I would definitely echo what Hank said. A local computer shop will make your life a lot easier. Plus, you’re helping a small business by giving them your business. Big stores and mega websites are great for options, but really, at the end of the day, if you don’t spend $1000 at the big guys store, it’s not a big deal, but a $1000 trip to a local small business will substantially help real people in your community.
I have to admit, I bought a boxed computer from a store for my recent machine. I did go to the computer store down th road, and we looked over what it would cost, and he just couldn’t get close enough to what I had in the budget. I wanted to go with his PC, but I literally had nothing more in my budget I could spend. However, despite this, I buy all my parts off him, and he will service my machine for me, so for him, it’s not a total loss.
Next time I hope to have him build my computer. I almost just let him do it anyway, but that would have been more than a couple hundred dollars I didn’t have in the expansion budget at the time.
