Hello,

I felt compelled to share this, as I guess this will be a recurrent question for many people living in CH. I had to figure the answer myself lately.

Why would you build a PC yourself in CH rather than buy it assembled?

1) IMHO all the sellers who sell entire PC in CH usually s*** e.g. Dell they sell you the standard main components e.g. Intel CPU but they fill up the rest with garbage: the case is plastic garbage, the motherboard is cheap and minimal and you have no chance to upgrade/replace stuff in it e.g. only 2 PCI-E slots, their PSU are minimal so you buy a piece of hardware that in 3 years time you have to throw it away and get a new one entirely because you can't upgrade it or reuse in any way. Think how much plastic hardware crap gets accumulated and disposed due to this business model.

2) The support is terrible and warranties lasts too short time for the life spam of the PCs e.g. 1 year in most online shops.

3) If you buy the best components yourself, you save big bucks I estimate around 1-1.5k, the problem is putting them together and this you can do searching in youtube. Besides many high-quality computer part and Case makers e.g. Corsair show you how to do this via videos in their websites or in Youtube and it is fun to do too.

4) In CH there are no shops (or not known for that matter) like iBuyPower Cyberpower UK or US. They take care of assembling and openly let you choose the quality parts inside and put an extra low margin on top for their work and Quality assurance. I explored the possibility to buy from Cyberpower but it is way too expensive to ship and I guess the custom taxes will defeat the purpose altogether.

So what do you need to build a PC express DIY?

1) PSU power supply, if you don't know how many wat take 850W to be safe but if you are an enthusiast then you will know which one to get. Best brands I can recommend after tons of research are ThermalTake and Corsair.
2) Case, midtower should be ok, full tower if you don't want to risk not being able to fit big parts in it e.g. 2 video cards in SLI or a CPU cooler
3) Motherboard, here you shouldnt compromise since the features will allow you to have your motherboard outlive all other components i.e. buy the best.
4) CPU, you are in control you should know what you want it for.
5) CPU Cooler, this is important and there are three main types I think: liquid, closed liquid and air based. I am not an expert so I would stay away from liquid, closed liquid has the risk of being defective and leaking which will destroy whatever part the liquid falls into, so I prefer to stay safe and use air based solution. The best I know is Noctua CPU Cooler NH-D14, you may look it up in amazon they have the best air based CPU cooling systems.
6) RAM, this you have plenty of choices and you may look for the best DDR 3 RAM, since this is a small piece you may have it shipped from the US or UK no problems, the CH customs more often than not judge the items by the size disregard of the price (this is my personal experience) so you will most likely be safe here ordering overseas.
7) Video Card, like in the CPU case you should know what you want and what you want it for. I personally prefer nVidia (I also needed for programming CUDA) and EVGA products are of the highest quality. You may be also satisfied with the video card bundled within the Motherboard.
8) Hard drive, here you want to get an SSD and there is plenty of choice in Switzerland. The brands I prefer are Crucial and OWC (macsales OtherWorldComputing) but this last is not available in CH they have the fastest but most expensive ones. Crucial is the best value for the money.
9) Sound card, many people will do just fine and be happy with the one bundled with the Motherboard but not me, I prefer to have awesome sound so I get Creative cards which are the best I think.

I built my own PC and these are the parts I bought and the shops I bought them from:

ASUS Rampage IV Extreme : *405 (steg)
Intel i7 3930K: *573.50 (microspot)
CORSAIR Obsidian 800D: *279.35 (topd)
Corsair PSU AX1200 Gold: *287.09 (digitec)
Corsair Dominator GT 16GB Quad Channel : *284.51 (ebay CMT16GX3M4X2133C9)
Noctua CPU Cooler NH-D14 SE2011: *96.35 (microspot)
LG BH10LS38 Super Multi Blue : *102.40 (steg)
Creative Recon3D Fatal1ty Pro : *174.15 (steg)
G19 Keyboard for Gaming : *124.50 (logitech)
Corsair AirFlow Pro™ Dynamic Temperature and Activity
Display for Dominator Memory : *61 (pcp CMXAFPRO)
EVGA GeForce GTX 670 SC : *480.70 (steg)
==================================================
Total : *2868.55

Feel free to ask if you need help.

HTH
Cheers,
TapiroLee

I bought a barebones PC from Steg a couple of years ago - loads of ports, slots and plenty of expandable potential. I did not find any of the problems you describe. It was cheaper to do that, than to buy the components for something comparable and build it myself.

Of course, the total cost - once I'd put in a few extra toys, which was a doddle because the case is very nicely designed - was less than half what you paid, so I guess my requirements (business use - plus occasionally running SAP) aren't the same as yours. I can't remember the last time I spent that kind of a money on a PC - and that's in 20 years of buying them.

