putting something together with your own hands

To be fair there is little skill needed in assembling a new computer in terms of assembling the parts.

There is one other aspect to self building, you quickly learn to track down faults and keep a system up and running without the need of pricey extended warranties, time spent on the phone for tech support etc.

 

[afterburn]

Well... that stopped being fun for me several decades ago. I got tired of expending a lot of time and money while trying to save some money.

Everybody busy trying to justify this or that while forgetting the real fun of building your own PC is customizing it to your whims. If I were looking to save a few bucks I wouldn't build the systems I do. And some of these systems turn out to be show pieces.

To each is own.

+1. Saving money is nice,

That's an often referred to benefit. Unfortunately most people don’t factor in their own time in research, building and having to maintain a home built computer, and other things that affect total and true cost.

Nor should you, or else nobody would. Unless you are professional that could and should be using that time making money instead of building and maintaining that computer, in which case you probably should get something from pre-made with a support contract without even thinking about building.

but to me it doesn't add to the fun of building. The fun is in the building, putting something together with your own hands

To be fair there is little skill needed in assembling a new computer in terms of assembling the parts.

Nobody suggested there was. But as someone who makes his money using his head instead of his hands, there is something oddly satisfying and relaxing by doing something like building a computer or rebuilding an engine (to name something more complicated).

--
Gijs from The Netherlands
Nikon D800/Fuji X-T1

 

[sygnus21]

but to me it doesn't add to the fun of building. The fun is in the building, putting something together with your own hands

To be fair there is little skill needed in assembling a new computer in terms of assembling the parts.

True, anybody can plug in a card.

But can they navigate their way through the BIOS? Figure out why the system won't POST? Can they troubleshoot Windows install problems? What about troubleshooting driver issues? What do they do when that newly built system is underperforming?

Yeah, anybody can plug in a card, but it's the other stuff that's not so easy. And why many shy away from building.

 

[PhilDunn]

Well... that stopped being fun for me several decades ago. I got tired of expending a lot of time and money while trying to save some money.

Everybody busy trying to justify this or that while forgetting the real fun of building your own PC is customizing it to your whims. If I were looking to save a few bucks I wouldn't build the systems I do. And some of these systems turn out to be show pieces.

To each is own.

+1. Saving money is nice,

That's an often referred to benefit. Unfortunately most people don’t factor in their own time in research, building and having to maintain a home built computer, and other things that affect total and true cost.

Nor should you, or else nobody would. Unless you are professional that could and should be using that time making money instead of building and maintaining that computer, in which case you probably should get something from pre-made with a support contract without even thinking about building.

Time isvaluable to everyone. Young people unfortunately don’t realize that until it’s too late.

but to me it doesn't add to the fun of building. The fun is in the building, putting something together with your own hands

To be fair there is little skill needed in assembling a new computer in terms of assembling the parts.

Nobody suggested there was.

I was addressing a statement that implies as much.

But as someone who makes his money using his head instead of his hands, there is something oddly satisfying and relaxing by doing something like building a computer or rebuilding an engine (to name something more complicated).

Rebuilding an engine is ridiculously more complicated. Not even close. I could see someone being well satisfied by something like that.

I agree with the satisfaction of working with your hands. I'm just trying to bring a little bit of objectivity to the discussion. I used to build my own computers and it's not really what it's cracked up to be.

 

[PhilDunn]

but to me it doesn't add to the fun of building. The fun is in the building, putting something together with your own hands

To be fair there is little skill needed in assembling a new computer in terms of assembling the parts.

True, anybody can plug in a card.

But can they navigate their way through the BIOS? Figure out why the system won't POST? Can they troubleshoot Windows install problems? What about troubleshooting driver issues? What do they do when that newly built system is underperforming?

Yeah, anybody can plug in a card, but it's the other stuff that's not so easy. And why many shy away from building.

I was addressing the assembling part only.

 

[Wayne Larmon]

+1. Saving money is nice,

That's an often referred to benefit. Unfortunately most people don’t factor in their own time in research, building and having to maintain a home built computer, and other things that affect total and true cost.

Exactly! I don't get any joy in assembling a computer. The happiest time of my life was when I was programming professionally and all the servers were thousands of miles away and somebody else was responsible for any hardware maintenance. Now I'm on my own and I still value my own time at approx. the rate I used to bill. DIY never makes sense financially to me.

but to me it doesn't add to the fun of building. The fun is in the building, putting something together with your own hands

To be fair there is little skill needed in assembling a new computer in terms of assembling the parts.

There is one other aspect to self building, you quickly learn to track down faults and keep a system up and running without the need of pricey extended warranties, time spent on the phone for tech support etc.

This is one reason that may swing me back to DIY when I am ready to get a new system, approx. a year from now. I can deal with swapping out drives and replacing a power supply but I am still uncomfortable mounting a CPU/heatsink to a motherboard and fighting through driver issues. I am debating whether building my own makes sense or finding a local dealer that does custom builds. At this point the latter is making more sense. For me.

I also am not going to buy a preassembled Dell, HP, etc. No way. I also prize a pristine Windows install without bloatware, partitioned to my specs (without mandatory "recovery" partitions.) I can handle doing my own system imaging and cloning to a different drive as needed.

This is one reason why I went with Puget for my last computer. I told them up front that I was going to install all my own drives and to just install Windows on the cheapest spinner they had and that I was going to clone it to a better drive right after I got it. (So I could put the original drive back in if any problems developed.) I told them I was going to install a lot of drives myself and to spec the power supply and cooling accordingly. They did.

Wayne

 

[sygnus21]

I was addressing the assembling part only.

Configuring the system is part of the assembly. You don't just plug in cards and call it a day ;-)

 

[afterburn]

but to me it doesn't add to the fun of building. The fun is in the building, putting something together with your own hands

To be fair there is little skill needed in assembling a new computer in terms of assembling the parts.

True, anybody can plug in a card.

But can they navigate their way through the BIOS? Figure out why the system won't POST? Can they troubleshoot Windows install problems? What about troubleshooting driver issues? What do they do when that newly built system is underperforming?

Yeah, anybody can plug in a card, but it's the other stuff that's not so easy. And why many shy away from building.

I was addressing the assembling part only.

To be fair, I have seen people do such stupid things when it comes to computers, it makes me wonder how people get out of bed in the morning without injuring themselves..

 

[PhilDunn]

I was addressing the assembling part only.

Configuring the system is part of the assembly. You don't just plug in cards and call it a day ;-)

Read more carefully what I wrote. Again, I was addressing assembling parts.