Bang for Your Buck: Building a Personal Computer

We all use computers. I mean you are using a computer to read this text entry. Or perhaps the new iPhone, but I highly doubt that. But the point is that we all have to use computers on a day to day basis. Yet the retail stores can hike the price of a computer way beyond what they are worth.

The other big problem with computers is that the newest computer on the consumer level is already old news to the industry. So what can someone do to maximize their investment? Well if you think about it a computer is like a car, the computer depreciates the moment you open it and turn it on. So here are a few ideas to get the best bang for your buck.

Know what you want your computer to do. I am a gamer, so I need a powerful and quick computer. However that will cost me more money than someone who wants a fast computer for internet and typing work related papers. So assess what you will be doing for the majority with your computer. Most gamers already know they need a fast computer with a strong video card, powerful fans for cooling, lots of RAM and a good processor. A normal household computer will need good RAM and hard drive space.

The RAM is how fast your computer can operate the system. The more RAM the faster you can load applications and the more you can run at the same time before the computer slows down. Hard drive space is the place where you store all your information. Most people can use 120 Gigabytes and will never get close to filling it. Others who watch movies, listen to music and use multimedia on their computers will need to look at perhaps getting more hard drive space. Everything depends on the user and the main purpose of the computer.

Price out what you are looking at. I cannot tell you how much money you can save because each computer is different. However for the most part you can save money. The more expensive computers for retail can be built with a pretty nice discount if you build it yourself. Lower priced computers are hard to beat since you have to order parts and then assemble them. Sometimes lower cost computers are better to purchase in the store. But always know how much you are looking at spending.

Also look around, there are quite a few internet companies that sell computer parts separate at a very reasonable price. Especially watch during the holidays for sales. A friend of mine purchased a thirty inch monitor for three hundred dollars. I believe the original tag was five or six hundred dollars. So keep an eye out for sales and you will usually be rewarded.

Also remember there are new types of parts being released all the time. So what you want may become the old model in a month or two. Do some research and wait the moth or so for the parts to be labeled as "old". Now you can get a perfectly good part for a discounted price because it is not the coolest, or newest part on the market. Use the market to your advantage and you can save even more money on your computer.