Why Now Is A Great Time To Buy Custom Shop PCs

[USAFRet]

My quad core 2010 workstation works just fine for compiling and testing code. At that time, 80 dollars bought 16gigs of ram. The GPU was $120.00. The entire system, in US dollars was around $650.00

Oct 2016, I bought 32GB Corsair Vengeance Pro DDR3 for $125.
SSD prices have dropped and dropped. 2012, I bought a 120GB SSD at $80
Today, a 250GB SSD can be had for $80.
CPU prices have remained pretty stable

Except for GPU prices (mining idiots), and to a lesser extent RAM, I'm not seeing price gouges.

 

[octavecode]

Stop misleading people, custom shop PCs are ALWAYS overpriced and the only reason to buy one would be if you don't want to mess with your DIY system.

 

[aquielisunari]

Stop misleading people, custom shop PCs are ALWAYS overpriced and the only reason to buy one would be if you don't want to mess with your DIY system.

Hello😀 This is not the type of place where we suppress the other person's opinions.

Let's compare two systems. One will be a Cyberpower(one of the worst reputations) prebuilt and the other will be a pcpartpicker build. That's a well know PC design site.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883230274&ignorebbr=1 is the prebuilt that is selling for $1,819.99

I then tried to design a PC as close to that PC as possible.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-7800X 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($359.19 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H7 Quad Lumi 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($59.84 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI - X299 RAIDER ATX LGA2066 Motherboard ($189.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team - Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial - MX300 525GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($139.95 @ B&H)
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 4TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive ($97.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Founders Edition Video Card ($999.00 @ Amazon)
Case: Inwin - 805 RED ATX Mid Tower Case ($110.67 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA - 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($53.88 @ OutletPC)
Keyboard: Redragon - S102 Wired Gaming Keyboard w/Optical Mouse ($34.99 @ Amazon)
Mouse: Redragon - Centrophorus M601 Wired Optical Mouse ($12.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $2218.38
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-01-29 06:17 EST-0500

Please design your own PC as close to that Cyberpower PC that you can.

 

[tyler53121]

There is a special circle of hell reserved for people who are mining this hardware. As a PC enthusiast who is always looking to upgrade my current system and also a social worker who cant afford all top of the line products simultaneously, I hold a very intricate type of disdain in my heart for these people.

 

[aquielisunari]

There is a special circle of hell reserved for people who are mining this hardware. As a PC enthusiast who is always looking to upgrade my current system and also a social worker who cant afford all top of the line products simultaneously, I hold a very intricate type of disdain in my heart for these people.

Why? They are making money. Some are making a considerable amount of money. They don't do it with spite. As a social worker you might understand how a little extra money can make a world of difference. They can go about their day while their rig or farm makes them money. It is not their fault that GFX cards can mine cryptocurrency. This is just the dark time before the dawn. Mining alternatives apart from CPU and ASICs hopefully will be offered sooner than later but I can certainly understand your perspective.

Thankfully some pre-built PCs circumvent the issue, for now.

 

[tim.hotze]

You can save even more if you're willing to "sin" more: I needed an all-new build, including license. I've built desktop PCs for more than 20 years, but this time, committed a grave act of sin and bought a pre-built system from HP a couple weeks ago.

The money saved was just INSANE compared to building it myself: I got a Ryzen 5, RX580 (just the 4GB), and 8GB of RAM for $600, taxes/shipping included. GPUs are so hard to find online that it's hard to come up with a "fair" price, but a quick look at NewEgg today shows that the same GPU goes for about what I paid for the whole system.

Yes, I had to make some compromises with going "pre-built:" I'm under no delusion that any of the components are particularly high quality. I got a 1TB HDD when if I was building myself, I'd probably have gone with a 500GB NVMe SSD, but it's still a perfectly usable system with limited upgrade potential (its got a NVMe slot, for example).

 

[captaincharisma]

if your old computer already has a dedicated GPU it would be better to build around that then get a locked down brand name PC. the motherboard in my old PC died a year ago so at the time i replaced the mobo, CPU, and RAM and used my old ATI Radeon HD 7770 until i was able to get the money for a new GPU

 

[TEAMSWITCHER]

I'm just switching to a MacBook Pro - as soon as Apple ships the 2018 models. This seems like great time to do it. I'll keep my old PC around and just update the graphics card if I can ... otherwise ... it's been a great ride. Time to move on.

