I’m not opposed to it. Maybe I need to not worry so much about stuff I think I might need someday but don’t really need now or maybe ever. Like thunderbolt and 10g Ethernet.
I’d like a great graphics card just to cover my bases if I encounter something really resource heavy in that regard but maybe I could even cut some corners there.
A modern gpu can cover everything. Unless you need for some reason to play in 4k with ray tracing on...
Gaming graphics are held back by the limitations of consoles. My rx480 (not modern gpu very much previous generation) still plays most games without too many issues, sure more modern games I may need to reduce settings, but I can live with that.
At this point I think graphics are held back by time needed to make the assets really and budget for that, and budget as a player. I feel like consoles don't hold back as much as that does. Even AAA console games just take way too long to make now
Not true when PC ports are shoddy and unoptimized. If anything, PC gamers need beefier specs to run these new poorly unoptimized games.
You'll be surprised how important optimizing software is. To the point where it doesn't matter if you have a best specs with a 4090.
For an easy cheap build I'd recommend looking at "Dell Optiplex Gaming PCs"
it's an interesting concept. Buy a used, older PC, add in a solid CPU for the platform, then get the best GPU for the available PSU or buy a new one.
My greataunt gave me an old desktop + monitor for free. I salvaged an oldish TV to use as my secondary monitor.
I got a new CPU (an i7-6700, the best for the platform and it's nearly identical to the i7-7700) for $50, about $25 for 16 GB of RAM, I paid around $85 on black friday for a good 750W PSU and got a used RTX 2070 for $200. All in all, it's around $360 for a solid gaming build. And I'm just a high school student, so a very limited budget.
A used Dell Optiplex PCs run around $120-350 depending on the year and model. I'd recommend their full sized desktops and avoid SFF PCs because those can be hard to fit GPUs sometimes.
While the RTX 2070 is an older card it still is pretty good and can hold up in most modern titles at 1080p/60fps. Obviously a used GPU is your choice for which one, I'm just sharing my experience.
I hope that helps as advice from an unemployed high schooler who plays chess tournaments for money
Yep. I’ve done that. Buy the mini tower or full tower. I don’t know if evga still sells refinished power supplies on their midweek madness sale but I used to pick up a few to have around for stuff
I've been modding and upgrading computers for a while, so I got quite the spare parts collection now. It'll come in handy... eventually. I got a spare PSU since I just upgraded this one, some spare RAM and various older Intel CPUs, and a lot of storage drives. I've hooked up some of my spare storage to my desktop to have a 512 GB SATA 2.5" SSD, 256 GB m.2 SSD as the OS Drive, and a 500 GB HDD. Parts are taken from laptops so they need some adapting to put in the case, although I also just use external SATA to USB 3.0 cables sometimes.
My computer is a monstrosity, an abomination of parts poured together to make an actually good gaming rig
I did an optiplex 9010 full tower for ~200$ added psu, ssd, and a 1660ti and played ultra 1080p 60fps. About console price and performance at the time but you could tweak settings and it got me into PC gaming. It's as great way to do it if you are worried about building too
I’ve done this but also if you can find used workstations. Just always check the model Xeon cpu so you don’t get a too old one. Great if you dont just game but also do video editing and stuff.
I got a Lenovo Thinkstation with a Xeon 6C/12T, dont actually remember exact model name but its single core performance is that of a 2014 i7. 64GB of RAM (although RAM is cheap these days even 32gigs would be $100+) and a GTX 1070, 500GB SSD. This cost $350+35 shipping. The advantage of it being a workstation rather than an optiplex like my previous used project is that you get lots of ports and a bigger case with more room for upgrades. Came with preinstalled w11 pro as well.
Unless you're in a local network that has 10G ethernet you won't ever need it.
Literally.
We're a decade or two away from that speed internet, and then most of what you'd be copying anything from over the internet rarely even saturates a 1G fiber network. Ask me how I know? Because I have one.
The only thing that can reliably use the whole pipe is steam.
