Building your own computer instead of buying: Is it worth it?
Computers and other electronics are arguably the most important invention of human history to many people. These devices started out as large machines and can now fit in the palm of your hand. User-friendliness of them has caused an explosion in popularity the last 50 years or so. Today, you can buy many different kinds of electronic devices and computer from the internet, the store, or you can even build your own. Some people would argue in recent times that building your own computer would be better and more cost-effective than buying one that is already assembled like most people would. There are many different factors and circumstances relating to these inquiries and this question is important to many people (Glawion, 2021). It is debated between many that building your own computer is a task which is fiscally responsible and beneficial to people who use them for demanding tasks but not your average user. Learning the skills needed to do so also may not be worth the effort or time taken to do so to most people. The true question is this; Is it more cost-effective and appropriate for most computer-users in the year 2022 to build their own computer or buy one which is already completed and ready to utilize?
Personal computers began to become available in the 1970's and started to rend and become popular in the 1980's. Since then, the uses of these devices have proven to be truly unlimited and have enhanced every day life for every person on this planet in some way, shape, or form; no matter how minimal it may be. For some, this invention is a staple of their lives and allows them to become successful and accomplish many given tasks. Many devices are technically computers even though you personally may not realize it or see how. Some of these include modern cellular smart phones, modern smart televisions, modern vehicles, calculators, appliances, street intersection signals, and a plethora of others. It is likely surprising to some persons just how involved these devices are and truly how much technologies impact them.
All of these aforementioned devices are constructed of many of the same materials and pieces together to form their unique hardware. The most important component of any computer no matter how large or small is the processor. This part is essentially the brain of the entire operation and can think for itself in order to solve problems no matter how complex they may be (Grey, 2018). Another important piece is the random-access-memory (RAM). This memory can remember certain tasks, answers, or operations and temporarily store them so they can be accessed again sooner without the processor having to think about it again. One more piece that is important, especially in today's data-driven world, is the hard drive or other storage. This piece can store large amounts of data permanently in the forms of files, executables, and abundant other formats. Lastly, the graphics card is something used on many devices, but not all. If the piece of technology being driven has a screen or physically displays any information, it must have some kind of graphics processing hardware.
Capitalism is something that has fueled the race to enhance computer hardware and software as well as made them abundantly available to the average person and consumer. This is why this industry of technology has flourished in the United States of America, because innovation is the key to success in business ventures for the most part. In today's world and recently in the past, you can literally just walk into any store that sells computers or other smart devices and just purchase it if you wish to do so. Another option is to construct the computer yourself from all the raw components. You can custom buy and build personal computers with the exact parts and performance from the unique components that you wish for, depending on your intended usage of the machine (Alcorn, 2022). There may be drawbacks as well as advancement you may gain from doing so as well, it all depends on your purpose for building.
Current events in the world have a profound impact on the pricing and availability of personal computer components, some more dramatically than others. The Covid-19 pandemic led to a worldwide shortage of many materials and products in stores, especially in the United States of America. The effects of this shortage and pandemic are still being felt today and computer components are one of the most affected items due to this. Some reasonings for this include worker shortages as some became sick and could not work; factories all of the planet even shut down as certain points in time. Some places even went to working from home as much as possible which in some cases reduced productivity of items in factories and other manufacturing industries. The effect of this is that the prices of many computer components were significantly raised and some continue to be heavily raised today (Price, 2020).
Crypto currency and crypto mining are something which both took a heavy toll on the already short availability of many necessary computer components. Essentially, digital forms of currency have become very popular in the last few years. One of the methods for obtaining crypto currency was to "mine" for it on a computer system. In short, the process for this involved using a computer with heavy and fast hardware to compute block of data which produced crypto currency. The most important component for this process is and was still the graphics card (Fitzpatrick, 2017). As a result of this, even today, the prices of graphics cards are affected the worst. Prices for these cards today are often up to 300% of what they were sold for commonly only a couple of years ago. This card coincidentally is also the most sought-after piece of hardware for video game enthusiasts, video editors, model renderers, and many other provisions. Many of these end-users have begun to hoard these pieces of equipment and even scalpers have taken the opportunity to do so as well. They sometimes buy these parts as cheap as possible then sell them for an incredible markup to others who were not so fortunate to come into possession of them. This in itself significantly raises the prices of building your own computer, especially if you are doing so to play video games or accomplish another hardware-intensive and demanding task.
Generally, it is more expensive to build your own computer than to purchase one. Gathering all the necessary components to complete such a task is more expensive and much more time-consuming than simply going to the store and buying one or ordering one online. The upside to this is tat the performance of this computer will likely far exceed most machines that you can purchase from any store (Brant, 2020). This will net you much improved performance on those aforementioned demanding tasks like video rendering and modeling. For those, the time it takes to put a video together or visualize a model or graphic will be much shorter on a better machine. For video games, you will achieve significantly more frames per second (FPS) on your screen. Essentially this means that the video you are watching and manipulating on the video game will appear to be much more smooth and less jagged and have a higher visual high-definition resolution.
In order to obtain the skills necessary to build a computer yourself, it could take years of research and practice. The best way to do this is widely regarded to be watching video tutorials on YouTube. You could also hire a corporation or person to complete this task for you once you have chosen your desired components for the desired performance you wish to achieve (Parson, 2017). The average person likely does not use their computer for demanding tasks, they only use it for things like checking E-mails, surfing the internet, and potentially storing files. So, the time and effort it takes to build a powerful personal computer machine is not necessary. One could compare it to a non-car enthusiast trying to custom-build their own vehicle instead of just purchasing one. It does not make sense for most people but for the minority who are into things like that, it could be very desirable.
In summary, this process of research and construction of your own personal computer is absolutely worth the time and effort; however, only to a minority of people. The average person would not benefit to this or save any money compared to purchasing a lighter-performance machine themselves. Any person who has hobbies online or on a computer with any kinds of demanding tasks would benefit from this area of study and expertise. There is a very high-risk and high-reward topic and the reward is only necessary to some and would remain unused by most others.
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