@smitten: Here's what I can tell you good buddy. I've always, always wanted a PC but have always been a console kiddie. A few months ago I started reading about building PCs, but mostly ended up watching YouTube videos. I used a build guide on PC Part Picker as an outline. PC Part Picker is a super cool site that is extremely handy for a novice--like me. If anything in your build is even potentially incompatible, it'll tell you in what is very nearly plain english.
Anyway, I didn't plan on tweaking the parts, but did near the end to strike a middle ground in terms of price point and performance.
I ordered the parts......they arrived by mail......and I unpacked them.......and honestly it was intimidating at first. If it's your first time I don't know how you could avoid being overwhelmed by it because there are so many things to connect and set up and safely screw down--oh boy. I also was super concerned with breaking stuff, even just by touching it. I didn't accidentally drop anything but it turns out that PC parts are pretty tough. The only part that seemed mysterious and fragile was the CPU itself.
But it wasn't a big deal. The part that I thought would be scary (installing the components on my motherboard) was super easy. It was routing all the cables and plugging them in inside the case correctly that was intimidating. It wasn't hard, but seeing all of those different connectors...well, it was just a lot to take in. But it was easy peasy, no kidding. From what I've read, you do typically pay an extra toll for getting a pre-built PC (and for worse parts to boot), and you might lose access to things you'd be able to otherwise customize on a custom PC.
For peace of mind, there's a glut of well-produced and carefully narrated videos about every step of the PC building process, and places like the Tom's Hardware forums are chock full of super knowledgeable and very nice people.
In the end my advice would be to do it, only because you can, and you'll be proud of yourself. and it's fun! If you do end up deciding to build, DM me at any time with questions or concerns. I certainly don't know everything, BUT I did just do it, and at the very least I can help point you to a possible solution or a better resource.
My final bit of sage advice: watercooled CPUs look cool, but they're not all they're cracked up to be. You can spend $80 bucks and get a fan that keeps your CPU measurably cooler than a water cooler, and is even quieter than a water cooler. Crazy, right? It's true, I promise.
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