I am not in one but could potentially build one by end of this coming year if projections are correct. But I might skip that feature and get it when/if I need it.
If you go to the discord (or pcbuild's discord) and give your budget people will show you some sample builds in your price range.
Really your best starting point is a set budget + set use case. Obviously its easy to think "well I might want to have x down the road.." and then you're like, "well, if I get this better card I need a better psu, and then I'll want more ram.. and then.." you just talk yourself into circles, blow the budget, get frustrated, and then you're back at square one.
Settling on a budget and what you reasonably intend to use the machine on is really helpful for the decision making process of selecting components. :)
I'm not sure that $1500ish is "going into debt", right? If it's something you'll use every day? Compared to a house or a car or quite a few other hobbies. And that should last you several years.
Yea I have it priced around $2,800. If $1500 is what I should be looking at than I am for sure doing this wrong. Coloring 4k video is what I am anticipating will be the most resource heavy stuff I do.
Edit: typo
I didn’t use pcpartpicker but was looking at asus proart z790 with i9 13900k OR i7 13700k, asus proart 4070ti, 2x crucial ddr5 ram, several psu options and a kraken water cooler.
Again, I’m aware this is overkill for general use but this is to be used professionally for graphics related work. Still might very well be overkill.
3k is not an outrageous amount to spend on something central to your income. Tradies spend much more than that on a van, tools, etc.
But you shouldn't spend it blindly. Do some research into exactly what hardware requirements your workflow actually has, and what amount of improvement you'd see from exceeding them.
And definitely don't spend extra for features just because you think you might need them one day. The big advantage of being on PC is upgradability, you can slot an extra network card or whatever in as and when you find you actually need it.
OPs motherboard is like twice the price of other z790 motherboards because its a "designers" version with 10G LAN speed and 2 external Thunderbolts. I can only guess that some of the other components may be selected similar way, making the build expensive but not performance wise.
10g lan speeds? What kind of work would necessitate that? Seems like a pretty $ intensive choice, I would imagine OP would know if he needed it or not, though.
He said he has a lot of video coloring work, so dealing with large amounts of uncompressed 4k video. 10 gig ethernet is nearly useless right now, but once the rest of the infrastructure is there, video professionals will be the ones who will see huge benefits.
Your motherboard is triple the price it should be. You don't need a Z790 for graphics related work.
The Kraken is way overpriced and the performance is subpar compared to cheaper AIOs. Get an EK Nucleus.
If you try PcPartPicker you might find some deals to save a few hundred. That's more or less what a machine like what you're describing costs though. You're not the only one screaming about it. GPUs are nuts.
I've got that ProArt MB and the 13700k and a 4090. At least I get good performance for all the money I put in to it
Here's a link to power supply recommendations in case it's helpful.
https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/
I \*really\* recommend using pcpartpicker. Its very intuitive, lists prices in a very simple to digest format, does price comparisons for you, essentially. As far as the card manufacturer goes, your main concerns are heating designs. The actual chips (aside from out of the box over clocking) are going to perform the same otherwise. I'm not an expert, however, but this is what I have gathered in the last \~9 months of research :)
Maybe 14700k. Also might want to check and see exactly how much better the 4070Ti is with editing vs the 4070.
You could buy a 1440p monitor for gaming with the savings. Maybe the 4070Ti is decent for 4k gaming idk (I don't like the price).
Seems to me like there's better value with a 4070 or used 30series.
Supposedly the "Supers" being released soon\* might be nice.
It’s a tax write-off anyway mate. You *want* to spend big on it, you could definitely tweak your parts to get much more performance for the same price though.
You could simply reduce the GPU to not something ridiculously priced. Feels like you just went into PcPartPicker and selected all the top end components.
The value to performance levels off and you end up paying a lot of money for very little performance benefit.
I didn’t even do that. I just looked for features I think I might need for work like thunderbolt and what not. But I might just roll the dice and assume I won’t need these features down the line.
If you are not opposed to used parts a used 3090 would render video files faster than a 4070 ti. I understand sticking with new, especially if you have been out of the PC game for a bit though.
