I will be in the market for a new PC in a couple of months to a year and I want to go ahead and start pricing options. Normally I purchase my computers through Dell, but lately they have been giving fewer and fewer options for customizing a PC. For example, there are only 1 or 2 consumer models where I was able to get at least 16gb the last time I looked. I may not purchase a computer with all the high-end bells and Whistles, but I would just like to opportunity to see the possibilities. Are there any custom PC sites you are familiar with?
Alienware. But these are high end gaming computers and they do cost a lot. If you can, find someone to build a computer for you. It's pretty simple and will save you a lot of money. And don't fall into the false belief that you must absolutely have the newest stuff just because people say so. What do you do with your computer? Internet, movies, etc etc? I remember doing those things with a computer that had 0.5GB of ram, so why would you need 32 times more (and now they are a lot faster too) to do the same thing? Also the ram and the harddrive are ridiculously easy to upgrade on your own, even a 7 year old child can do it. (I know because I teached my brother how to do it when he was 7)
I like to have some kind of customization options. But if there aren't any, I just pick another model or even another brand that suits to my needs. The last laptop I bought couldn't be customized but had several models in the same product range so you could still go for the high-end or low-end model if you wanted to.
If you want customization try a website called CyberpowerPC or Ibuypower. They literally let you choose what parts you want and everything about your computer. I would recommend you build your own computer if you want full customization and are comfortable building it yourself or having someone do it. In terms of money if you build it yourself you will be saving money at the expense of time.
It actually depends on what you are going to use the computer for. If you are going to use it for gaming, then consider acquiring an Alienware or a Steambox PC. These two will make your gaming experience to a whole new level. I have an Alienware and there is no game this thing can not handle. It is one hell of a beast to begin with.
I made an account here just to comment on this here: *DO NOT* use either of those two for 'custom PC builders'. Although their names differ, they're one in the same (Cyberpower/Ibuypower) and they're nothing short of incompetent when it comes to the thing they're trying to specifically market. The prices can end up looking rather promising (compared to a self build) when you finish clicking through all the custom options you want and you'll likely hold onto that up until you actually receive what you paid for. Cutting corners on hardware is how they can price things as they do. Despite their claims of full 24hr 'burn in' test etc. etc. to make sure everything is at peak performance....that's actually complete bullsh*t. You can likely tell by the system failing to even power up as it would make that performance testing somewhat difficult. These two sites are plagued with rather shady business practices, customer service/support that would make you wish it was one of those nice robo voiced keypad menus. The amount of hardware failure in the systems they toss together is ridiculous and how they can still manage to stay around is likely some form of black magic or voodoo cause at least that would make sense. Of course you would probably question just how accurate any of these claims/comments are coming from one person....and that's when you start to google the companies and see just how common these things seem to be. Just stay far away.... Any custom builder you should at least check out actual 'user' ratings and reviews to see what they're overall reputation is like. Alienware yeah has been around for awhile but has always been the extremely overpriced 'gaming pc' it originally marketed itself as. You're paying for the look and the little alien logo on the case....they went bankrupt for a reason, being picked up by dell doesn't exactly help their previous reputation either. If Voodoo was still around they would likely be at the top of the list along with the still reigning powerhouse of Falcon Northwest. Falcon NW isn't any budget system builder, if you got the cash drop though that's the company you should drop it on. Aside from the extreme high end like Falcon NW, there's still others that can compare and have good reputations. You have the likes of Velocity Micro, Digital Storm, Maingear, Origin....and for one of the lesser known, not as flashy as the others (site/product presentation etc.) and doesn't seem to bother with all the marketing and advertising that the others get into is - Puget Systems. They have a very solid reputation built up and offer quite a bit of options. As for Valve and any Steam Machine....would probably be wise to wait and see what actually becomes of the whole venture. Unless every unit comes with Half-Life 3 by means of some powerful wizardry in which case I think selling your children or elderly relative for the $$$ to buy one would be quite acceptable in the given situation. But since that won't happen, I'd hold off on something that has no tested survivability in its market. Main point....Stay away from cyberpower/ibuypower. Seriously. -sjd
HP's online store offers a lot of customizations. I have personally brought a couple of laptops from that website and I liked the amount of customizations they let you make. For instance, they allow you to choose the amount of HDD space, RAM and the type of processor which you would want to put on your laptop. Another option which comes to my mind is Apple. They also let you make quite a few customizations.
