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A lot of people would frown on the idea of buying a pre-built PC instead of building your own from scratch. I might have done that in the past, too. But it’s become abundantly clear lately that there are plenty of reasons to buy a pre-built PC: it’s not lazy, it’s just smart.
5You Don’t Have to Worry About Price Scalping on Parts
Price scalping on highly desired items has always been a problem, but with the economy a little on the painful side right now, it’s a lot worse than it used to be. Scalping reached an all-time high in the post-pandemic era, and though it’s calmed down a little bit, it’s still unforgiving today. Practically any CPU or GPU that launches these days is guaranteed to have limited initial availability and over-inflated prices. It’s paradise for scalpers.
It happened with the RTX 40 and RTX 50 serieslaunch, and with the Ryzen 7 9800X3D. It’s probably going to keep happening in the foreseeable future. Acquiring the individual parts you want for your custom PC build is pretty difficult and expensive. This is one very good reason to consider a pre-built PC; they usually have sought-after CPUs and GPUs at MSRP prices, or at least close to them. It’s not an exaggeration to say you can get a pre-built PC with in-demand components for a much lower price than buying those components and building a PC yourself.
Sure, you might have to sacrifice some specific aesthetic or one particular component you may have wanted. But if the budget is tight, a pre-built PC has the potential to be cheaper than a custom if the expensive parts you really want are part of it.
4A Pre-Built PC is Way More Convenient
This doesn’t really need much explanation, does it?Building your own PC can be a lot of fun, but it’s also a lot of work. Sourcing all the parts, putting everything together, and troubleshooting problems, the list is endless. If you’re really good at it, it can be a whole day of work. If you aren’t an expert, it can be several. There’s something to be said about getting a PC that is already built and ready to go when it arrives at your doorstep.
It’s not just the effort of building the initial PC, either. When you source your own parts, troubleshooting your build in the future can be a huge hassle since many of your components probably came from different sources. If you buy a pre-built PC, you’ll only ever need one point of contact for diagnosis and troubleshooting, warranty questions, or any other customer service need.
Besides, just because a PC is pre-built doesn’t mean you can’t customize it to some extent. A lot of vendors allow you to customize your purchase while still getting all of the aforementioned benefits. If you want the final product but not the effort of building and maintaining it yourself, a pre-built PC is the way to go.
3A Lot of Pre-Built PCs are Competitively Priced
One of the old-school advantages of building your own PC was that you could get the same performance as a pre-built for cheaper. Not to mention, in the old days, buying a pre-built PC could mean getting inferior components, vague specifications, or non-standard form factors. As long as you buy from a reputable vendor, this just isn’t the case anymore. It’s a transparent, high-value market these days, and there’s a good chance of getting pre-built PCs cheaper than custom ones now.
Skytech Shiva
The Core i5-12400F is one of the best budget gaming CPUs and the RTX 4060 is a pretty solid choice for 1080p and 1440p gaming, and you’re able to find both in the Skytech Shiva gaming PC. This budget gaming pre-built also features 16GB of dual channel memory, 1TB of fast storage, and a decent, 650W PSU. Not bad for a budget gaming PC.
In fact, if you have a relatively big budget, you’ll find that there are a ton ofgreat pre-built PC optionsfrom vendors like Lenovo or Dell. Check out some trusted vendors, price out the pre-built PC that you want, and compare it to how much it might cost to build something similar yourself. You might be surprised to learn how much cheaper it can be. At worst, it’ll be roughly the same or slightly more expensive, but still way more convenient than having to build one yourself.
2Building Your Own PC Isn’t Novel Anymore
Part of the appeal of custom PC building in the past was just how unique each build could be. Components were more varied and competitive. There were more ways to achieve the same results. Aesthetics were less streamlined. There was some real fun in showing off your personal build and knowing that it was probably a lot different from most everyone else. Unfortunately, the industry has gotten so streamlined these days that such novelty doesn’t really exist anymore.
360mm AIOs, RGB fans, flamboyant RAM, fish tank cases; sure, it’s not like you have to use these things, but they’re overwhelmingly present. Not to mention the long wait times to get the parts you want, how expensive they are, or waiting for prices to go down, and the constant grind of upgrading certain components for marginally better gains with each new generation.
Of course, far be it from me to say you aren’t allowed to enjoy this hobby anymore. But I think those who have always been pretty big on it can identify that the custom PC heyday is a bit behind us now. It’s worth enjoying for the love of the game, but it’s definitely a more harrowing and less rewarding experience than it used to be, and it doesn’t impress or turn heads like it used to.
1Pre-Built PCs Have a Lot of Aesthetic Options Now
Pre-built PCs have come a long way in the past few decades. Not that long ago, buying a pre-built often meant settling for a plain, generic build. Well, the market for pre-built PCs has gotten a lot more competitive since then, so vendors have really stepped it up. Most pre-built PC builders offer a huge variety of sleek cases, unique designs, with great cable management, RGB lighting, themes, and a lot more.
I’m not going to pretend that you’re able to get anything more unique than a fully-built custom PC. After all, when you pick every single part yourself, of course, it’s going to be pretty darn unique. But most vendors allow you to do a lot of customization even with a pre-built PC, including components, aesthetic themes, color, and much more. Some let you get pretty granular, customizing even the type of CPU cooler, RAM design, form factor, and motherboard design.
This means that choosinga pre-built PC over a custom isn’t sacrificing aesthetic and personalization. You may not have the complete and total freedom of building your own PC from scratch, but you do have a lot more options than you used to, so if that was the main thing holding you back in the past, now is a good time to forget about that hangup. If you aren’t that picky about aesthetics in the first place, well, all the more reason to go with a pre-built.
Ultimately, there are still good reasons to build your own PC from scratch. But there are just as many good reasons to buy a pre-built PC, too. Still, if you’re dead-set on building your own custom machine, you might want to considerwhich parts you can afford to spend a little less on. If you are going to go custom, you may as well do what you can to make it as cheap as possible.
