Branded vs Assembled PC

[0db]

What are the differences between the branded computer machines and assembled computers?
And what are those differences and advantages and disadvantages?

Well ... talking about laptop I have a bit of experience, but talking about workstations ... I simply don't know, I have zero experience with this since I have never decided about purchasing anything. I have been always given a machine where I sit use as "final user".

Yesterday afternoon the IT-guy finally upgraded my desk computer into something modern, hence I can say "goodbye" to my old "E6600" PC. Talking with him, he told me he also replaced the following 8 computers kept running the same tasks for years in a corner of the laboratory.

• (branded) - qty=2 - IBM NetVista M42 Mfr P/N 32P2992
• (branded) - qty=2 - Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo E3521 - D3041-A11 GS3
• (assembled) - qty=2 - Gigabyte GA-8VM800PMD-755-RH
• (assembled) - qty=2 - ASRock P4I48

Branded PCs are in the cheap level. Both branded and assembled PCs worked in the same ambient conditions and temperature, and assembled cases were not too much cheap and equipped with extra fans. PSUs were also - according to his words - all good quality.

But look at results:

• (branded) - qty=2 - IBM NetVista M42 Mfr P/N 32P2992 -> both still operating
• (branded) - qty=2 - Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo E3521 -> both still operating
• (assembled) - qty=2 - Gigabyte GA-8VM800PMD-755-RH -> both nodes offline, dead motherboards
• (assembled) - qty=2 - ASRock P4I48 -> 1/2 node dead, 1/2 node still online, lot of kernel crashes

OK, this stuff is Pentium4 stuff, more than 10 years old, but can we infer assembled PCs won't last as branded PCs?

[wraper]

The difference is that on branded computer everything should work out of the box without issues. There is no need to tinker with bios settings, etc. Assembled computer may be just put together and technician not bothering to adjust any settings for optimal performance. As of hardware, you can easily find HP with some cheapest MSI board in it. In the nutshell, branded = more consistent experience, I'd say.

(assembled) - qty=2 - Gigabyte GA-8VM800PMD-755-RH -> both nodes offline, dead motherboards
(assembled) - qty=2 - ASRock P4I48 -> 1/2 node dead, 1/2 node still online, lot of kernel crashes

IMHO pure luck. There were plenty of Dell motherboards with dead capacitors and similar. Seagate HDDs dying like flies in branded computers and so on.

[brucehoult]

Branded PCs often have proprietary parts with weird form factors or interfaces that you can't replace easily. They may also have lowest bidder parts.

If you specs the parts yourself and get someone else to assemble and test and guarantee it then you know what you're getting.

I consider Gigabyte and Asus motherboards to be as good as any.

I can and have assembled PCs myself but it's both a waste of my expensive time and also risky because if you're only building one PC once every four or five years as I do, you don't have any compatible spare parts to swap out to troubleshoot it if it doesn't work. Parts can and do come from the factory DOA and if you can't swap things then you have very little idea which part is at fault. And even if you can figure it out you have to deal with suppliers to get replacements etc. It's well worth paying someone else $50 or $100 to assemble and test it and give a guarantee. Even if you spend a few minutes checking their work afterwards :-)

I've used component supply places such as ascent or pbtech in New Zealand (if I recall, ascent even assembles PCs for FREE purely because it cuts down their tech support costs compared to customers assembling them). In the US I used adamant.com for my ThreadRipper and was very satisfied.

[0db]

DIY motherboards are designed to unleash the processor's full potential

That's what the IT-guy said about the brand new HP Workstation Z4 G4 Intel Xeon W-2123 Quad Core he installed under my desk. I cannot yet believe that it finally happened!!! There is still a lot of confusion in my head, but at leas I am very happy because I moved from a pretty old Pentium4 Dual to a new Xeon Quad Core 

[greenpossum]

I prefer to use a reliable shop to assemble a PC to my choice of parts. That way I get the configuration I want, including compatibility with FOSS, and I don't get the compromises or imbalances in branded PCs. It also means that I can enhance my PC easily as the dimensions and connectors are standard, even it means the box isn't as compact as a branded PC.

If this is for work, you may not get a choice as companies may have preferred suppliers. My PCs are for home use.

[0db]

If this is for work, you may not get a choice as companies may have preferred suppliers. My PCs are for home use.

It's for work, but in this case the company where I am working as consultant has already given me an HP Z4 workstation. It's not exactly "allocated" to me, but I can use it rather than bring my laptop with me.

