I'm curious. This is for those of you who frequently help other people get a new computer, or frequently upgrade your own. This means either a whole new machine, or at least mostly new major components.

When building a new computer for someone or for yourself, what route do you take?
Buy a Dell (or other manufacturer)
Buy most or all components from Newegg
Buy most or all components from another store (MWave, Googlegear, etc.)
Use price finding search tools to find the best prices on each component
Other

I only ask because I have gone with methods 1,2, and 4, and would like some impressions on what other people think is the best way to go. This is in the case (when advising someone else) that you do actually get involved in the purchasing process, and don't just tell them to screw themselves

My experiences:
I built my own machine a year ago last month, and I went with method #4. I wasn't a fan of this method. It meant that I had to keep track of a variety of different stores, and I swear that every single one of them had a different shipping policy when it came to shipping to an address that was different from your billing address.

Recently, I advised my girlfriend to order everything but the monitor and keyboard (she wanted a certain keyboard) from Newegg.com. Aside from the store losing her order when they had a problem with the alternate address, it was much simpler, and there was only one payment for a variety of components.

That's just the way I saw it. In the future I'm willing to give up the few extra dollars I can save by going with one good company for everything.

It became not worth my while to screw around and so I started just buying whole. Then I found gotapex.com and started buying whole Dells for cheap.

I'm all about Newegg. I buy all my crap from them.

I buy something from them at least once a week and my order is never effed-up.

I build my own from components. Then I can have high end components in areas that are important to me (video card, for example) and slightly less than high end everywhere else. With corporate built machines, often you can only get the high end video (or whatever) with the top of the line CPU, etc. I don't like packages; I want to select my own components.

I buy everything from newegg, though I used to use mwave and was happy with them. Newegg has better service and comparable prices.

FWIW,
Jim

Actually this year was the first time I built my own and would always buy and recommend Dell. This year it seemed I could get better quality for the same price. Besides, I got the cool Thermaltake Xaser III case...

So build my own AND recommend Dell to others. Uh... 1 and 2 (I guess other).

Edit: I did get all the parts from Newegg.com

Edit Again: Unless I'm recommending a laptop... I really like the Sony's and have had two and bought my wife one. Firewire is killer with digital video cameras.

I have had pretty good results with Dell in the past, mainly 'cos you can select many models, and then per model, many options. This means for the non-computer specialist, you can ask them roughly what they want, and give them what they ask for, professionally built, at a known price, with (important!) a guarantee.

Having said that, I have also had a couple of Dell backfires - but these have been mainly where the people who got the computer then tried to screw around with the order, or couldn't deal with Dell's support line people. I have personally not had a problem with Dell that couldn't be sorted out reasonably quickly on the phone.

I am not associated with Dell, I'm not promoting them, neither am I saying they are faultless. But as a way of doing "minimum effort" computer ordering, they rate pretty highly with me and I have always been satisfied with them (first used in 1988).

As to what I do these days: I look for behind the curve hardware that is brand new, but unsold, at specialists or auction houses. I can usually pick up stuff for around a third of the price, at a good price/performance point, and keep customers/friends happy. If you look, these people (re-sales specialists) can put out some pretty good deals. I recently set up a small office with a large RAID server and 4 workstations (plus cabling and net access) for a quarter of the price and a 90 day guarantee. All Compaq and HP stuff, so no rubbish. Customer literally grinning from ear to ear

I can't answer the poll because what I do for me and what I will do for someone else are totally different tasks/objectives. Someone else = nothing I ever want, EVER, to hear about, ever again. Me = sure, let's give that XXX a try!

-Zeke

I second that.

Someone else == Dell (just works and has support != me)
Me == build it myself (I just ordered a bunch of stuff from newegg this weekend, as a matter of fact.)

This was the first time that I ordered from Newegg, and I noticed that their search/browse function rocks. It's really easy to find stuff that matches what you want. Plus, they're quite inexpensive (not the most, but on down there), and their shipping is real cheap. I ordered $1100 worth of stuff and paid $5 shipping.

Actually, in fairness, for my desktop I built something, and I would again, but for anyone else, and any server, it's a Dell.

I opened a load of trade accounts with several wholesale suppliers some time ago, and buy pretty much everything that way. It varies from a bit cheaper to a LOT cheaper, and the supplier I mostly use is excellent at sorting out stuff-ups, theirs or mine. Admittedly there are few of the first and fewer of the latter, but they really are very good. It may be because for the last two years I've managed to go through about £35k a year with them, buying for several customers who talked me into supplying bits.

They're not the absolute cheapest across the board, but they are competitive and the level of service makes it more than worthwhile sticking with them. I've had so many problems with computer dealers over the years that when I find a trustworthy and competent one I stick to them like glue. They're pretty rare, after all.

pca

This was the first time that I ordered from Newegg, and I noticed that their search/browse function rocks. It's really easy to find stuff that matches what you want. Plus, they're quite inexpensive (not the most, but on down there), and their shipping is real cheap. I ordered $1100 worth of stuff and paid $5 shipping.

Ditto on that one. My girlfriend's entire order came down to $6 for shipping, and that was all due to the speakers. The rest was free!

And yeah, their search tools are great.

However, after quite a bit of shopping on that site, I have to say that my absolute favorite aspect of Newegg.com is the fact that I have not run across a product that doesn't have at least 2 pictures included in the "See it!" link. And in most cases, there are pics of every side of cases and expansion cards. I just love that.

Exactly. It's a joy just to shop there. My only complaint is that in the search fields, you can often specify that you want 3 (for example), but not 3 or more, which sucks when you're searching for, say, expansion slot holes on a rackmount case.