Discussion: "Pre-Built or Custom-Built?"

Please respond to the following:

If can be very overwhelming trying to find the right computer to purchase. For example, maybe your customer wants a computer that has 3 HDMI outputs for 3 different monitors on their workstation. You are aware from your education here that integrated graphics cards can be disabled and you can plug in a peripheral graphics card to handle the additional output. However, you won't get the fastest and best performance with this configuration. It's best to use a motherboard without integrated graphics.

When a client sends you specific requirements for a computer; the easiest thing to do is find an off-the-shelf computer that meets all the requirements. If they want an i7 processor with 16 GB of DDR RAM, that's easy, but what about if they want a 1TB SSD with a 2TB HDD and 4 internal DVD R/W drives? That might be a little more difficult. You may also want to consider building the computer yourself, as this can be more cost effective. Choose one of the following questions sets to address.

Describe three considerations, that you've learned about this week, when researching hardware integration.

What strategy would you use to determine which system would be less expensive: pre-built or custom-built?

Describe your experience with building a computer from scratch or what you'd expect to encounter if you have never built one.