What pre-built computer companies do you recommend??

a reply to: Necrobile

I recently bought from Dell. It was a little pricey but the machine below is very good for gaming:

XPS 8910
6th Generation Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700K Processor (8M Cache, up to 4.2 GHz)
16GB (1x16GB) DDR4 2133MHz SDRAM Memory
512GB M.2 Solid State Drive + 2TB 7200 rpm Hard Drive
NVIDIA(R) GeForce(R) GTX 1080 with 8GB GDDR5X Graphics Memory

originally posted by: NightFlight
I build my own, but if I had to purchase one, I believe I would get one of the higher end ASUS' computers.

As a semi-retired PC Technician, I recommend ASUS, as well. Their customer service is probably not the greatest, but as far as reliability, compatibility, and cost vs performance value, they are 2nd to none. If you do have a problem, their RMA system is a headache, but you can escalate the process and get in contact with one of their customer satisfaction specialists and they WILL MAKE THINGS RIGHT.

I've always hated repairing DELL, Gateway, Toshiba, HP, etc. Based upon my own experience repairing/upgrading/diagnosing thousands of PCs over several decades, if you MUST buy a pre-built system, go with ASUS.

Thank you all for the replies, I really appreciate it. I definitely understand the joys of building ones own computer, I've done it many times in the past. It's more of me just wanting to be lazy, but I know in the end I'll probably end up buying all of the parts off of newegg. I love that site. ^_^

Though many people recommended that I build it myself, the most common things I've read are Dell, ibuypower.com, and Asus. Asus used to be one of my go-to companies for parts. My first two machines had a lot of Asus parts in them(not intentionally), and out of all the parts I had to replace over the years, I never had to replace the Asus parts. I bought my wife a cheap Asus desktop from Best Buy when I used to work there, replaced a few parts to make it able to play games, and it's ran beautifully for the 7 years we've had it. Unfortunately, though, I do remember reading some bad reviews on Asus built PC's. So for those who know Asus more, is that still true??

I was told at work today by a customer that he definitely recommends Alienware. He repairs PC's for a living, and says Dell/AW have some of the best support he's seen.

In regards to price, I don't want to spend an arm and a leg, but I don't want a budget machine. I'd like a PC that can play games like Blade & Soul at max settings with 60fps. I'm definitely wanting it to be VR ready if I decide to go that route as well. XD

Once again, thank you for all the replies, you all definitely gave me something to think about.

originally posted by: NightFlight
I build my own, but if I had to purchase one, I believe I would get one of the higher end ASUS' computers.

I concur with this, and would add - since you can build, if you go this route, go with the best MB ASUS has available so that you're best equipped to upgrade in the future.

ASUS has left a sour taste in my mouth. Personally, I like ASRock now. Every thing I've bought from them has broken. The last motherboard I got from them died within the warranty, so I RMAd it. They said they found no problems and sent it back, of course still not working. I sent it back again, this time they kept it for 2 months before I heard anything from them. They finally emailed me saying they lost my address, and I got it back shortly after replying, in working order this time, only after I went ahead and built a new PC.

I had a laptop from them, and not even a month after the warranty expired the fan died. I replaced that and it still didn't work. It was something with the motherboard's circuitry for the fan that broke. So, that laptop is dead now.

Finally, I got a factory remanufactured graphics card from a retailer before, a replacement for an inferior card that was DOA. I didn't complain when they were sending me something better as a replacement. It was an Asus, and started overheating the minute I started gaming with it. So, I pulled the heat sink off and found out that when ASUS 'remanufactured' it (or perhaps they never checked from the previous user), they never cleaned off the old thermal paste and instead, put another layer on and bolted it back together. No wonder it was overheating. I cleaned that up and it worked fine. I sold it recently along with that motherboard I had replaced by them. Oh, and he has already replaced that card after only a couple of months with it.

I'm going to say this assuming your budget is between 1200-2000. Asus and Alienware. You may not have heard much good about Alienware lately but the Alienware Aurora for between 1500-1800 bucks (Best Buy sells it too) is a very nice machine performance wise. Asus has a few different form factors to choose from. And yes, Ibuypower has come a long way. If you want to go above 2 grand, the conversation changes.

Not sure what's going on with the formatting.. Not really showing up once I post.

“Now, I know many people will say it's better/cheaper to build your own computer. I know that, and chances are I will do just that”
- Stop right there Fernando! Do just that. Build your own.

If you absolutely have to buy pre-built (just threw up a little bit in my mouth, sorry), it’s better to buy a desktop from a company that specializes in gaming rigs. These companies understand what you will need for a gaming machine. BUT! You will pay out the @$s for it. So, prepare your anoos.

Pros:
- Everything comes pre-installed
- If you decide to water cool, it’s usually under a warranty
- Warranty. These can be lifesavers if your genes are prone to unluck
- Usually have a sexy case
- You see what it looks like on the site before you get it.
- Everything is made to fit the case.
Cons:
- Almost ALWAYS has bloat-ware. Some of which can be classed as malware.
- You have to buy what they offer. A lot of rigs only allow you to use specific hardware.
- Want to upgrade? You will probably void the warranty. Hell, upgrade might not even fit.
- Once piece of equipment is usually crap in most builds. No point in going all out on a cutting edge processor if your motherboard is going to bottleneck you.
- Price $$$. Take the same items you are buying in the all-in-one build, and price them out individually on Newegg, Tiger-direct, or Amazon. When I priced my home-built $1500 rig on HP, Alienware, and MSI, it came out to $5500 minimum. Some companies (Falcon) were up in the $8000 range. Two hours’ worth of work is not worth $4000 to me.
o You saved the money for a while (Penny pinching I think you said). Make all that saving worth the effort. Do it yourself. Then spend the rest on balloon rides.
o Another note. Since you know how to build computers, you are one of a select crowd that knows how. You have the ability to build a screaming machine for a fraction of the price. That’s some pretty powerful knowledge. Why not use it? Pride yourself on being one of the few.
[Side-note] Don’t go stupid with memory. Get a decent speed and size, I would say MAX 32 GB. Unless you do a lot of video modeling or CAD/animation, you will never use that much to begin with. It will be a waste. Definitely more than 8GB for games.

