Does it still make sense to build your own computer?

Last summer I asked readers if it still made sense to buy a desktop. After all, laptops now offer more than ample power for most users, plus that whole portability thing. And with tablets starting to take the place of laptops, a desktop seems even farther down the computing food chain.

Then, a couple weeks back, I featured a nicely loaded desktop on my Cheapskate blog -- the first one in a while -- figuring most readers would respond with a yawn.

Quite the opposite. Turns out a lot of computer users still love desktops, and definitely want more deals on them. And I've complied with several since then, many of them selling out in the span of an afternoon.

This makes me ask: Does it still make sense to build your own computer? (Snark version: Did it ever?)

Once upon a time, this was a huge hobby. Cost-conscious buyers would peruse the pages of Computer Shopper (which in its heyday topped 1,000 pages) in search of the best deals on cases, motherboards, RAM, hard drives, and other components, the idea being that you could build your own for less than having a company build it for you...

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