In the contract there is no mention about any workstation, thus I am required to bring a laptop with me, and we can consider the assignment made by the IT-guy as a personal favor.

I bought an Apple MBP-2020 several months ago and it's dedicated to the video editing stuff (FinalCut) required by the company. I bring it with me only when it's required (presentations, showrooms, etc).

I have also bought the light and cheap laptop HUAWEI MateBook D14 for all the stuff (mostly office and documentation stuff, LaTek, OpenOffice, MicrosoftOffice, Photoshop, ...) where I prefer reduce damages or bad stuff that might happen to the hyper expensive MBP, not because the laptop is not insured but rather because a-stop would be very disappointing for my customers when they demand me to be just ready.

Anyway, since I am a person who works freelance I am now thinking about the purchase of a workstation for kind of "smart working" activities that I can run at home, and here is where the doubts "branded vs assembled" comes from.

Before opening this topic I was seriously tempted to buy the same HP Z4 workstation with the same specs just to "exploit" the experience of the IT-guy 

[rsjsouza]

I always built my own computers and relied on the vast amount of information on the web to make informed and budgetary decisions that suited me best. Obviously that excludes the hand-me-downs and the work computers, all branded.

I tend to see that, if you do a good job on the configuration and parts matching, airflow, etc. a workstation can last you quite a long time. My main desktop is pushing 12 years and it had its memory and processor updated, as well as a few add on cards that added newer technologies since the board was mainstream. I assembled other computers in the interim with other constraints such as price or a specific function in mind. None disappointed me.

[Bud]

Building a computer is a process,joy and fun, and leaves warm feeling of satisfaction when finished. Perhaps this has to do with nature of engineering mind. You still apply design elements in selecting the configuration and specification for the components, and you have much more flexibility and can build a system 100% to your needs.
Apparently even watching other people doing it has magnetism. Countless YT channels do assembly videos, Linux Techtips for one, their substantial amount of the channel content is technically nothing but computer build videos, sometime in the format of a live stream that goes on for hours.

[Mechatrommer]

Before opening this topic I was seriously tempted to buy the same HP Z4 workstation with the same specs just to "exploit" the experience of the IT-guy 

you mean this HP Z4? i think i can buy and assemble a similar spec at half the price or less... some IT-guys i've met are just another techy guy who only knows how to swap PCs, i'm not sure if they can snap a RAM of their own "compatible" choosing into the MoBo slot, let alone replacing blown PSU or bad capacitors, i hope your IT-guy is not that kind of IT-guy.

btw my 10+ yrs Quad Core and Dual Core machines are still online. i've replaced PSU several times on my Quad Core, the my main machine pretty much turned on everyday since purchased. the dual core i dont remember when last time i replaced anything on it, maybe they are still original from purchase (seldomly used).

there are few food for thoughts on Branded system (1) sure they can work longer, but if they are blown in 5-10 years, you will be lucky if you can get anymore free support/replacement/warranty from manufacturer (2) if they can work until 100 yrs, do you still want to use it? like the mentioned IBM NetVista M42 and Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo E3521? i have Dell PC that i got for free (decommisioned from a school) and sure its a no joy to use (dual core and less RAM) and weigh close to a boat anchor. my dual core setup is much more pleasant imho.

ps: i just upgraded my quad core few days ago by filling up all of its RAM slots with 8GB DDR2 used @ $25, previously 3GB on 2 slots because i'm planning to upgrade to Win7 (dont mock me i have Win10 dreaming somewhere)

[0db]

Thank you for your answers, guys.

you mean this HP Z4?

Yes, precisely. Now know I am not alone thinking that it looks a bit expensive.

[Mechatrommer]

now i forgot its xeon processor with ECC RAM support. i'm not sure how they will cost if purchased disassembled, but i guess still cheaper than preassembled Brand. anyway, some people swore by it (ECC) i dont care, processors are cheap nowadays, even 6-12 cores Ryzen, ymmv. the top notch speed today is 4+ to 5GHz cpu, this can also determine how long the CPU will survive in the future without being treated as thing of the past, so i guess buying 3+ GHz system today, it will soon be outrunned by anything in near future (less than 10 years), ymmv.

[brucehoult]

now i forgot its xeon processor with ECC RAM support. i'm not sure how they will cost if purchased disassembled, but i guess still cheaper than preassembled Brand. anyway, some people swore by it (ECC) i dont care, processors are cheap nowadays, even 6-12 cores Ryzen, ymmv. the top notch speed today is 4+ to 5GHz cpu, this can also determine how long the CPU will survive in the future without being treated as thing of the past, so i guess buying 3+ GHz system today, it will soon be outrunned by anything in near future (less than 10 years), ymmv.

