Is pc building a dying trend?

[Cerb]

Sort of. I've noticed gamers and prosumers needing customization of selection that the big vendors do not want to offer, and so seemingly getting customs more than in the past. Yet, for any basic use, it's dead, dead, dead.

It's probably going the way of other niches, with increased visibility, but decreased units over time, relative to the big boys. However, no company that has suitably good stats on the matter publicly releases them, so that's just speculation.

I for one have no problem using outdated equipment, so long as it does what I need it to, as well.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Well, first it was always a very small niche. You basically just need to ask, what are we on this forum doing? What about the 'elder' geeks we know? Or the younger millennials behind us? Pretty much all of my CS major geek friends from GA Tech, Dartmouth, etc. have all migrated to Apple and no longer game. Those older than me are typically busy with career and family. And the millennials behind me are too stupid and impatient to get into the hobby; you can't easily take selfies with a desktop.

So yeah it's dying. But I still build and enjoy it. As do a small handful of friends.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I enjoy the builds,build pretty much around what i can afford.My latest build started off with a i3 2100 and 6790 built on a h61 motherboard.Ended up with a i7 3770 ,770 and a b75 motherboard.The board got replaced simply cause the h61 failed and i ended up wanting usb3+sata6 anyways Could have made due with h61 if i didn't have a failure but it gave me a excuse either way.

Went from a Gateway DX 4200 series case with ghetto mods for airflow to a Antec GX500,been a fun adventurous build with many twists and turns lol.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Well, first it was always a very small niche. You basically just need to ask, what are we on this forum doing? What about the 'elder' geeks we know? Or the younger millennials behind us? Pretty much all of my CS major geek friends from GA Tech, Dartmouth, etc. have all migrated to Apple and no longer game. Those older than me are typically busy with career and family. And the millennials behind me are too stupid and impatient to get into the hobby; you can't easily take selfies with a desktop.

So yeah it's dying. But I still build and enjoy it. As do a small handful of friends.

The hobby has been singing its swan song since the early 2000s...

 

[rsbennett00]

Sort of. I've noticed gamers and prosumers needing customization of selection that the big vendors do not want to offer, and so seemingly getting customs more than in the past. Yet, for any basic use, it's dead, dead, dead.

It's interesting that you say that and I'm wondering if you can elaborate more?

For instance, my friends and I have been buying i7 based HP Z series desktops with a large storage drive and no video card (since they generally want to include quadros), pop an ssd and video card in to call it good.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I barely game anymore. My system just turned five, the video card turned four.

Think I might ride this one until something dies. Money's on the CPU fan or lithium battery for the BIOS -- really hope that thing doesn't leak before running out of juice because this thing isn't off enough to drain it.

Oh, and I just bought a new battery for my 4 year old laptop rather than upgrade for an extra $300.

I don't buy it.

 

[brianmanahan]

there is no way i would buy a prebuilt desktop

 

[rsbennett00]

there is no way i would buy a prebuilt desktop

Why not?

 

[chubbyfatazn]

Seems there's enough of a market to sustain it, however small the niche. A very slow and prolonged death if it is.

A big part of it for me is the fun it involves. I always get some personal satisfaction from saying "hey, I made/repaired this!" (doesn't apply to just computers).

It also makes me "that guy" to my family/friends, and I get commissioned to build a "gaming PC" or whatever for them sometimes. Not much effort for the extra money imo.

Controlling the quality of my computer (and thus how much money I have to pour into it later on down the road) is probably the other biggest part.

 

[Imp]

there is no way i would buy a prebuilt desktop

I wouldn't either... Just so I don't have to worry about voiding the warranty if I want to venture inside to swap something out. And I won't have to worry about where they penny-pinched. And I don't have to deal with bloatware from the manufacturer's install -- though I did strip my Dell laptop down pretty well.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Built my current office rig using a Silverstone TJ08-E and it's impressive how much stuff I could cram in (non-modular BFG ES800, reference 6970, AIO watercooling, etc.).

That said, I still like having a big a*s tower (TJ09-S). <-- Dream case and I waited 5 years before finally buying it

I stopped building three years ago after doing it since I was a teenager. I play games on consoles now. It's nice to be able to play with your friends right next to you or just sit back on the couch and play. Also it's expensive keeping up with a decent rig, none of us want to have outdated gear.

If anything, it's been MORE affordable in the last 5 years, eg. if you bought DDR3 when it hit rock bottom and have at least a highly OCed i7 920, about the only thing you'd need to upgrade every now and then is the vid card.

I stick my 780 in my old i7 920 @ 4.1GHz when visiting the folks and it's still more than serviceable.

 

[Carson Dyle]

[rant] Maybe this has been discussed here before but I can't seem to find a thread. Just ordered some components for my first build since a Pentium 2 - 200mhz, needless to say, things have changed...

Pentium _2_?

From what I've seen, most of the big kids (Dell, HP, etc...) are selling systems that are almost comparable in price to something you could build yourself, especially for the basic user.

That's pretty much always been the case. But since your Pentium 2 days, there are far fewer big kids. Forget PC building, PCs themselves are a dying platform.

While I managed to get a slightly better build for a slightly cheaper price, I'm not sure it's worth the hassle.

I'm not sure that building a system to save money has been feasible for many, many years. There might have been a time when the savings were because you weren't paying for support, but you don't get much support these days from anyone selling PCs.

