That's why I said research. That "extra dollar" you're spending to have some moron put together a computer is money that you could be putting towards better components. I'm not going to try to push you too hard towards this idea, but honestly, the forum can help a stuffton, warranties apply to parts on their own, and like I said, building your own rig and knowing the ins-and-outs of it is fulfilling as stuff.
Your decision obviously.
Bold: Even if another part was responsible for causing others to fry, would those part warranties still cover the others? (I guess if the PSU was stuff or something idk.) If so, I didn't know that, and I'll certainly look into it.
While I am certainly into the idea of building a computer myself, for me to do it right now isn't on my priority list. That will be a project for me to do when I have more disposable income within the next few years.
I do understand the great fulfillment of building your own stuff, I get that quite a lot when it comes to making other things. However that isn't in my interest right now.
My mind has been swayed a bit though, I would very much be interested in a rig that has a case that is large enough to allow for modification. I thought I could do the same with my current rig, however the case is too small to allow me to buy any motherboard which can even come close to holding anything modern enough to run games well. (Plus the air circulation is stuff). Maybe one day I could Frankenstein the thing enough to have it be completely of my own make, sans the original case.
You wont have to worry about having anything less than 60 fps with a $1300 computer. Building though will save you a fair amount of cash.
Before I built mine, i spent maybe a good month or 2 saving up money to buy the parts, and during that time ,i learned about every single part and whats good, how to build my computer, etc. Once you spend all that time learning, it isn't really scary. Also, if you build your own, you will also be more comfortable about opening up your computer to do upgrades and such because you KNOW whats in a computer.
Trust me, build your own. If your parents are cool, they will trust you if you put the computer PARTS on a list just as much as a prebuilt, instead of some other users who are getting a new computer but don't have parents that trust them at building their own.
They trust me to fix anything wrong with theirs
I am certainly a fan with computers, even though our old one was a piece of junk, I took it apart a lot after it was decommissioned by my parents, and fiddled with the layout and stuff, by trial and error figuring stuff as I went. The only stuff I have a hard time understanding about computers is the nitty-gritty about all the hardware, such as clock rates, capacitor count, etc. (all the stuff that isn't really relevant to someone who wants to play games good). Anything to do with solid hardware and modification is good, like a mechanic working on an old car. However, to fix a Ferrari's computer system after something went wrong, would be something a mechanic who focuses on older vehicles couldn't really do easily.
Redacting a few things I said above because frankly I'm a little bit of a lazy butt who doesn't want to edit it, I will take it into consideration. Maybe if someone has the time to whip up a price comparison, that would be very appreciated, as if the value difference between the parts isn't different by a significant percent, I might as well get the whole thing built for me instead.
Another thing about making a computer that I never understood is, buying the OS. I'm assuming I pretty much have to do that in order for it to work. However, they're bloody expensive, and if there was some legal way to get the OS for free, (as all of our other computers have a windows 7 x64 install), that would be nice as well, saving a few bucks.
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