 

[razor512]

Think about it this way, Just because the store across the street increases the price of a bottle of water to $20, doesn't make the $15 that the store down the road is charging, a good deal.

Relatively speaking, a prebuilt can be be cheaper than a DIY system, but that is only in comparison to the insane price gouging that is happening.

Both are bad choices at the moment.
Compared to a year ago, you are still paying much more whether you go the DIY route or buy a prebuilt system.

If you choose to go prebuilt now, you are shooting yourself in the foot twice as not only are you still paying a steep premium, but you are also giving up the far longer individual warranties, for what is often just a 1 year warranty that covers everything, but also often requires you to mail in the entire system at your own expense

When you build a PC,you get a 5-10 year warranty on the power supply, 3-5 year warranty on the motherboard, 5+ year warranty on the SSD, lifetime warranty on the RAM, 3 year warranty on the CPU, 3-5 year warranty on the hard drive, and 3+ year warranty on the GPU. If you buy a prebuilt system, you will be paying a price premium to essentially not have a warranty.

Most large system builders get their components for far less than a store like newegg or amazon would get them, as the system builder is getting components that do not need to have the cost of a warranty or any other after market services built into it. They should be able to offer a prebuilt system for less money than it would cost a customer to build their own system, an still make a decent profit, since the user building their own system has to pay multiple retail markups in addition to a price that covers a long warranty.

Over the past year prebuilt systems have also become much more expensive, just not as bad as when buying individual components.
The price markups are happening on the retail side and not the OEM side, thus the only thing really pushing those prices higher is an effort to maximize profits and charge the maximum that the market will handle.

 

[razor512]

Should we leave the OS blank if we order a pre-built? Wondering about licensing and upgrade(motherboard) issues down the road. I own a copy of 10. I can move it to any PC I want. Does that apply to a boutique shop's OS?

If you have an OS, you can install it on whatever hardware you want.
Being a "prebuilt" does not negate your ability to install a different OS. Be it Dell, HP, or (shudder) CyberPower.

However...you need to look at the extra cost of the OS if they include it.
If it only adds $20 to the total price, I'd get theirs, and save the existing license for something else.

I should clarify. If the user didn't have an OS does it make any difference if they have a boutique install it? Can the person who buys the PC still transfer that OS like someone who purchased a copy?

For all of the system builders that I have seen, they go with a non retail version of the OS where once it is activated, it will refuse to activate on different hardware.

A workaround is calling microsoft and begging them to activate the OS for you, and make up a story like the motherboard failed and you purchased a replacement one, but in many cases, if you finally get 1 worker to do it for you, the next time you reinstall, you will have to beg them to activate it again for you.

Overall, it is an annoyance that significantly extends the time it takes to set the system up, and could easily leave you high and dry the moment the support workers at microsoft check on any notes left by other workers on you.

 

[captaincharisma]

Should we leave the OS blank if we order a pre-built? Wondering about licensing and upgrade(motherboard) issues down the road. I own a copy of 10. I can move it to any PC I want. Does that apply to a boutique shop's OS?

If you have an OS, you can install it on whatever hardware you want.
Being a "prebuilt" does not negate your ability to install a different OS. Be it Dell, HP, or (shudder) CyberPower.

However...you need to look at the extra cost of the OS if they include it.
If it only adds $20 to the total price, I'd get theirs, and save the existing license for something else.

I should clarify. If the user didn't have an OS does it make any difference if they have a boutique install it? Can the person who buys the PC still transfer that OS like someone who purchased a copy?

For all of the system builders that I have seen, they go with a non retail version of the OS where once it is activated, it will refuse to activate on different hardware.

A workaround is calling microsoft and begging them to activate the OS for you, and make up a story like the motherboard failed and you purchased a replacement one, but in many cases, if you finally get 1 worker to do it for you, the next time you reinstall, you will have to beg them to activate it again for you.

Overall, it is an annoyance that significantly extends the time it takes to set the system up, and could easily leave you high and dry the moment the support workers at microsoft check on any notes left by other workers on you.

you don't have to worry about that with many copies of windows 10 anymore

 

[ghettogamer]

Makes it easier to RMA in case of ANY failure, as oppose to contacting multiple manufacturers for all of your purchased goods.. newer less experienced buyers would certainly appreciate the added warranty these custom made pc offer, and the savings against building one helps a lot. but if your like me you have multiple components lying around I can afford not to buy an entire brand new rig so I wouldnt mind either spending or waiting for these prices to become available to me

 

[razor512]

It is quite rare for more than 1 component to fail at a time, but when you have a system where everything is covered under 1 warranty, if the requirement is that you send the system in for repair, and they want you to mail it in at your expense, then you can easily end up with a $50-80 shipping fee because basic consumers will not get business discounts on shipping.

