Pre-assembled, custom builds

Out of the ordinary request on these forums, I know, but I was wondering if anyone knew what the best vendor was for "pre-assembled", custom builds?

My mother-in-law's boss is looking to put a PC together and was looking for love in all the wrong places (Alienware...). I don't live in the same state and I also don't want to invest the time in building and maintaining something for him, so I looked online for a "custom" shop. The cheapest I came across was ibuypower.com. Seemed like it would be in the neighborhood of $1500 the i7/970 build I was threw together through their system build UI. Not terribly overpriced, I suppose, with a 3 year service plan and them doing all the labor (not to mention, it's not my money ).

I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing another, better option for that service. Looks like microcenter will assemble builds for (as little as?) $130. I'll have to price that out.

I also looked through this query, but none of them really matched the parts list I would select...

Has anyone gone this route? Experience?

Thanks


P.S. Not sure if it's necessary, but budget is $1200-1500. Buying monitor separately. Needs OS pre-installed.

Also check Falcon Northwest and Puget Systems.

I looked at Puget and (just) checked Falcon. Both seem to be about 30% more than ibuyerpower.com. Still less than Alienware (and much higher quality), though.

If the Microcenter option truly is $130 and includes OS, drivers, and updates installation along with assembly, it certainly seems like the cheapest way to go. Doing the numbers in my head, I think it'll be about $300 less at MC than ibuypower. That $300 buys you the 3 year warranty from the latter (but it's 3 year labor/ 1 year parts and you have to pay shipping...so basically useless lol).

have you looked at dell?

I'll have to ask a coworker he knew of another one but I don't remember if the prices competed with ibuypower or not

caddi daddi said:

have you looked at dell?

Click to expand...

Isn't Alienware their "gaming" wing? Those are overpriced by a lot. If you had something else in mind, please link it to me.


I added everything to a cart on microcenter's site last night and total would come to ~$1450 after tax and the $130 assembly/installation fee.

Corsair Air 240
4790K
Asrock H97M-Pro4
8GB 1600
250GB 840 EVO
EVGA ACX 2.0 970
1TB WD
EVGA Supernova 750

Now that I look at the list, I would also need to add an optical drive, so tack on another $20.

ninjacore said:

Isn't Alienware their "gaming" wing? Those are overpriced by a lot. If you had something else in mind, please link it to me.

Click to expand...

Alienware *is* Dell.

Check out CyberpowerPC http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

I did not know that, thanks!

why not go with the i5 cpu, less cost and will do most anything anybody needs to do and will cover the cost of an optical drive.

kyfire said:

Check out CyberpowerPC http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/

Click to expand...

They were a little bit more than ibuypower.com

caddi daddi said:

why not go with the i5 cpu, less cost and will do most anything anybody needs to do and will cover the cost of an optical drive.

Click to expand...

He'll be using it for a great variety of tasks along with gaming. His budget was also high enough that I didn't really think twice about $80 for 4 more threads. Another reason I've been going 4790K over 4690K for builds like these, where I know the user won't be tinkering with it, is the extra 0.4Ghz you get with the i7. That's almost the max that the i5 would hit when overclocked, and you get it out of the box.

He ordered through microcenter today. I'll post back when I have details on how it went.

The only change was an Air 540 instead of the 240. I didn't even think to look, but apparently the Giga 970 is too long for the 240. Kind of a hummer. Was hoping to keep it smaller for him, but both are great cases. Total was right around 1500 with Windows and everything.