I have been thinking about building a PC for a bit but have no idea where to start so I have been putting it off. I recently acquired a 300 dollars in gift cards for Best Buy. Would this computer be worth it since I have 300 bucks in gift cards? https://www.bestbuy.com/site/ibuypower-desktop-intel-core-i7-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060-120gb-solid-state-drive-1tb-hard-drive-black-red/5727100.p?skuId=5727100

Or am I still better off just buying the parts and building myself?

Personally, building yourself will be cheaper and you can pick the exact components that you want. I'll never buy a pre built again.

I don't know much about IBUYPOWER, but if one of the reviewers correct:

I happen to like Asus motherboards and the rest of the components are good to go. I think it's a good buy.

I will proabably just grab it since I have the gift cards. I can update things later if I want.

do you already have a good monitor? another suggestion might be actually go through ibuypower and select your own components (they built my PC) and spend your BB cards on a monitor.

i'd recommend upgrading your peripherals, the cheapo mouse and KB that ibp included with my PC aren't nearly as good as the ones I replaced them with very quickly.

also, i'd recommend upgrading that SSD, 120gb won't go very far, and you'll want to install your top performance-intensive games on your SSD.


the processor and graphics card there are fine, especially if you want to run 1080p - if you want to push 1440p or 4k at a decent frame rate you might look at stepping up the graphics card to a 1070 and you could potentially save some cash taking an i5 processor over an i7 (which won't really have an impact on gaming, more so video encoding)

Not if you want to use Windows. It all seems cheaper until you have to pay $199 for Windows. I used to build, now I buy. PC's are commodities now and not worth building unless you want to spend the extra money to get exactly what you want.

Depends on the version.  Home is nowhere near $199 and can be had at many places for $30 -50. Windows is also transferable.  My current Windows 10 started off as 7 a few systems back.

Extra money to get what I want?  I can go to damn near any pre built company and build a system, then go price the same exact components for a lot less. All it costs me is a few hours of work on top of the components.

For those of you saying to build, I have zero knowledge on building PCs can a good PC be built for 700 and have windows 10?  That is what the bestbuy pc will cost me out of pocket. 700 ish.

you can build a PC for $700, with windows, but it's probably not going to give you the performance you want.

https://www.ibuypower.com/ is a cool site. you can pick all your own components out and they will handle the building process for you. Do you already have a monitor?

I had 0 PC building knowledge before my first complete build 3 years ago. I just read the manuals and watched a few youtube videos. I took me about 4 hours from a table full of parts to a running system. The system I still use.

I sont have monitor yet. I was thinking about using the hdmi cable and using one of my tvs.

Dual drive configurations are a PITA.  I'd rather have a medium-sized SSD than a small SSD + large HDD combo.  Some applications absolutely refuse to install on the larger drive and 120GB goes fast.  Otherwise looks like a decent PC.

I haven't had any issues yet running 1 small boot ssd, one medium ssd, and one large hdd. Steam actually makes it much easier than it was to move games around to different drives, origin/uplay are meh. I haven't had any issues across 2 different builds with any other applications. Which ones are giving you issues?

Thats horse shit.  The only thing I will say is that right now video card prices are dope.  There is a shortage on memory so it's jacked the prices through the roof.  A $200 card is now going for damn near $300, so it's kinda bs and not a good idea to buy one atm.

Furthermore, you can always look through ebay, lot of people might not like it, and it can be a crap shoot, but you can get really good deals on there for parts.

Nothing wrong with ibuypower, they just charge a little more than it would cost you to build it yourself for labor costs and shipping.

Prices on cards are finally dropping down at least. Friend just bought a GTX 1070 Windforce for $340 on Friday. That is normal price from before the crypto currency shit.

Prices on memory are fucking jacked, and jacked LONG TERM. Prices are already double what they were last October. No sign of them dropping in the long term.

I'm picking up old towers with the windows product key still on them for just this reason.

I had planned on buying a $760 1080ti...prices went through the roof.  When I went to order, the prices went from $760 to $900.  I lucked out at newegg, they had a EVGA 1080 ti FTW3 Hybrid that was $850...more than I wanted to pay but better than $900 for a regular 1080 ti...not even a SC2.  

Sucks, but what can you do about it.

Probably no price drops but there is supposedly a 1070ti coming which may drop 1070 prices a bit.

That's not really a bad deal on that PC. Option B is you could build one and spend the $300 on a GTX1070 from Best Buy.

I would buy the GPU somewhere else that has better prices/sales. Probably would go with the CPU from Best Buy since that is one of the few components they are competitively priced on.

Unless you can get them to price match, then whatever.

you got a link to that $300 1070? i'll buy it on the spot.

This every time.

What's your total budget? No reason that gift card couldn't go towards a gpu or peripherals.

@GR00VYJERRY

EDIT:
Example build

Check out the above. Now before you go off about being $250 more than the other, take into consideration a few things:
-i7 7700k, which is a better and unlocked version of what you had in the other one. This means that if you get into overclocking, you can push this CPU. Also will be more future-proof.
-Corsair H60 is an all-in-one LIQUID cooler. I assume the other PC you linked is air. The benefits over the stock intel coolers are pretty crazy. Also, the Kabey processors run hot. I know, I have one. (note, these are super easy to set up, require no special knowledge unlike a full custom loop water cooling set up.
-Asus STRIX Motherboard. My guess is that some of the money you'd save on the other pc is with a no-name motherboard. The asus board I picked has the ability to Overclock, use multiple graphics cards, run M.2 SSD drives, and in general will allow you to do a lot more with the PC down the road.
-The Ram I picked for you is awesome DDR4 3200, 16GB of it. (other was 2133mhz, yuck) Likely more than you would ever need. You could go down to 8gb if you really wanted to, but I would stick with 16gb.
-I picked a GTX 1060 for you, with the same amount of ram as the other. Now keep in mind, you will likely want to upgrade the card down the road. It's a bit long in the tooth.
-The NZXT case I picked for the build is user preference. I've built in two of these for people who have paid me to plan, design, purchase and assemble their PC's. It's a really nice case, looks good, and is easy to work in.
-The Power supply is fully modular and will be more than enough power. You may want to upgrade down the road.
-I even included windows 10 for you.
-Last but not least, I added a SUPER fast Samsung 960 Evo 250gb SSD for memory (which the MB I picked supports.) these things are STUPID fast, and I have the 500gb version in my own PC. You can always add more memory if you want, but there are a lot of people that would be fine with 250GB. (it is worth upgrading to the 500gb if you can)



All in all, that extra $250 is going to get you a TON more PC for your money with a LOT more future-proofing. Feel free to PM me with questions. I have been building PC's for about 7 years, and do it as a side job.