As for hassle... The biggest hassle is just trying to stay current, knowledge-wise. Or getting caught up when you decide you need a new system. Buying the parts online is easy and slapping them together can be done by a nine-year-old.

It seems like there are fewer component choices these days (maybe I'm nuts) and your options are very limited from the days of the past... [/end rant]

There are fewer _components_ these days, not fewer choices. Integration of networking, audio and video onto motherboards and CPUs means most systems are assembled without a single add-in card. But there are far more choices in CPUs, motherboards, memory, cases, power supplies ... than ever before.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

Slightly disagree about motherboard choices, at least as far as brands go.
RIP ABIT, AOpen, DFI, EPoX

 

[Carson Dyle]

Slightly disagree about motherboard choices, at least as far as brands go.
RIP ABIT, AOpen, DFI, EPoX(

I'm surprised those are the only ones that have gone under. I'm sure there will be more soon. The existing companies are chasing pieces of an increasingly smaller pie. But it hasn't really lessened the choices for consumers, as nearly all of the remaining companies embrace every idiotic chipset that Intel churns out and produces boards at (arbitrary) price points up and down the line.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

I'm sure I'm missing a couple of others, but those were the ones that I care about
Used to get motherboards samples from them straight from Taiwan.

 

[LTC8K6]

I just started building again after a very long break.

Been a lot of fun catching up, and I am glad I have a hobby again.

 

[Markbnj]

It is certainly a dying trend. The PC form factor is a dying trend. PC-specific software is a dying trend. I'll keep my 2005 Coolermaster Wavemaster case as long as I can buy upgraded motherboards to put in it, but I think the next generation won't even remember what a mini-tower looked like.

 

[brianmanahan]

Why not?

because they never offer quite what i want.

last prebuilt i bought was in 2004 - a dell that was MOSTLY good, but not quite. it did provide a 19" LCD for basically free, which made it a good deal.

but the graphics card was meh and the P4 CPU sucked. eventually mobo died and had to be replaced. i still have it around just to use as a TV-watching computer for my treadmill.

after that i built a custom PC and have upgraded it 3 or 4 times since then - much better experience. so much easier to work within the antec case, and all the components were quality.

 

[OverVolt]

Computers I've built last a long time and parts are more replaceable when they break. So I've saved money I reckon.

I've switched purposes behind building. Its no longer about LEDs gaming and overclocking and mostly about cheap, small, stable, reliable, and lasts a long time.

 

[JEDI]

[rant] Maybe this has been discussed here before but I can't seem to find a thread. Just ordered some components for my first build since a Pentium 2 - 200mhz, needless to say, things have changed...

From what I've seen, most of the big kids (Dell, HP, etc...) are selling systems that are almost comparable in price to something you could build yourself, especially for the basic user. While I managed to get a slightly better build for a slightly cheaper price, I'm not sure it's worth the hassle.

It seems like there are fewer component choices these days (maybe I'm nuts) and your options are very limited from the days of the past... [/end rant]

meh.. the longest part of building a rig is the software.

even if I buy a dell, I wipe it then reinstall Win7 because of the crapware. then add antivirus + Office.
install + all updates + Ghost image = 3hrs.

put together best bang for the buck parts (hd/memory/video card/cpu + mobo combo/Usb 3.0 case) = 1hr

I still would do piecemeal since the software installs takes up is the majority of the time spent

 

[RaistlinZ]

You don't build for price. You build because it's a hobby and it's fun.

I spend WAY more on components than is sometimes necessary. But I do it because I want a machine I can customize to my exact preferences.

 

[TheVrolok]

You don't build for price. You build because it's a hobby and it's fun.

I spend WAY more on components than is sometimes necessary. But I do it because I want a machine I can customize to my exact preferences.

This. Building is something I really enjoy, and I do end up with an above average quality build because of it. Certainly not the price savings I got 10-15 years ago. Admittedly, I don't game as often anymore, so I'm not building as frequently (current gaming system is about 1.6 years old, but prior to that had a system for almost 6 years with only one GPU upgrade). And my last system built was a HTPC /nostalgia gaming machine I built in an old NES housing. Tons of fun.

 

[rsbennett00]

because they never offer quite what i want.

last prebuilt i bought was in 2004 - a dell that was MOSTLY good, but not quite. it did provide a 19" LCD for basically free, which made it a good deal.

but the graphics card was meh and the P4 CPU sucked. eventually mobo died and had to be replaced. i still have it around just to use as a TV-watching computer for my treadmill.

after that i built a custom PC and have upgraded it 3 or 4 times since then - much better experience. so much easier to work within the antec case, and all the components were quality.

Ok, I can understand that. So if someone did offer a prebuilt with what you want and zero bloatware, you'd be ok with it, right?

I've never quite understood the upgrading bit. To me an upgrade entails cpu/mb/ram at the very minimum.

 

[Moonbeam]

I want to build a 5K Mac but Dell wants 2400 just for the screen.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Sadly it probably is. What sucks is eventually we'll be stuck with super proprietary embeded throw away systems. These have their place, but I can't imagine it being the only option.

I just hope that at the very least, server hardware like Supermicro based systems will not go away. Would really suck if servers become completely unreachable by consumers because only big cloud companies will buy them and they'll be super custom and proprietary for those companies only.