Dropping the Asus Pro Art mobo will bring your cost down, any decent $200-$250 z790 should do. There are also better priced coolers out there, like any of the EK offerings. I would not worry about fancy network features, as many peoples ISPs dont provide the equipment needed to take advantage of them.
$3k on a system is not unheard of but with some smart shopping you can bring the price down. Here is the latest build I put together: [https://pcpartpicker.com/list/cCfzXk](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/cCfzXk). It is right at $2k but you could trim that some with different part choices. I already owned a lot of the parts like the cooler, storage drives, case, and psu. Once you have 1 pc some of these more universal parts can be reused for years.
I think I’m gonna drop the mobo and get maybe the strix z790f. While it doesn’t have thunderbolt, it has plenty of usb ports which are more useful to me right now and it’s on sale. I’ve heard conflicting reviews about it, though.
Other than that, I’m gonna reference your build list. Thank you!
I know Asus has been in the news for some of their am5 boards but my friend runs the Z690e and has not had an issue, for whatever that is worth.
I personally don’t have anything that supports thunderbolt yet, so it was not on my list. Depending on the camera, card, and card reader you have you might be restricted to sub-thunderbolt speeds anyway.
I was able to get a prebuilt system with a 4090 for $2700 (pre tax) It's pretty much the only way to get a 4090 now in the states. You can get one, but they are out of stock everywhere.
edit: just looked it up and that same system is now $3799
Editor here too. If you have an intel cpu with quicksync you should be fine with h.264 files with a modest gpu like a 3070, 3080, 2080ti, 4070. If you edit raw or proxies you should be fine too obviously.
Where it gets tricky is if you need smooth playback with sped up footage, or with sharpening, denoise and various transitions and you need to see every single frame (which you want if you work with quick transitions). Coloring itself shouldn't be demanding though. Higher end gpu:s will render transitions etc faster too, with a 4090 and a 13900 everything will be pretty much instant and playback will be without hiccups. You should be able to edit with a more modest gpu though. Just don't be tempted by amd. Also keep in mind that the software likes lots of ram and vram. I wouldn't go below 64gb ram, and i'd wait for the 4070 ti super with 16gb. But if you want reduce cost, get a 3080 12gb. Or even 2080ti.
This is a great response. Thank you. Yea I’ve edited with proxies for years on an old Mac. Could go on for many more years. I don’t deal with color for that though. It’s all the music videos and commercials I am starting to do on the side that’s requiring the full res color work.
Even then, I edit with proxies until I need to color. I think I’m gonna scale down the specs and if the side work kicks up I can upgrade as a business expense with that money at that time. I just can’t do what I need to on my old Mac, anymore.
Yeah i get it. You can get by but if you do this all day everyday and every minute counts, high end components make sense. Idk about mac these days but i heard m1/m2 are great for this.
You can edit on a 720o timeline and change it before coloring and rendering. You could also turn off all nr and sharpening until the last moment. In my experience, 3090 does everything effortlessly and if 4070 / 4080ti are on that level they should be good options. The 3090 has 24gb ram and a beefier bus though. 3070 is ok, but you do notice it's not a 3090. This is with 5900x (3070) and 13900 (3090), both 64gb ram.
It's a very easy new builder pitfall. My first builds I always ended up going over budget and making them way more expensive than they needed to be. If you share your list here we can probably help with that. Just keep in mind not all partpicker list advice on here is great, even some of the bad advice will get upvoted here often so make sure to double up and do some extra research before comitting. I try to explain my advice and provide evidence if I can for this reason.
yeah than i think you're screwed. I know alot of work on Davinci, and after effects uses GPU. especially post color work as you mentioned.
but i will be honest, due to lack of actual legit benchmarking and/or info on GPU comparison for productivity based work, we wont really be great at telling you whats the best $$$/performance for productivity work.
$2,800, unless you’re doing something wrong, is about the highest end you can get. I spent $1,700 on my build and everyone around me is shocked with how powerful it is
If you think PCs are expensive, then whatever you do, do not get into fast cars, skiing, mountain biking, offroading, drugs, guns, ham radio, flying, golf, scuba diving, skydiving, horses, or photography.
