If you have the electrical acumen the best way to buy a PC is to get all the bits and pieces and assemble it yourself and then buy your choice of operating system and your choice of software. If you buy the right motherboard, cards etc. you will be able to upgrade with little or no fuss. The thing to do is to make sure that whatever card you buy not only suits your requirements at the time but can also be upgraded and will also accept additional memory should the need arise and it probably will.
The cost of buying piecemeal will be considerably cheaper than a factory built outfit but you will have to buy the software although it will come with its own manual and you can re-load it any time that you need to. Having a hard copy manual is easier than having a help file on the computer. You can’t read a help file if the software has gone down. But there are drawbacks too.
Should anything go wrong YOU have to trace what it is that has gone wrong and then take the offending bit back to the shop for assessment and replacement. You could send the whole tower to a repair shop and let them figure it out but that costs your more money. If you have a problem configuring the software there is only the manual to turn to, apart from your friends.
Assembling the PC yourself will give you an intimate knowledge of what it is all about but it will also give you the temptation to fiddle around unnecessarily as you display your electronic prowess to your family and friends. Once assembled and working satisfactorily leave it alone until you need to upgrade or it goes wrong.
You could always buy all the various bits from one shop and instruct them to assemble it for you but then that will cost you extra for the assembly and you still have all the problems of what happens if things go wrong and you still have to buy the software. And who is to say that the graphic card that you bought is the one that is actually installed? Unscrupulous dealers will bang in a repaired card or whatever, that they had to exchange because it was faulty. So unless you know the dealer and their reputation is untarnished then this is not really an option.
You could invoke the help of a knowledgeable friend but beware s/he may not be as knowledgeable as s/he thinks or as you think that s/he is. But at least you will KNOW that the bits you bought are the ones that go inside the tower.
So unless you really do know what is what in computer assembly terms then go for a ready built branded unit.
But before you do, do a little research first as to what you want and what is available. Don’t walk into the shop and buy the first one that catches your eye. Ask question, loads and loads of questions and get a feel for what is on offer, then go home have a cup of tea and think about it. You are going to spend a lot of money and you do not want a lemon. Even if you have the cash in your pocket, use your credit card to make the purchase and then next day go to the bank and settle your credit card account with the cash. Your credit card gives you more protection than a cash sale. This also applies to when buying bits and pieces.
The disadvantage of buying a branded unit is that you have to take what is on offer and if you are set on having a mammoth hard drive it may mean that you also have to have something that you don’t want. You may fancy an all in one CD RW DVD drive but that only comes with a high spec PC and you don’t want that because of the cost. But ask anyway, as some shops will even change some of the tower internals to meet your requirements and adjust the price. What they won’t do is give a fair adjustment. By that I mean that if the unit that you don’t want costs say £150 and the unit that you do want cost only £75 they won’t reduce the overall cost by £75. They will quote you some lesser figure. They certainly won’t tell you the individual prices of the two units, but you can find that out by looking on the shelves for those units. It won’t help you get a better deal but you will know how much you are being ripped off. But the major stores will have vast arrays of PC’s in all sorts of configurations so you should find something that is very close to your requirements if not exactly what you want.
The motherboard may not have additional slots in it to take more RAM, so find out before you buy. The same goes for any graphic or sound card. Ask if they can be upgraded or have additional memory installed. Some boards will take extra RAM but only have one slot so the current RAM has to be discarded. What if your PC has a card with a single RAM slot and when you pay them the £30 on top of the cost of the RAM to fit it, you won’t know that so will they give you the old RAM? Will they tell you that it only has one slot so that you can expect to receive the old RAM? Some shops will not and keep the old RAM for disposal some other way like second hand goods or perks of the staff.
Get the answer in writing if you can because some salesmen/women will tell you anything to make a sale because they know you cannot look inside the tower to check for yourself without invalidating the warranty. Even if you accept their assurances that additional memory can be installed you cannot do it yourself because it will break the tower seal and invalidate the warranty. If the shop will not put in writing that additional RAM can be added be suspicious as to why they won’t do so.
But you do have some leeway in buying you PC ready built and software installed. Your dream machine may come with a 19” monitor and a printer and scanner but you only want a 17” monitor and a different make of printer and don’t want the scanner. The shop wants to make a sale so they will alter the peripheral configuration to suit you and adjust the price accordingly and correctly. Remember the factory only built up the tower and loaded the software, the rest is put together with the tower by the shop. If the shop is offering additional software as a sale incentive and you don’t want it, don’t be surprised if they will not reduce the overall price if you don’t take the extra software so you might as well take it. You could always sell it on or exchange it with a friend.
The PC with the operating system and software installed may not have the software or OS on CD’s but rely on a system restore set up and even if it does the chances are that there will not be a manual for the software. There will be help files galore though. But what happens if the hard drive goes down? You can buy a new hard drive but it will be empty and all your factory installed software is on the duff hard drive and you have no originals to use to re-install, not even the operating system. To bring your PC back up to full operation you have to buy a replacement hard drive with installed software from the factory and that will not be cheap and will take time to get.
One major advantage of a branded PC is that most stores offer after sales help with the software as well as their legal duty to the hardware and this can be invaluable.
So in a nutshell, if you really do know your stuff about the innards of a PC tower then buy it in bits and assemble it yourself. But if you don’t or have any doubts then go for a branded unit. But make sure that you can take away your chosen PC with you at the time of purchase and if you can’t then don’t buy until the unit that you require is in stock. Too many shops have gone bust with customer’s money in their pockets and no PC in their living room. When it comes to spending your hard earned cash, trust no one except yourself and be cynical and vigilant.