Prebuilt, high end PCs are almost always a waste of money unless you need a bunch of them for a business. They are not hard to build yourself and it doesn't even take very long.
this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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Many people think there's some wizardry in assembling a PC. I explain to people all the time that it is pretty straight forward and, for the most part, things won't go were they aren't supposed to, so take your time and don't force anything. It's easier than a lot of furniture people assemble due to the much better instructions you can find.
Then there were that people that were putting AMD cpus the wrong way because they were building the computer vertically.
🤣 You gotta take your time!
Yeach but its also not that easy. Choosing parts in particular is a nightmare. Ohh this ram has very high clocks but low latency is that good bad , how high is even high, there is a goddam sheet with hundred(s) of position just power supply beacuse apparently some sucks, x3d procesors dont come with cooling and choosing a good one is another bad experience also some cases are too small for some gpus , some have bad airflow, and the recommended ones are goddam expensive ( fractal for example ). Its actually horrible. Too many things to choose from .
Absolutely! My comment was more geared at the people who seem to think assembling is the difficult part. Fortunately, we live in an age where there are reputable sites that have largely automated the compatibility process and help with budgetary concerns. Unfortunately; crypto, ai, and geopolitics have really dampened the affordability, though it really isn't beyond most people skillwise with a passing interest to assemble a desktop pc. Another issue, one I personally suffered from in the past, is belive you need to be on the bleeding edge to make it worthwhile. Advancements in the consumer space are not quite as drastic as they once were, so there are certainly some opportunities for satisfying budget builds if people are willing to make certain tradeoffs.
The one exception is buying them second hand.
Two years ago, I got a second-hand 3090 with an AMD 5950, 32g ram, 2tb nvme and 2tb HD for $1500, It was like eight months old when I bought it off of the previous owner.
I threw in another 32 gigs of RAM and upgraded the NVMe to a higher spec one, dropped the HDD and let the old nvme do its work.
Been running like a champ, and I imagine it will probably be another couple of years before I seriously consider an upgrade.