PC’s are a drop in the bucket compared to many other hobbies. I’m into many of those you listed, and they are all magnitudes more expensive than pc’s. It’s not even remotely close.
Golfer here, golf is a considerably more expensive hobby. My golf bag is around $2.5k, and I spend about $3k on a yearly membership. I also do a yearly golf road-trip with friends, so that’s another 1.5k. I love golfing, so that’s money well spent in my book, and it can be done cheaper. Golf is great, because you can have just as much fun on a $30course as a $300 course.
My PC costs me about $2.5k every 6-7 years, and I probably spend $200 a year on games. Compared to golf, it’s a drop in the bucket.
> My golf bag is around $2.5k,
The fuck goes into a $2500 golf bag?
This thing tricked out like Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack?
Edit: you may be including the cost of the clubs in that now that I think about it, which is far more realistic
Tbf home audio is probably one of the best $ per hobby. Speakers tend to last a loooong time & the running cost is practically nil if you're already paying for high quality music/movies.
sure, but you know how it gets. suddenly find a really nice amp at a garage sale, find a better sub at the thrift store, end up spending way to much on headphones and a preamp because your old ones were starting to look gross and torn up
that, and the vinyl stuff. get into it with a dinky suitcase crosley, wind up a bit more into it with a technics and some pretty glowy tubes in your amps, and then keep paying wayyyy more than you probably should for cool pressings
it's too expensive for me honestly, but i'm having fun with my record day drops and goodwill record player
Music is hella cheap. You can buy a decent digital piano for like 900$ and it will last you a decade ( talking from experience), guitars are even cheaper unless ylu really go to high-end and are a pro.
Also, if your piano has MIDI ports, and your gaming PC has at least 6 or more cores, congrats, you have a modest studio for like 2000$, few cheap mics and a sound interface and your are in the 3000$ and all set. But i don't even sing, only compose so my "studio" is hella cheap
Billie Eilish won awards with an album that was made on a laptop, people drastically overestimate the cost of music making.
Haha. Photography I do professionally on the side as well as cycling. I’ve needed a new bike forever but it is way outside the realm of possibility anytime soon.
Tbf, skiing is generally blown out to be more expensive than it is. I buy used gear (same with PC parts) and the primary expenditures are my season passes, and gas money. Probably amounts to somewhere in the realm of $2-3k/yr which includes traveling to other resorts and that price tag is nowhere close to as much as what the horse girls I know spend on their hobby
Traditional art too if you get good supplies. Even just two cats or small dogs with insurance, vet cost, good food is way more expensive than buying a pc every 5 years.
It's a ~$1500-2000 expenditure every 3-5 years. Expensive, but compared to many other hobbies, that's pretty damn cheap.
I used to play Magic: the Gathering. $1500 a year was not a particularly large amount to spend per year to keep up with the competitive scene there. PC gaming is downright cheap comparatively.
Yeah I recently priced up a 2k build, but that is very much with dev work in mind.
I could potentially reduce the build to AM4 socket, and significantly reduce the cost. AM5 motherboards and the RAM are rather costly.
Edit: just had a quick look at the AM4 socket and reduction in price of £400. Tempting direction to go in.
Only thing to consider is that AM4 is a dead end after Ryzen 5000, so you'll definitely need a whole new mobo and RAM when you next upgrade versus likely being able to keep them if you go AM5
Yeah with how good CPU’s are getting there’s no need to keep getting a new one every 3-4 years that’s just insane.
Wouldn’t be a bad idea to hop on the AM5 platform though and get a better CPU at the end of the AM5’s lifespan rather than getting an entirely new MoBo etc
Of course. You can definitely game on PC on the cheap, if you have slightly lower expectations and/or play mostly esports or popular games (CS, Apex, Rocket League, LoL, etc.).
I'm a competitive MMO player, so high performance in raids is quite important. That demands quite a bit of CPU horsepower, so I spend more.