CPU speed improvements now have slowed to a crawl. Probably the next ten years will not bring much in single-core speed.

The Pentium 4 already reached 3.8 GHz in 2005. And then they hit a brick wall. Several models planned for 4.0 GHz were cancelled. $ GHz wasn't hit as a turbo speed until the i7-3970X in 2012 and as a base speed until as a base speed until the mighty 4790K in 2014 (I still have and use one, next to my ThreadRipper). We are only just now seeing single-core turbo speeds get to 5 GHz or a little over, but base all cores speeds remain around 3.8 to 4.2 GHz. Don't expect that to change in a hurry.

Microarchitecture has been improving with big jumps from Pentium to Pentium Pro to Pentium M/Core (with dead end Pentium 4 in between) to Core 2 to Nehalem to Sandy Bridge to Haswell to Skylake but that's tailed off now. Current chips are basically the same as Skylake. Once you get to about six-wide execution there is very little to be gained by more unless the whole structure of the programs we write changes. Branch prediction made a huge leap with the Pentium MMX and Pentium Pro and has improved more since then but again has hit a wall -- and we've learned that carelessly-done speculative execution (which is what branch prediction enables) leads to security problems.

The only way rapidly forward now seems to be more cores, special purpose instructions on the cores, and special purpose processors -- all of which require new programs and programming techniques, not just running the same old programs faster.

It's entirely possible you might still be using in 2030 what you buy now.

I have a 32 core ThreadRipper built last year for heavy lifting. I also have an 11" laptop and a 17" laptop. Both the laptops are 2011 models, both still work fine and still perform just fine for the tasks I need in a portable. Sadly, they are well out of hardware support from the manufacturer, and won't run Mojave or Catalina, let alone Big Sur... (the ThreadRipper runs Ubuntu)

[Mechatrommer]

If they think out of box, out of their technical expertise, maybe they can go pass the brick wall few layers ahead.. for example doubling the physical size of cpu to dissipate heat better. 5+GHz is now achievable backed by factory Intel. I read tweaking on existing form factor (i9 10900k) by some independent personnels may get stable boost speed on all cores. This aspect can be refined further in factory by those sharp cpu engineers. Standardizing water cooling aspect and make it as recommended minimum etc...those tweak is with the old and mocked 14nm tech. obviously there should be rooms for improvement if they push for the latest manufacturing tech. But maybe they just want to intentionally keep it that way slow so they can still have a long road map ahead of them in this ever 'reaching the silicon limit' situation. 2cnts.

[Bassman59]

I prefer to use a reliable shop to assemble a PC to my choice of parts. That way I get the configuration I want, including compatibility with FOSS, and I don't get the compromises or imbalances in branded PCs. It also means that I can enhance my PC easily as the dimensions and connectors are standard, even it means the box isn't as compact as a branded PC.

If this is for work, you may not get a choice as companies may have preferred suppliers. My PCs are for home use.

At the day job, all of the EEs (and even the MEs) are perfectly capable of building high-performance computers. We all have done it, probably more times than we care to count. But for company work, we don't. We are paid to design our company's products, not spend days researching components and days building the machines, loading the operating system, sorting out drivers and all of the endless futzing about with them. So when it's time for a new machine we go through the Dell catalog and pick out something that meets our needs, and it gets ordered, and it shows up on our desks, and we set it up, log into the domain and get going. (Yes, there's the whole spending a day to get application software installed but that can never be avoided.) The MEs spent some time figuring out what machines to buy with graphics cards for SolidWorks use, but they still ordered fully-built machines, with support and a warranty.

Can we get higher performance for a lower price? Sure, absolutely, if you don't include the time we spend doing that research and then doing the assembly and set-up.

And generally the Dell machines we've been buying have been very reliable. Whether that's because they are not overclocked to the max or whatever, I don't know. But they just seem to work.

[westfw]

I can't imagine an IT department in a company of any significant size NOT using some off-the-shelf brand-name computer in some standard-ish configuration (perhaps derived in cooperation with the vendor.)  Once you pass a couple dozen computers, the prospect of them all being different is ... very scary.
My son-in-law "provisions" new computers for <large tech company> employees.  That involves making sure the system works, has the standard software, is tied into the corporate login/security mechanisms, and so on.   IIRC, his group does upwards of 100 computer PER WEEK.