I use Be Quiet PSUs - which are very very quiet. Interestingly, the power requirements over the years have decreased. I now have a 400W PSU, whereas the previous box was 750W.

You're right. Building your own PC is often cheaper, is definitely fun, and generally cheaper. But do most PC users need a system like yours?

Yes you are right, what I bought is almost highest end, the best you can buy currently except CPU which is the model before the best i7 3960K E difference being 3MB cache and over 500CHF more and a negligible performance difference and same for the GPU. But this is an example of what I got and where I got it from. I tend to change PC once every ten years with some minor upgrades in-between, this strategy has worked pretty well for me instead of buying every 3-4 years and getting junkier parts that needs quicker replacing. I'm more on the enthusiast segment side and I do hardcore programming C++, Java, Oracle, multiple OS, servers etc plus some sporadic gaming.

You are right about Steg and I like them actually, but you have to understand that these kind of assemblers, they make the dough out of putting "less than optimal" parts which they build themselves or buy from cheaper third parties, usually they compromise with: the Motherboard, PSU, RAM, etc while they give you and advertise the well known main component parts like the CPU, Graphic card etc.

My point being, if you want good meat buy a proper beefsteak rather than a Swiss Bratwurst so-to-speak.

The experience I've had 12-14 years ago with assembling PCs was that some motherboards did not really work with some CPU types they were supposed to support or some memory modules, or a particular hard drive type would require some quirky BIOS setup, etc etc. Are such problems common nowadays?

Same problems still yes, but that's why you should build it yourself. A well known e.g. ASUS Motherboard with clear specs on what the CPU supported socket and type is will most likely outlive an unknown Motherboard sold by some of the known resellers. At least you do have a choice to make.

I have no idea what you guys are talking about, but that's probably because the girls at this party I'm at are shrieking and spraying each other with beer and tequila.

The guys build these machines so that they can watch these parties on the internet

The guys actually build these machines because they are not some random ignorant douchebag that needs to be surrounded by hos and wasteful superficial emptiness to show off about his superficial and pretended joy he calls a life.

That went downhill fast!!

I guess I'm more like NotAllThere, my requirements are at the lower end of the spectrum. I figure that even buying a non-optimal Dell system at about CHF700, I could replace it every 3-4 years as you mention, and in the the 10 years your system lasts you still only incur a cost of about CHF2100, with no upgrade costs. But that's because I can make do with a basic system, and for me, a bare bones system (or something cheap from a mass producer) is more cost effective for me.

My current computer is a Lenovo T61 laptop, 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo, with 4Gb RAM. Probably will upgrade sometime soon but it does everything I need it do at the moment.

I used to do that until I had a glitching system that took three months to nail down. If you build a system yourself you better be capable of fixing it yourself.. Also, I did once seriously electrocute myself (and blow the house mains in the process) by forgetting to unplug the mains cable - the box was powered off, but the PSU was still live

Completely agree though that it's fun to do, if you're the tinkering kind of person, but people really shouldn't underestimate the time involved.

Also, I'm writing this on a PC that cost less than your PSU

Just to add my two cents...

For desktop and laptop computers, if you wanna buy a model with SSD, first check the price of the same model without SSD.

I often find that they rise incredibly the price just for including SSD, and you can save a bit just by buying the model without SSD and then buying it apart. In addition you can use the magnetic hard drive as external storage.

Also, you can always save a few bucks if you buy a CPU wich is not among the most new ones. Just make sure the mother board supports not yet released CPUs and you will be able to update always in the future when prices go down.

Ignorance is considered a virtue among some sectors of the community. Unfortunately, they're allowed to breed.

So you are at a party... and instead of joining in the party... you are logging into the internet to use a forum...

Q: Do you have Facebook?
A: Yes.
Q: MSN?
A: Yes.
Q: Skype?
A: Yes.
Q: Twitter?
A: Yes.
Q: How about a life?
A: Oh ... I have that too, but I forgot my password.

Yup, but we're all heading home now. Will probably stop for waffles and coffee so will check in again soon. A mod's shift never ends but having access to the EF Yacht and lab quality stimulants does make it all worthwhile.

Hello guys! does anyone know where can someone get screws for PC Compontents? i bought recently a SSD Samsung 840 series 250gb and i cannot find any screws in the market. therefore it is still in the original package. Please help.. thanx

You need a drive rail kit/ 3.5-->2.5 convertor kit. That means buying the brackets to get the screws. When you buy OEM, you don't get these, the retail drives do.

Phone up Digitec, or seen them an email. Ask for them, their build guys will have loads lying around. Aso , have a look at Digitec , category Case / Cooling Accessories filter/check box for bolts. Article number 132336

Thanx a lot man!! I used to have a lot myself but I had to leave em behind when i left the UK. Do you know where the sell brackets for 2.5"?

Jeez guys, just get a mac.