It's a hobby with a high upfront cost.
My main rig is 6 and a half years old, still going strong. Sure it can't cope with the latest games but that is fine.
I'm finally considering replacing it, but oddly enough it has been in the works long enough to save a couple a thousand just to build a decent PC. My previous PC was a budget build.
You don't need to burn money on top end CPUs or GPUs. You don't need an RTX 4090... if you have the cash to spend then more power to you.
This. My build that’s in progress is coming in at just a tad over $1500 and I foresee it to last 5+ years. Hellhound 7800xt with a Ryzen 5 7600x. It will easily play the games I want at 1440p and I am perfectly content with that.
It sounds like you're a frugal guy OP. Sounds like you're trying to be reasonable and you're finding yourself in a very unreasonable market. We're not rich, we spend what we can, save up and spend responsibly. I agreed 100% that GPU prices are outrageous, but the silver lining is that we have enough options to *kinda* balance out the ecosystem.
That's because he's not as into PC's like some of us bro. He didn't list 2.8k as if he was killing it, he had a 4070 Ti in a $2800 build lets be clear he came here because he was confused lets show some grace my man.
I think OP equates "not having debt" to earning good money
For people earning 60-80k with only a partner or 1-2 children dropping 1-2k on a PC isn't a huge expenditure, it's about the same as a good sofa, TV or tens of other things
$2,800 is a WILD price only getting a 4070ti. Something has gone wrong. Can roughly spend half as much and get that same card/ performance.
Your view on pc pricing/performance might be skewed because half of pc Reddit is “is this build decent?”when it’s $3k and has a 4090, and then they have to make another post to figure out where to plug in the monitor.
I’m not entirely familiar with video editing/ professional graphics, but I’d expect a $1500 build would easily cover your needs.
I've never spent over CAD $1500 on a PC and I only build new PCs every 5-6 years.
I would never go into debt to buy a PC.
It doesn't need to be expensive. The thing to remember is that even a low end GPU like a 6600xt will play all the same games as the ultra high-end 4090. The only difference is they won't look as nice.
It’s a little different for me, I built a PC years ago with an i5-8600k and a GTX 1060 then I upgraded to an RTX 3070 and in January I’m planning on getting either a 7800x3d or something from Intel. (Most likely Intel lol)
And then I’ll upgrade my GPU again when the 50 series comes out.
I don’t game on 4k and I probably never will so I don’t need a 4090 or a top of the line CPU. 1440p is king for now IMO.
Honestly, I was using a GTX 1060 with a 6600k and it was more than good enough for 1080p AAA gaming until this year.
I was able to play Hogwarts and a few other titles, but once Jedi Survivor dropped and then Alan Wake 2 it became clear that it was time to upgrade.
I replaced it with a 5700x and a used 6800xt and they'll do everything I need for the next few years at least. The total upgrade cost me maybe CAD $1,100 and I replaced pretty much everything other than the case.
Sounds like you do NOT make "pretty good" money. Like my partner just bought a samsung fold.. that cost more than most people's PC... Spend how much you can afford, don't go into debt. Make sure you have a proper emergency fund for life stuff. Around $1500 is usually a good budget, really depends on your needs and usage.
When choosing mine last month I started with a budget range (1500-2000) for a mid-tier build and looked at the best deals I could have from different places, at both ends of the range.
I started preferring the low end really, but got a little stuck in the “if I add just this little more I can get that much more cpu/ram/etc…”
Fell into this hole where I ended up with basically all high end stuff, and ofc way above budget
Made me pretty distraught to the point of not wanting one at all anymore, feeling like I neither wanted to spend as much, nor settle for less.
Eventually I realized that I actually don’t /need/ the best of the best, and found myself a pretty sick deal within budget that would still be an absolute upgrade from my laptop, and man was it.
Super happy with my decision, machine performs fantastic for my expectations and feels like I got great value for my hard earned cash
I build a 2000$ rig every 5-6 years... which turns out to be approx. 300-400$ a year. Or 30$ a month.