The last place I worked, they had a very limited selection of leased computers in several standard configurations (a couple "general purpose", and a couple "performance workstation" for the folks that were using their PC as more than mere access to the web and server farms.   They had a strict policy of "refreshing" your computer every 2 years.  (this is why there are so many "off-lease" "refurbished" computer deals available.)  Standard SW suites, some licensed per-user (and separately downloadable), most site-licensed.  A standardized linux distribution for the folks that insisted.


(and of course, an exception policy for all those development prima donnas that just HAD to have something else (with manager approval, of course), and lab systems with specialized requirements.)

It's a horrible, underappreciated, thankless, job.  But it is useful, important, and requires "interesting" skills.

(And the lab systems that didn't go through this, that finally hit the recycling bins?  SOOOO old.  Typically they'd get used for a few years, then get turned off and sit in the rack for a few more years ("we might need it again"), and FINALLY get thrown away when the lab moved, or someone needed the rack space...  Thank gods for good firewalls and well-behaved users!)

[Halcyon]

What are the differences between the branded computer machines and assembled computers?
And what are those differences and advantages and disadvantages?

The short answer is, nothing.

The longer answer is that a brand-name PC might be better or worse than something you build yourself. Generally speaking, you are paying for a company to design, build and deliver the system as a whole. This often means proprietary components and limited opportunity to upgrade or repair your system. For the convenience of an "out of the box" solution, you're often paying more and foregoing the ability to really customise your machine.

The advantage of building a PC yourself allows for a far greater range of individual components and the ability to really fine-tune the specifications to your requirements. That being said, there is a lot more that can go wrong, such as incompatibilities and instability between components. Unless you know what you're doing, avoid this route.

Some brands are "better" than others and use better quality components overall. A company like Acer are really down there in the low-end of the market. Don't expect any high performance or polished products from their line. That being said, paying top dollar for an Apple computer might not be much better either. Price alone is not an indicator of quality.

It takes many years of experience to really understand the intricacies behind PC builds.

[BravoV]

Branded means uniformity and consistency, even thru different models from the same company, hence support cost can be reduced.

Imagine you are responsible for supporting a big company IT dept, that uses thousands of PCs, and also constantly few hundreds of them get refreshed annually, ask your self, want to buy assembled PC or branded ?

[Mechatrommer]

i agree with corporation buying brand name PC its highly understandable. if any problem, just send back to seller/contractor for warranty repair and it will come back fixed without the buyer thinking of anything not related to their core business. i'm at the office will not touch any of the hardwares, i only expect it to be there working. except if just in case the boss or the IT-guy ask me a favor to do so and if i have free time. because my paid time is to do another thing 8 hours flat. and esp for government offices that need payment has to go through licensed/authorized contractors/sellers by some green/yellow paperwork, there is no legitimate way that the money can be passed personally to personal or even staffs to do some personal work on PC tuning or anything for the matter. who knows those contractors will do the diy tuning and PC optimizing/repairing in their house? so it depends on who is answering. are you corporate staff? or the IT-contractor? or just a home hobbiest doing things for personal usage. will be very different answer, i myself can have different opinion depending on where i stand. here, i stand as a hobbiest or "budgeter", fwiw. btw, researching for suitable PC spec (high performance vs budget) is not rocket science, at most it will take 2 days of googling and 1 day to assemble and install complete softwares... ymmv.

[Ranayna]

The company I work for is about 30 years old. I work for them for 15 years now. In that time I worked for them, they grew from about 250 employees to about 1300.
Two years before I started working there, they actually build each computer themselves from off the shelf parts.
By the time I started working there, they (and then I ) still did that, but only machines that needed some serious performance. Those were *expensive* to get pre-built.
Some 10 years ago we completely stopped that, and now we only buy prebuilt. Still building them ourselves would just simply be too labor intensive. This would mean more that >300 boxes build, tested and replaced each year, not even beginning to consider repairs.
With Servers this was similar, but we started to buy branded servers earlier, since reliability is paramount in that area.

Regarding support: for simple stuff, like  hard drives, memory or power supplies, they simply send us the replacement parts and we do the repair ourselves. For more complicated stuff, like mainboards, a technician is sent to our office.

