Vadim Chobanu

I would like to mention again that to get a PC you can build it yourself, ask a friend to do it, buy a ready-made one or get a custom pc from a system integrator. I pointed out in a previous blog that if you are after something decent, you are probably better off simply not buying an off the shelf PC, so this blogs question would be – which company to go for when buying a Custom PC and what to buy?

There isn’t a universal answer for that unfortunately. And please don’t expect me listing all the UK companies who make custom PCs as you can find them all in Google… Except some companies, which are not very good at SEO (Search Engine Optimisations), however you will find those easily by browsing PC magazines such as PC Pro, Custom PC, PC advisor etc. Google does a good job at what it does, however let’s not forget that a company can be brilliant at building and servicing PCs, but for one reason or another it won’t show in Google in the top results. A good example is Scan and Armari. If you are looking for a custom PC in Google it is very likely you won’t come across them and if you don’t read magazines, I guess you may lose a lot as both these companies have been around for a while, however they have been focused on keeping the existing customers happy, rather than getting new business. The life-cycle of a PC is around 2-4 years and when you are long enough in business, the same customers will come back and one day you will feel comfortable not to advertise as much as before.

Anyhow, let’s assume the list of companies that build PCs is in front of you ready and it’s a matter of choice now, who will you trust to take your money?

• The first and most important – can they build you the PC you are looking for? I guess the list will get shorter as some SI’s are focused on different price brackets to what you are looking. You have the £299-£499, 499-999, 999-2499, 1500-5000 price brackets. It is easy to classify each company by simply looking at their offerings and promotions.
• What I would look for next? Reviews, testimonials and general forum’s feedback. If a company has been a bit in business, it is very likely someone has left at least some feedback. To find that – google is your friend – use ‘problems’ and the company name you are researching. But again – don’t trust everything you read, especially for young companies or all the negative feedback – as sometimes it was left by someone who can never be pleased. Or the type who sees the glass always half empty. I feel sorry for those.
• Next, the warranties – take your time to read that, however please note that a young company will generally offer a more attractive story to get more business and generate more positive feedback.
• Once you are happy with all the above, (I guess the list will become shorter) i would look to put the final tick – check the company financials and background. I use a company called ‘company searches made simple’  however there are plenty of them on the market to provide a risk assessment on each and individual company. This is crucial, especially in the today’s market conditions.

So, as we narrowed down our list, it is the time to decide which PC to go for.

I wont go into technicalities in this article yet, however I would like to stress one important fact. It is only natural to assume that you can have pretty much what you want made custom for you as long as you have the dosh. However, looking for something very high end can be the fundamental error sometimes. It is like wanting a hotrod of the custom PCs. It will be fast, but it doesn’t mean it will last for very long or work like a clock all the year around. Owning a hotrod will need a lot of service just to give you that short ride of ultimate adrenalin gratification. Cram inside a good case the latest of everything, cool and tune it nicely and you have it – a PCs that will top the benchmark leader-boards, for a while.

So what can be wrong with wanting something nice and powerful? Let’s suppose you have the money, found the system integrator to make exactly what you wanted, you buy it with warranty of course and a few weeks later you have it – your Dream PC. I bet it will feel good. But what if the PC breaks down? The warranty covers it, I hear you say! The System Integrator will collect the PC, find the fault, source new hardware and possibly implement modifications, return the faulty one back to the supplier, rebuild the machine, maybe reinstall windows and then ship it back. So we are back at the same question – what is so fundamentally wrong with wanting a very high end PC?

The above is ok if it happens once… or twice… But what if the hardware doesn’t want to work as you expected? Who will we blame? The motherboard, CPU of VGA manufacturer? Nope, the system integrator – he has put it all together and charged for that – let him be so kind to fix it. We did exactly that all the time – no matter what the fault was, we were prepared to work non-stop to get down to the root of the problem.

Now, let’s imagine that the PC you purchased from is a decent company, who will get out of their skin to help you. Will you be happy? Probably for a while, however your frustration will grow each time a PC will be returned for repair and break again after. One of them reasons for breaking is that sometimes hardware manufacturers will release new hardware with unstable BIOS or even bugs in hope to provide fixes later. At first such hardware will pass all the tests a PC will go through while at the system integrator, but the real life use will be a bit different. Sometimes it can be the power fluctuations will affect a high end PC, the different humidity and even the different ambient temperature. Who is to blame again? Doesn’t matter, but you will have no PC while it is being fixed and having to help troubleshoot or make arrangements to be in for couriers to pick and return the PC, maybe you have confidential data on the PC – numerous reasons… Is that what you have expected from a Dream PC?

A high end PC will generally be also over-clocked. Over-clocking, so much popular nowadays, may affect your experience as well. It probably wont shorten the life of a component as much as generally thought, at least on the CPU level, however the motherboard may act a bit differently to what it normally should. Examples would be – random BIOS resets or the necessity to power the PC down and on in a certain way to avoid that. Again – nothing major that a true PC enthusiast should be scared of, but not exactly what is expected from a normal PC user who is generally afraid to update a BIOS.

So, the morale of the story – even if you have enough money to buy a very powerful PC, think twice before doing so if you are not a PC expert. Save yourself a bit of hassle and get something a bit less powerful or at least follow what a system integrator tells you. If someone has been in business for a while, he may be able to suggest something appropriate for you and making a call to such a company will put you in a better position to decide what you are really after.