Self-assembly or not?
After completing a PC build list and buying all the PC parts you need, the final step is building your PC. There is the ultimate question: DIY or not. Below we would list out the pros and cons of building the PC yourselves or not.
If you choose to build it yourself
You've made the decision to take things into your own hands. It is a bold decision, it is because building a PC by yourself for the first time without help could be challenging. The advantages of building a PC yourselves includes the learning experience. If you are enthusiastic about tech, having this experience is definitely a gain and not a loss. As a person who loved tech and just built a PC by myself, building a PC feels like an adventure. Troubleshooting all the problems which might appear and executing the whole build process is a fun experience. The moment when your PC boots up for the first time, a sense of satisfication as well as achivement is definitely present.Besides, in general there's less markup in PC parts when we buy it separately comparing to pre-built PCs. This could help us to save money to invest into a nother part or just reduction in expenses. On the other hand, warranties of PC parts separately are also generally longer than out-of-the-box models which essentially "future-proofing" your PC as well as saving money in case any parts break down and you would need to send it back for a warranty claim.
For the disadvantages, building a PC by yourselves demands a time commitment. Planning and building a PC could take weeks of research, aquisition of the PC parts that you want as well as the time spent building the machine. The time has a high potential to increase depending on a lot of aspects such as your familiarity to building a PC, mistakes make, compability issues and etc. If you need a PC immediately with the lesser the time spent obtaining it the better, you are better off finding a pre-built-PC if a minor difference of price is not your concern. Besides, it could be hard obtaining accurate reviews from the internet, since most user reviews comes from forums which is not from a knowledgeable source. Essentially you are trusting a stranger which hopefully gives you the correct information and impression on the product which you are researching on. Not just that, with insufficient knowledge on building a PC can result in putting together parts incorrectly, resulting in part malfunction, warranty voiding as well as extra money spent replacing parts.
If you choose to leave to the professionals
You've decided to let the pros take over. This is also a wise choice, essentially gaining the benefits corresponding to the disadvantages of building a PC yourself. Firstly, you save a lot of time. Finding a shop or a friend who has a great knowledge of building a PC essentially saves you the hassle of researching, purchasing and assembling the PC. It also guarantees the quality of the build as well as saving the time and effort you have to put in. Besides, it also prevents any chance of damaging PC parts as you are not in contact with the PC parts. If there are any problems, simply refer back to the person which you've purchased the PC from and start a warraty claim.
On the other hand, by leaving the matter to others' hands, there are a few disadvantages. First of all, a pre-built PC which completely fits your requirements could prove to be hard as most pre-built PCs are catered for general usage and have minimum to standard parts in them. For example if you need a lot of hard drive spaces, there is a high chance that the PCs you found have minimal to none empty hard drive slots. Secondly, a pre-built PC is generally more expensive than custom build when it comes to gaming and / or intensive workloads. Purchasing PC parts separately can save money for you to invest on something else or in general reduce spending. Thirdly, if you would like to upgrade the parts or add additional parts, you could potentially void your warranty on the machine as pre-build PCs have their PCs counted as a whole when it comes to warranty. Even a simple gesture of opening your PC case could result in warranty voiding.