Of the companies I know of which provide decent gaming rigs:
Dell – I believe is now Alienware, but it’s a different division. They have a normal desktop division.
I’ve had good experiences with their non-Alienware setups.
HP – Decent desktops. Hit or miss unless you really know what you are doing.
MSI – I love their laptops, I’m sure their desktops fall in line
Falcon – Amazing setups if you want a super computer, but you will mess your pants when you see the price
Lenovo- no… just no, BAD!
Asus – Hit or miss, I’ve had good luck in the past
Alienware – Every hardcore gamer hates them. Mostly because they charge +500% for whatever they sell. Gamers usually aren’t rich. When you see one, you immediately have a pre-conceived notion that the owner is a douche. This isn’t always the case, but in the past, a lot of Alienware owners seemed to have an ego for their $8000 advanced calculator. Elitist mentality.
BestBuy anything- Stay far away. They usually have a model that specifically sold to just BestBuy. Stay away. These are made by the lowest bigger. So, unless you want a government computer, go elsewhere.
Digital Storm – Kind of middle of the road. Not a lot of experience here.
Origin – No idea here. Looks decent.

If that doesn’t convince you, then maybe this story will…
So, let’s say you go out and buy a retail all-in-one desktop computer. You bring it home and realize it’s not completely to your liking. So you open up the side of the computer in order to move some wires around and make the lighting a bit better. Ding! OOPS! Your microwave dinner is done! You go grab your dinner, but stop by the bathroom on the way there. During this time, the neighbor’s dog jumps through the glass window above your computer while trying to attack its reflection. All the glass falls into the side of your computer and the fans blow it around creating a clinking sound. The dog, in all this excitement, goes after the fan thinking it’s a dog toy. While the dog is trying to bite the fan blades, its fur catches fire from your Premium-Level VII processor while under your benchmarking runs. While on fire, the dog bites the fan blades, scaring the dog, which then tries to run back home. Unfortunately your wife/girlfriend/homeboy has added curtains all over the house, blocking the door, windows, and all fire escapes. The dog is now on fire, running all over the house catching everything on fire. 4 minutes and 38 seconds later, the rest of the house is on fire. Quickly, the fire spreads to the kitchen and microware. It begins to melt the microwave. Melted plastic and aluminum drip into your microwave dinner. Your evening is now ruined. Also, your plastic forks are melted.
Don’t ruin your microwavable meals. They are precious… Build your own computer. Trust me.

I've dealt with Dell workstations, laptops, servers, sans, kace appliances, etc and even somewhat recently worked at Dell research on their FX2 blade chassis and re-branding of their Force 10 switches. Dell is the Walmart of the computer industry. Meaning they are cost effective "read cheap" and have pushed most of the competition to the side via cost effective volume.

Their servers, sans, etc have been known to have firmware problems based on my 20 plus years of experience. Things like SAN iscsi connections just dropping in the middle of the day or the iscsi controller card deciding to disable its read/write caching even though there was no problem with the battery. These were not frequent problems but in a production environment where thousands of people rely on those servers it's bad.

The list is long of Dell screw ups. After seeing the debacle at their research facility I now understand why. Cough. The workstations have throughout generations of models had issues with cooked capacitors. Something that I last experienced in their all in one units which somebody else had bought because they were "quiet". Quiet in the computer world most often means "I want to look pretty but not move much air and cook capacitors".

With all that said I always tell people who know nothing about computers to buy a Dell and I tell them to buy the three year warranty. Buying the warranty allows me to keep from working on it.

Me, I always build my own but unless you know beyond a doubt about which components are going to play well together you could end up very unhappy. Questions that are in my mind is will I be able to upgrade the ram to the max without problems or playing with the timing.? How much wattage will the components pull at max which determines the power supply I need to buy? How do I plan on using it? How much airflow can I get out of the case? etc, etc....

My next one will probably be an AMD ryzen based system with a AMD vega video card. Mostly because I think Intel and Nvidia are dicks.

originally posted by: schuyler
I have purchased several hundred Dell computers in my life for my company--less than a thousand, but not by much. With that many computers, statistics, reliability, and MTBF (mean time between failure) come into play. I'm not dealing with anecdotal experience or opinion, but with the cold hard reality of time and numbers. They have been extremely reliable over the entire product line, from desktop PCs to rack-mount servers that need to be up 24x7. If you do need to service them, which is rare, it requires no tools. They just pop open very easily. Of course we had "special pricing" for being a volume buyer, but overall the price and value were just excellent. I've also had good luck with HP and Toshiba. And I agree with another poster here that IF you decide to build, Newegg is the place to go. They have excellent and extremely fast service for all sorts of parts.

Got long winded earlier.

Buy a battery backup like a APC ups. Power strips aren't the same as battery backups. What people do not realize is very often throughout the day power will sag and spike. Sometimes in a big way. This is not good for your computer.

Heat is your enemy. It's the death of many a laptop and workstation. Are those weird hangs you have been experiencing because your computer got too hot that one time? Har har har... The whole side of my case is one big fan and two 120mm ball bearing fans exhaust out the top. I could just about fly me a kite off of that exhaust.

Build a good machine and keep clean power coming in and keep it from getting too hot.

Oh, and never get addicted to playing Wow. I think it ended my second marriage. Well that and rants about conspiracy related subjects.