"Let's go to the store and grab a deal on a PC" OR "let's buy the peripherals and have the fun, joy of building your very own PC"- having a PC is the easy part either after much headache or comfort. But what exactly are you getting from that catchy price tags at the computer store? If you build your own PC, how much should you panic if (and when) something goes wrong? Is it going to be a nicely balanced PC? Will you be totally satisfied with the performance? Let's shed some light on all these.

This write up is for all of us- typical home user, tech savvy, hardcore gamers, parents, advanced users, geeks, friends. Many of us don't think much around computer hardware let alone building it. So we just go to Circuit City or CompUSA or Future shop, be an attentive listener of 'wide screen smile' pasted sales person, either melt with his/her suggestion and ultimately flash our charge card at the check out. Doesn't matter what kind of PC we get from a store, we always miss out on something. Do we really know what exact configuration they are providing us for the money at store? Not to mention their profit.

When you bring a PC from a store, probably with some free goodies and gadgets and upgrades and what not, do you really get down with detail configuration of the peripherals? Probably not. Why? Because you think what's the big difference of knowing all these. They are expert and you are already surrounded by all the free items that came along with the PC. The fineline here is- if you purchase a PC for, let's say, $1000 your ACTUAL cost behind the PC is no more than $700. The rest goes for labor charge, this fee, that fee, store's base profit, rent... ..what not to include. So why would you pay more for not getting worth of it? Most of the times, I see big name stores or a popular four letter brand name company flooding the media with deal on a PC that I personally can build with 30% less money. OR at least assemble the appropriate PC with 'balanced' peripherals worth the advertised amount. For example, a pentium 64 bit / AMD 64 processor enriched PC is advertised for $699 (yes plus tax). Would you know what motherboard did they give you? What chipset, brand, bus speed? How about memory? What's the speed configuration of the module, channel, latency etc.? Graphics card is probably built-in in your motherboard. Did you get S-ATA hard drive or ATA drive? What's the RPM, cache? Is the power supply good enough to withstand your system's hunger of constant flow of power?

Earlier I was talking about something about balanced PC. No matter you buy or build your PC, try to keep the balance among all the peripherals. Remember, each and every component in a computer system contributes to the ultimate performance that an user seeks. In positive working environment (like temperature) and pumped by a good power supply unit, a PC is bound to give you optimum performance. If your budget or you buy or you built a $700 PC and have a high profile processor and/or motherboard and all other low profile peripherals- your system will never show good performance. In such cases, why not try to go for a all-mid-profile system? A well-balanced PC doesn't necessarily have to be expensive at all. It can be a $500 basic use PC, $700 mostly internet-oriented PC, $1000 media center PC or a $2600 insane gaming PC. We, especially tech saavy or overclockers or entry to mid level gamers to enthusiasts, all tend to forget one VERY important peripheral- power supply unit. Hypothetically speaking, think of it with a human being- you are pushing the entire system to work beyond its recommended limit without feeding enough food- which in this case is power. So try to make/keep your PC technically balanced and your PC will keep you happy.

Building a PC isn't rocket science, nor it necessarily takes a degree certificate to put your hands inside the casing. Interest is the headstart, keen knowledge on peripherals is  main part and some time will keep it together, save you big margin in saving. You get to choose what peripherals you are going to use, you buy it and the assemble it to your liking! Spend some time on getting limitless resources out there just to get you on a gear. Discuss any issue on thousands of online forums, share your thoughts and excitement. A few things you must ensure when you build your own PC. Choose a tower casing or aluminum ATX casing with good height to ensure a cool and spacious atmosphere inside. Better air flow helps PC working smooth and stable and without any hitch. If you don't use floppy disk, it's better not to install any FDD. In most cases when you use S-ATA hard disk drive, you might need a floppy disk and drive for installing the driver. But you sure can remove it later on from the system to save time on your computer's part. For a gaming PC, the main emphasis will be on CPU, graphics card, RAM, Power supply, casing and cooling. A good motherboard will be like icing on the cake. If you intend to build your PC mainly for browsing on high speed DSL or cable, make sure you have a very good motherboard preferably with gigabit network adapter, a processor with Hyper threading or hyper transport support.

Even though 'keyboard and mouse' isn't my profession, its a sheer source of pleasure I get and call my hobby. Being a freelance feature writer for a computer magazine, i enjoyed myself a lot in exploring the benefits of using a custom built PC. Just for that, I get the chance to built one or two PC every month to do reviews on. Its not that I didn't lay my hands on brand name/store PCs, it simply the positive experience and happy conclusion with the PCs that I built- its just getting better and better. And I hope the same with you too.