Specifications

www.pcmag.com SEPTEMBER 16, 2003 PC MAGAZINE
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upgrade or service the machines.
In fact, upgrading is an excellent stepping stone to building a
whole machine. Once you’ve traversed the shoals of adding an
optical drive or more memory, or replacing a hard drive, work-
ing inside the case isn’t nearly as daunting anymore.
Some of us at PC Magazine have been building machines for
years, having started back in the soldering-iron days, but we
decided to take a fresh look at the
DIY scene. So we built two
machines: an all-out, no-holds-barred screamer and a budget
system that would still have respectable performance. We com-
pared our handiwork with two off-the-shelf commercial ma-
chines and a custom-made high-end system from Alienware, a
respected high-performance
PC builder.
But this article is titled “Build or Buy,” and to be fair, we’ve de-
lineated the pros and cons of each approach.
COMPONENT SELECTION
Component selection is the heart and soul of DIY. Just try going
into the local computer store and asking for a machine with a
specific motherboard. You can get more memory, and maybe if
you’re lucky you can specify a different video card, but that’s
where flexibility ends. Commercial vendors don’t want to tell
you what motherboards they use, and they reserve the right to
switch vendors for any and all components. So if you’re looking
to achieve specific performance goals through component se-
lection,
DIY is the way to go.
Commercial vendors, however, solve compatibility and inte-
gration issues long before the products go into their catalogs or
arrive on dealer shelves. Part of what you’re buying is a guarantee
that everything works when you take your new
PC out of the box.
PRICE
What’s your time worth? If you’re the time-is-money type,
don’t even think about building your own machine. There’s no
way you can work cheaper than overseas labor or an auto-
mated assembly line. But if you enjoy hunting for bargains,
getting great deals, and tracking down the lowest-cost supplier
for each component,
DIY will save you money for a given per-
formance level. And if you believe that hours spent in plea-
surable pursuits are not subtracted from your lifespan,
DIY is
a longevity booster.
SERVICE AND SUPPORT
PC Magazine’s Service and Reliability Surveys, which we’ve
been conducting for 16 years, show clear differences among
commercial manufacturers. Some have had abysmal track
records for years; others rise and fall in the rankings, and a
few—very few—are consistently well liked by their customers.
Having a formal support organization is no guarantee of post-
sale happiness. So if you’re committed to buying a commercial
PC, do your research first.
The good news is that once you go
DIY, you’ll never take your
computer in for service again. The bad news is that there’s no
place to take it! You can’t make a malfunctioning
DIY machine
somebody else’s problem; it’s your baby. But there’s a vibrant
online community just waiting to pitch in and help you with the
IN THIS REVIEW
82 High-End System 83 What We Spent 87 Performance Tests 88 Budget System
COVER STORY