With GPU prices peaking, now is a good time to buy a prebuilt gaming PC - PC Gamer

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It's not a good time to build your own PC. Normally we recommend buying individual components and building your own PC instead of purchasing through a system builder, buying a prebuilt, or (shudder) buying a console. But due to a number of factors, buying a prebuilt system isn't such a bad idea right now.

 

To start with, it's a terrible time to buy a graphics card. Cryptocurrency mining has driven GPU prices through the roof—some nearly double their MSRP. To make matters worse, RAM prices are up as well, mostly due to smartphone demand, though some relief on that front might be coming soon.

However, there's one place where GPU prices haven't been hit quite as hard: system builders. Since system builders aren't plagued by out-of-stock overpriced video cards, the cost of a prebuilt system hasn't ballooned the same as buying the components individually. I built the near exact equivalent of our build guide in CyberPowerPC's system configurator and came out with a price of $1637. 

The normally modest price premium of a prebuilt system doesn't look so bad compared to those inflated GPU costs. $1,637 is still a bit higher than our original build price, but better than $1,800, and it comes with the bonuses of buying through a system builder like a warranty and tech support, plus, y'know, having someone else build the whole thing and guarantee it properly turns on. 

But if you're looking to pull the trigger on a new gaming PC right now, opting for a prebuilt system might actually be pretty smart.

Replies • 18
RockNRolla

It's simple supply and demand. GPU manufacturers need to increase production to match the high demand for their products, and then we'll see competitive low prices again.


supply and demand may also mean the GPU manufacturers are throttling making product because the profit per device is so good right now.


Interstellar

Miners are smart people. They can also buy the prebuilt machines, rip out the GPU and then resell the rest. THey probably still make a profit by doing that. NVIDIA tried the two GPUs per customer thing on their site and that somewhat worked.

Also once there's a crash there's tons of people dumping cards in auction sites. When that happens you can buy a GPU cheap.


Interstellar

Its a good way to get a price appropriate system if you know what to look for and can find what you want. 

or......  Knowing the resale potential of the remaining system parts after GPU removal, in either case, a bit if knowledge is required to go this path.


I noticed that too.  Seen many prebuilts with similar specs to the build I wanted to put together for around the same price.  And if I added the cost of Windows, it would sometimes be more expensive than the prebuilt.  Glad I don't have to deal with that anymore though. :)


Danmaku

I prefer a pc gamer that i built myself.

I don't like the specs of prebuilt PC.



Galactic

It's supply and demand but not quite what you might think. The problem is that there is only a limited amount of space available in the fabs at TSMC and Global Foundries. Nvidia and AMD aren't the only customers so they can't just ask for more lines to produce GPUs if all of the lines are already in use. Companies like Apple can get as much space as they need because they are such a large customer. Then you have companies that are willing to pay a huge premium to get fab space like that Bitcoin mining operation that ordered a 100,000 chips. That's a lot for one small company but they likely believe they can make it up as the crypto-currencies continue to rise in price (along with a LOT of volatility.)