For private home computers, if someone asks me, I generally recommend getting a pre-built PC, except when high performance or gaming is required. Then building yourself *may* be cheaper.
The pricing balance has shifted a lot in the last years, and when you do not need exceptional performance but rather have reliability and simplicity, getting something pre-built with the manufacturers warranty is unbeatable. Many components are marketed to "Enthusiasts", driving the prices up.
And, let's face it: The common home computer present in virtually every household is dead anyway. Tablets can do all that the home computer did 20 years ago easily.

[rrinker]

 That last branded computer I had, that wasn't a work-supplied laptop, is probably a 486 I got sometime back in 94 or 95, and that was a 'store brand' from Micro Center, not a name brand like Dell or Compaq or HP. When I went Pentium, I had switched jobs and we were building computers for one of our big clients - I think most all of us got new computers, simply by adding a few extra components to the order (since the client was buying 500+ and needed spares as well). Other than a freebie small Dell I got from a client (it didn't have enough RAM to run what they wanted - rather than just add some RAM, they replaced the whole computer and were going to toss this one int he dumpster - yeah, silly. It made a great Linux box.), I've built my own ever since. Had a few fail, usually a bad power supply, or a failed mechanical hard drive. I tend to keep machines a long time, my new one built this year replaced an 8 year old machine that was still working although the power supply was getting flaky. I have two old ones that work, lined up for the recycler, because I simply have no use for them. I also built machines for family, those have also tended to have long lives. Being in IT for 30+ years, I've seen more name brand failures than my personal machines. The difference is, a Dell fails, they send a replacement part overnight, and will even send someone to swap it out. If my machine fails, I have to order the part and replace it myself. Given that after fixing broken things all day, I don;t want to come home and ALSO fix broken things - I've been quite happy with my home built machines. If I had to continually work on them, I'd quit and buy a premade machine. Just like I don;t run my own mail or web servers any more, I got tired of fooling around with them all the time. For the $2.50/mo I pay for my web sites, I'll let someone else worry about the server uptime and patching, I'll just manage my content.

[brucehoult]

Since 1989 I've always had some kind of Mac (always a laptop, except the very first Mac IIcx, a PowerMac 6100, and a dual 2.0 G5 tower between the 17" G4 PowerBook and the first 17" Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro -- at times when laptops lagged significantly behind desktops in performance) but once I started to use Linux as well I got bored with rebooting my Mac to switch to Linux and I got an Intel machine for Linux.

Only two have been off the shelf machines -- except for those two I selected all the components for everything myself and sometimes assembled it myself and sometimes had the component seller assemble it.

The CPUs have been:

- Pentium Pro 200 -- HP all-SCSI server on runout sale after P2 was available
- Athlon 700
- Athlon XP1800+
- Athlon XP3200+
- Core i7-860
- Core i7-4790K
- Core i7-6700K (due to moving countries and not taking the old one)
- Core i7-8650U -- Intel NUC (due to spending that year constantly travelling)
- ThreadRipper 2990wx

[b_force]

My experience with branded PC's is that you just pay way to much for mostly a very crappy combination of parts.
There is literately always something, good CPU but to little RAM, good AMD APU but with only single memory 
Fast PC but still with a slow HDD. Poor quality CPU cooler which is noisy as well. Very poor upgradability.
Simple BIOS settings and options that aren't available (for like running virtual machines)
The list goes on and on. Not to mention the huge amount of bloatware you always get.

Besides they are mostly heavily overpriced.
Especially when you really take the needs of the user into the equation.
Service is always a pain, it's easier, faster and cheaper to just replace the parts yourself.

I have been building my own PC's since I was 8 or 9, and ever since I have came across maybe an handful of branded PC's that were actually worth the money.
In a sense of quality and longevity, my experience is also not all that well with branded PC's.

[GlennSprigg]

I've never gone much on 'Branding'.  Some people say that... "Well my computer is a 'Dell' " or what ever.
However, they have 'Brand-A' memory cards, 'Brand-B' hard-drives, 'Brand-C' CD/DVD drives, etc etc.

[bobcat2000]

My experience with Branded PC is their support.  I had a bunch of Dell PCs and servers with a 3-yr support contract.  One of the PCs failed.  I called Dell.  The guy showed up next day to replace the motherboard.  The hard drive failed for a Dell server.  I called Dell.  They shipped the hard disk the same day I called them.  The hard disk showed up next morning.

[NiHaoMike]

A well built DIY PC can certainly last. I built mine 8 years ago and it's approaching 60,000 operating hours according to the main SSD, only major component replaced was the GPU in order to add 4K compatibility.