To make matters worse, you can often end up without a PC for 2+ weeks while waiting for a repair.

On the other hand if you build a PC, most failures will not render the system completely useless (especially on the intel side of things). For example, if your SSD fails and you RMA that, you can repartition the hard drive and install an OS on that, and if you do not have one, you can run a linux live distro from a flash drive and get some basic use while you wait.

If your videocard fails, you can use the integrated GPU while you wait for a warranty repair.

If you have 1 sticks of RAM and 1 stick goes bad, you can just send back the bad stick and get a replacement (most memory makers will allow 1 bad stick out of a 2 stick kit to be RMAed.

Complete show stoppers are a failed CPU, or failed motherboard, or failed power supply.

 

[Fulgurant]

Think about it this way, Just because the store across the street increases the price of a bottle of water to $20, doesn't make the $15 that the store down the road is charging, a good deal.

Relatively speaking, a prebuilt can be be cheaper than a DIY system, but that is only in comparison to the insane price gouging that is happening.

Both are bad choices at the moment.

Logged in to upvote this. The title of this article is exactly backwards. This isn't a "great time to buy custom shop PCs;" it's a bad time to buy video cards. I can't think of any other industry/situation in which a putative authority on the subject would tout a massive price hike as a good thing.

The substance of the article isn't bad; the author's price comparison arithmetic is at least interesting. I think some of the commenters in this thread have it right, though, when they argue that cheaper builds are relatively stable at the moment. If you're in desperate need of a new video card, it's probably best to make do with a lower end product until the crisis passes, hopefully sooner rather than later.

 

[Olle P]

... Also, where are the more mainstream builds? ... I suspect the premise of this article might not hold true when comparing systems in the $1000 range.

That's my thought too.

I've looked into pre-built (not custom) brand name computers (for gaming) many times over the past decades and in this time a few factors has remained:
1. In a straight "by component" price comparison the mass produced computers are cheaper.
2. To get a pre-built computer that meet your minimum requirements at all points you'll have to pay a premium for over capacity on at least one and usually more components, ending up at same or higher price than if you build your own at minimum specs.
3. Pre-builds are less likely to allow unlimited future upgrades. More likley to use proprietary form factors for motherboard and/or PSU.

 

[rickhal]

I have been buying my gaming rigs from Magic Micro for several years now. I used to build them myself but am getting too old for that kind of project now. I like that I get to choose what components I want in the system. And how much I want to spend on it. The last time (which was back in June) I got a Ryzen 1700x GPU with MSI gaming MB, Corsair liquid cooling, DDR4 2500 RAM w/cooling and a 700 watt PSU as well as extra case fans. I was able to get a Vega 56 and installed that myself. Which is what I usually do these days. I went a bit over budget because I wanted a AOC 144hz monitor that could handle AMD's free sync. I had a problem with the original SSD hybrid HDD. So, I got that replaced with a Samsung SSD. I ended up spending about 3k on it. I know I could have built it myself for less. But how much less? Enough to make it worth having to procure all the parts and put them together myself? I didn't think so and still don't. I am quite happy with this rig and know it will be "current" for a few more years at least.

 

[Acidtest]

If you're doing a DIY build you should be using something like pcpartpicker.com and setting up pricing alerts. Since I have a very good case and PSU as the start of a new build I'm slowly accumulating components and have saved nearly $300 on the MB/RAM/GPU I bought, compared to current pricing. Sometimes sales are only up for a day or less so having an alert is crucial.

 

[curley60]

I seem to always have a case, power supply, Bluray optical drives, HDD/SSDs laying around that I pick up during the year when you can get them on sale. I still have some unused DDR3 that I would pick up every other month for $55.00 for 16GB at it's lowest. So to build a new box, I usually only buy motherboard, CPU, GPU. Someone mentioned that the prices will catch up with the boutique PCs once their stock is exhausted. One of my best boxes is an overclocked Core i7 990x @ 4.4GHZ with 24GB ram all water cooled with a water cooled 1070 scoring just 1000 points less than a Core i7 6700 in Passmark CPU Benchmark Scores, 10,576. Enthusiasts build their own no matter what the cost. Just my opinion and you know what they say about opinions.