Well, I’m officially hooked. Maybe it’s the new components arriving at my front door, or maybe it’s all the techno-jargon I’m learning, but building my own PC is turning out to be a real kick. I feel like one of those guys who builds his own golf clubs in his garage. They’re obsessed, those guys. I don’t really get them because I don’t get golf. Computers, I get.

Sure, building a PC takes work – particularly if you’re climbing the learning curve like I am – but I really like the idea of knowing exactly what’s inside my box. I’m just now figuring out what PC hobbyists have known all along: that there’s real value in building your own PC. I’d heard this before but it never really clicked until I started doing it. By building instead of buying, I can customize my PC to my particular computing habits, choose the best quality-price combo for each component, and lay the groundwork for expansion and upgrade later on. My system will run faster than a store-bought job, and when something goes wrong, I’ll know implicitly how to fix it. Ok, that last one may be a stretch, but, having assembled the machine with my own two hands, at least I’ll have a better idea of what to do when the box emits that strange clicking sound. (And it will emit that strange clicking sound.)

As I snap up components right and left, I’m making doubly sure they’re all compatible with each other. I have a fear of paying $85 for a RAM board, only to find out that it won’t play well with the motherboard I bought and I’ll end up taking a bath on the resale. I don’t profess to know why these items would be incompatible, but just knowing that it could happen has increased my level of paranoia considerably. I’ve already bought the case, processor, motherboard, and hard drive. The memory is on its way. Thankfully, I took Mr. Risley’s advice (”Build Your Own PC”) and visited Crucial Technology’s website, where I found the exact RAM that will work with my motherboard. Someday, a smart person will explain this particular compatibility issue to me and then I’ll be smart, too. For a few minutes anyway.

One pleasant surprise has been that the money I’m saving is more significant than I had originally calculated. The computer hardware business seems to be just as cut-throat as other retail industries. A friend in the business gave me an earful about fickle customers and razor-thin markups. “Hardware sellers rely on moving high volume or it’s not worth their time,” he explained. “Customer loyalty is almost non-existent, and, trust me, the sellers have almost no profit margin to work with. After all, this ain’t the software business.” Ouch.

My friend’s admonition in mind, I figured that by the time my new PC was humming, I’d have saved a couple hundred dollars. As I began buying components, however, my curiosity got the best of me. I went to a popular PC manufacturer’s website and priced their system with components similar to the one I’m building. I was even fair enough to subtract the cost of the keyboard, mouse, and Windows XP, all of which I can get cheap from the Microsoft Company Store. Where the items didn’t quite match up, I gave them the benefit of the lower price. For example, they offer a Pentium 4/2.4GHz processor, but it only has a 533MHz front-side bus. My P4/2.4 CPU has an 800MHz FSB. Even after cutting them all that slack, their system still came to $1,841. Mine cost $1,324.

That’s over $500 in savings. Enough to buy a new chair for my study, take a weekend trip to the coast, or purchase a bag of popcorn at the movie theater. This whole project is a real awakening in my computer education. Not only am I convinced I will have a better quality system by building it myself, I’ve reached the point where I can’t see ever buying a pre-built system again.

Suddenly, I understand those golf club guys just a little bit more.