Would you like a video card with that?

Well, I'm in the process of buying a new computer. But it's been harder than I thought it was going to be. I have heard from computer know-it-alls for a long time, that only people who want to pay for more than what they get buy a pre-made computer. Those who know - buy the pieces and put it together. So that is the route I have chosen.

While I am very computer literate, I am not very computer "part" literate. Luckily, my friend Jared is knowledgeable about the subject and has helped me out a great deal. I think if he was not helping me, I may just have had to buy a premade computer and taken what I got.

So Jared has helped me look up all the little pieces, making sure I have the best quality for my money, and at the best prices the internet has to offer.

I asked a friend at church Sunday, who works for a computer company, and he wasn't exactly in favor of piecing it together. But when I followed the advice of a couple people and built one on Dell's website (Gateway was very comparable), by the time I added all the things I wanted, the price had gushed to over $1700. Which is WAY over what I was looking to spend. Jared and I had just been talking about the prices of parts recently and he mentioned that I could get a floppy drive for about $10. Well, when I added that to my "Dell", they wanted to charge $27! That was a red flag right there.

The guy from church's argument (that said buy premade), was that 5 yrs. ago (when I had my current one built from the ground up), there was not streaming video, etc. But at the prices that the premade places want, I could not afford it anyway. So now, however, I have a lingering concern that these parts will not complement each other.

However, Jared assures me they will. And so I think getting it piece by piece is my only hope. So I'm going to cross my fingers and see if it really is still better to do the footwork yourself. ...or should I say my friend Jared's footwork. I've tried to do all I can, but he's been more help to me than I have.

It seems ashame that it has to be so difficult to buy a good computer. But those companies seem to want to squeeze every penny they can out of every last computer "part" illiterate one of us.

I say...go eBay!