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To Build or to Buy?

Dave Glish

MCS (Milwaukee Computer Society)
- are Real
To Build or to Buy? Since my main computer was
almost 10 years old and I was retiring last month I

decided that I would get a new computer. The big
question for me was whether to build my own com-
puter or to buy a computer. There are pluses and
minuses for either choice. The pluses for buying a
computer (pre-built) is that you know the system will
work out of the box. You already have the software
installed. Often the price is also cheaper than build-
ing your own (the manufacturer can buy the parts in
bulk). You also have a source for online assistance parts that I recycled were the Blu-ray burner, that is
if there is a problem with the system. The negatives still in very good working condition and a 3tb hard
of buying a pre-built system is you have to settle for drive that I am using as a storage drive. It took about
what they manufacturer decides to use. A DVD an hour to put the computer together and most of a
burner, instead of a Blu-ray burner, or slower weekend to reinstall all the programs that I wanted. I
memory chips, etc. The case may have less room also purchase a Synology NAS (Network Attached
for future add-ons. The hated bloat-ware. Building Storage) box to back my files up to but that’s another
your own system isn’t for the novice. Making sure article.
that you buy components that work together is very,
important. The wrong type of memory will either Here are the statistics on the new computer:
slow your system down or cause other problems.  AMD Ryzen 5 3600 processor, 6 cores/12 treads
Reading the installation instructions can be daunt- 4.2gHz speed
ing. Youtube is a great help in this regard. Fitting all  MSI B450M motherboard
of the pieces into the case. I did build my own and
now remember how difficult it is to put all of the  Radeon RX570 8gb video card
parts in the case with short pudgy fingers (I ac-  32gb Crucial DDR4 memory
quired a few cuts and scrapes in the process). The
pluses for building your own are you get exactly  Crucial 1tb MVMe PCIe M.2 SSD
what you want (within the budget you set). In my  Antec case and Thermaltake 550watt power sup-
case I wanted a fast computer with plenty of ply Windows 10 Pro software
memory to do video and photo editing. I also want-
ed a computer that would last me another 10 years  LG Blu-ray burner and 3tb hard drive
if possible. No bloat-ware!!! It is much easier to up-
grade individual components later. I listed some of
the negatives already. Not having tech support to
troubleshoot any nagging problems. Keeping within
a budget. There is always the temptation to add just
one more bell or whistle. Fitting everything into the
case. Over all I’m very happy with the computer that
I built. It is much faster than my old one (even
though the old one still did a good job). The only

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