I completely agree with you. I've built two gaming PCs for less than the price of one pre-built "gaming PC" that may not perform quite as well, but perform well enough to max out the resolution and settings in WoW. While WoW is graphic intensive, it still pales to the intensity many other games require.

Building it yourself is indeed cheeper, assuming these items are not worth anything to you:

1. Time. It will take time to assemble the machine, load an operating system, and so on. And this all assumes you have the skill to do so without damaging any parts.
2. Support. If something goes wrong, who do you contact for assistance?
3. Warranty. Sure, the parts will each have their own warranty, but that means more time dealing with troubleshooting to find out exactly who to call.
4. Operating system and other software. Most build it yourself people leave the cost of software out. If a person wants to have a legal setup, this is important.
5. Quality. Many times, low end "cheep" components are going to cause issues, or make the system really loud, or other issues.

I built my own machines for a while when I was interested in tinkering, and they served my needs fine. I no longer do so because the stuff I'd like to tinker with is outside the home PC realm now, and I just want to buy a box, plug it in, and be done with it.

As for upgradability, there really isn't any with either path. If you build it yourself, sure, you might be able to reuse the case for a new build. But odds are, some new CPU generation will come out, requiring a new motherboard, that then requires new RAM, a new power supply, and so on. That hard drive from 4 years ago is going to be small by todays standards.

Even with the cost of buying a new OS and using high quality parts its still cheaper. I also find it more satisfying to do it myself.

I also like knowing off the bat what the upgrade limits are on what I'm working with.

My current rig allows me to run WoW with 8GB of RAM but the motherboard and OS have a limit of 16 GM so if WoW cranks up its graphics with the next XPAC I'm not stuck with a 2 chip-slot motherboard like most off-the-shelf PCs are.

@tom

Honestly it's not that hard for people to learn. I taught myself about computer hardware when I was about 12 and this was well over a decade ago, before every home had a PC and WELL before every home had a gaming PC.

Step 1: Put it together - Motherboard, RAM, CPU, GPU, hard drive and you're done. Granted the first time you do it might take you a while and possibly require some help or research of your own but honestly it's not that hard and once you've done it once you learn pretty quick.

Step 2: Install your OS. For most, Windows XP is still the correct choice. Put in the CD and let it run. Once it's done, either visit the vendor sites and install the latest drivers (something you rarely get when buying a premade) or just use the included CDs. Again, stick it in and watch it run.

You now have a PC at the same level you would have if you bought it premade, only far cheaper. When trying to figure out the price difference, consider this: I built my machine for about $1800(AU) or so a couple years ago. A guy from work bought a pre-made gaming machine and paid about $3500 (AU). I'm talking high end machines here, not just 'will play WoW'.

Thats a price difference of $1700(AU)... now I can go from a box of bits to a finished machine in a few hours, mostly waiting for installs to happen, but for first timers you'll probably be looking at a full day to get to the stage you would had you bought a premade machine, maybe more if you have problems. I sure as all hell don't get paid 1700 bucks a day - if you do, then I'm sure you can more then afford to buy premade machines. For the rest of us, it's worth learning.

So... would you rather spend a day doing it yourself, or spend 2 weeks wages for someone else to do it for you? You also get to learn new skills doing it on your own which is always nice.

Your points about warranties etc are valid, but again, the 10 minutes you spent sorting that out are much better value then the cost of someone else doing it (ringing, getting an RA and mailing it really is not such a big deal and you wait the same time no matter who does it).

So yeah.. it's all no doubt a pain to learn if things dont go to play the first time, but after that it's a breeze and you save a fortune.

"5. Quality. Many times, low end "cheep" components are going to cause issues, or make the system really loud, or other issues. "

You are far more likely to have these problems in a pre-built PC in my experience. If you build your own PC you choose the quality of every single component. Large PC companies do not choose e.g. cooling solutions based on how quiet they are, they choose them based on cost.

I recently replaced my rig and when I went to get all the parts to build my own, it actually worked out that it was cheaper to buy a pre-built than to build it myself from the same parts by about $900, due to a sale. On top of that, many of the parts I wanted from my beloved and trusted computer store were on backorder due to popularity so I was able to get that prebuilt faster as well.

Definitely build yourself - its cheaper, and you tend to learn a LOT about your machine. Makes it easier to troubleshoot issues later on down the road.

You'll want a tri/quad/i7 as close to 3.0ghz as possible, 4gig ram, and a good graphics card - nvidia 9800gtx / ati 4850 - or better if you want to run Ultra Settings.

But if you DO decide to buy, do NOT buy the Dell XPS 630i machine. Its unstable in wow, and Dell can't be bothered to find the cause of the problem with the machine. We know its a hardware issue (we're suspecting a bad mobo), but can't be sure.