I like to build computers, either for myself or for others, commercially. It’s something I don’t recommend to anyone, because there’s a lot of steps involved and more importantly, you need to be both patience and tidiness.
But recently, things have happened that have removed the joy of building them. I’d like to give out my very perhaps wrong opinion of it, which is what this entire blog is about.
Expensive parts
Just 5 to 6 years ago, parts weren’t as crazy expensive as they are today. AM4 was a little expensive but as the market was flooded with parts, the prices went down. AM5 however has low entry prices in the 100 USD, and that’s for a basic low end entry board. Insane.
CPUs have also increased in price, while not offering nothing different from previous generations. My issue is that there’s no actual low-end products that are good, instead we have older generations being discounted, meaning that they can go higher in price if someone decides to be a bit funny. And once you do find a good low-end products, you can’t use it on a build, since it’s already a Mini-PC.
And to say nothing about GPUs, which are also much more expensive than before. Nvidia being the 1st in the discrete GPU isn’t a problem, it’s when they use their position to dictate prices and features. I say time and time again that if you want actual competition, you need to be inconvenienced, at least a bit, and it seems that people are finally getting wise and dodge Nvidia’s poor value proposition. Needless to say, prices are still too high and essentially out of reach for most people.
It’s not just GPUs, Memory and Storage remain with incredibly stupid prices. Buying a 2TB SSD is essentially a nightmare because prices haven’t gone down. And anything higher than 4TB is just impossible to buy without spending an arm and a leg. DDR5 remains expensive but thankfully you don’t need the crazy high speeds it has to get decent performance, so that’s at least good. Prices should be better anyway.
Oh and I can’t forget that the RGB tax is real. If something has RGB on it, it’s gonna be more expensive.
Not really worth it sometimes
Computer hardware has evolved so much in the last 15 years that building a desktop is not really worth it sometimes. Unless you want to deal with the actual build, you can get different PCs, already built and ready to go. If you need portability, you can get a decent laptop. If you don’t want a laptop but still want portability, you can get a mini PC. And for most uses, a laptop will actually serve you well. For gaming, you can get a console (I know, I know), and not even deal with whatever desktop PC throws at you, usually curveballs.
Dealing with Modern OSes
As I mentioned in my post about Linux, dealing with modern OSes can range for “okay” at best and “nightmare inducing” at worst. Windows 11 is so saddled with crap nowadays that you actually need a debloating tool to make it usable. And in the other side of the fence, Linux is pretty much usable, when it works. Because when it breaks, you’ll go through lots of forum posts and elitism to get it fixed.
Yes, you’ll deal with the same crap if you buy a laptop, but I feel that things are worse than before. I remember the time that MS wanted to make Windows work like a tablet, but there were no tablet or 2-in-1 devices. Now we do have these and Windows simply does not work well in those.
Troubleshooting
Probably the worst bit. I have to say that I like this part personally, but someone without patience will give up quickly. PCs are fickle and can stop working, or have issues that will take a long time to fix it.
Imagine this: Your PC isn’t showing any images. How can you test it? Most likely you need a second PC to test your first PC, because parts are thankfully exchangeable. You try to test the GPU on second PC and it works. You plop it back to the first PC, and suddenly it works again. Testing this out would have taken you at least 1 hour as you go back and forth.
A Chore, but I like it
As I said, I like building PCs. But if I can be very honest here, it’s usually a chore. Seeing the system boot up and everything working as it should is always wonderful, especially if you did it by your own two hands. But having a desktop PCs is for mostly a niche case, although gaming on a desktop can be infinitely better, it can also be worse.
Looking back, after building my own PCs and for others for over a decade and a half has thought me that patience is everything, and that is now missing on people. It can be sound and even be a chore, but thankfully, I like it enough to not mind how strangely complex it can be. I just wish it wasn’t that expensive.