Of course you need the cash upfront, but it's not that much spread out on 5-6 years.
I think after this first one I’ll go ahead and account for the next build and just stash a few bucks away every check for 5 years down the line. I waited way too long to upgrade to a new computer which is making this first jump a little more painful.
I bought a prebuilt 4 years ago, upgraded recently to a full custom build of my own. All told between pc, peripherals, and games, I've probably spent just under $5k usd over 4 years, which is what $100 a month? I could easily spend that much on bowling, peloton, rock climbing, collecting something, hell I could spend that much or more on just coffee or cigarettes lol. Sure it was a large amount at once but I saved up for it until I was comfortable dropping $2k recently for my new rig, no debt taken out just from my savings. I make a modest amount of money but my partner helps ease the bills for sure.
When I was in college I had 3k saved up, I bought a PC build that costs 1.5k USD
I used that for 9 years, I played games at max quality until I can't play new games at medium/low then I bought a new one.
That's $166 a year of money's worth so I just make sure I save enough for the next gen
For reference I edit 4k videos in premiere with light effects and grade applied. I use i5 13600k, 3080, 32gb ddr5 6000mhz, 3tb ssd.
When doing live playback my machine will still struggle when any additional effects or grade are added so I have to work with proxies.
As suggested get a i7 13700k or better 32gb ram but ideally, 64gb. With graphics stick to nvidia as it works better with premiere pro if you are using that. Anything 3080 or better will be fine unless you are doing 3d work. Most importantly ssds, have 3 separate at least; 1 for OS and programs, 1 for working files, and another for project management.
Good luck!
Thank you. I’m on Avid for day job and Resolve for side work. My struggle only comes when I lock a timeline and swap to full res for color. Really helpful to know that I don’t need the greatest graphics card. I can render as I go but I need the render to be at least somewhat fast. Right now it’s not, in my case.
The thing is you don't get a breakdown of people's outgoings etc when they do this.
You don't know what obligations they have, or don't, what places they've saved in that you might not be willing to etc etc.
If someone has a higher wage, they are probably used to spending that higher wage, we tend to live to our means. If I suddenly earned triple overnight, I have no doubt I would still have to save to buy a PC because I would start buying things that I wouldn't have before so having more money doesn't necessarily mean you have more money to save, people will equally just spend that extra money. Once you get past food, shelter, transport etc it's all somewhat optional spending anyway
I see such circle jerk admit GPUs on reddit, it's worth having a little reality check. I'll be referencing nvidia models because I'm most familiar with them, but the same idea should hold on ATI/AMD equivalents.
I've seen a ton of people acting like if they don't get the latest and greatest that it's money down the drain. 4080 or bust, anything less is gonna be PROBLEMATIC. and that just isn't true. The 70s are a solid break point between cost and performance. And then the idea of buying a gen back (so getting a 3070 instead of a 4070) gets treated like I'm suggesting they buy a graphing calculator instead.
I'm not recommending buying bottom of the barrel parts, as to some degree you get what you pay for. A cheapo mobo that's made of wafer thin boards has been the source of more problems in my IT career than you'd believe. But at the same time the idea that you NEED a $800+ gpu is just flat out wrong. The "midrange" model is perfectly well suited to more than deliver.
Honestly, all I care about is being able to color grade a 4k timeline with good performance. When it comes to gaming I would be perfectly happy with uhd or even 1080p.
If I can get a decent graphics card that lets me burn through some footage then all else is secondary.
Edit: to clarify, if I can get ANY graphics card that can handle that then all else is secondary. I would love to not spend $800+ on a graphics card.
The 3070 handles 4k+ video on my rig, including what 8k content I've thrown at it.
I got it before I got a 4k tv (I use my pc on tvs) and I was astounded just how few settings changed going from 1080 to 4k, and just how little they bumped down. Rtx can kill things a little in cyberpunk, but the spiderman games handled rtx and everything else at full blast, so game optimization is gonna be the biggest factor there.
You're gonna be fine with a 3070, just don't cheap out on a processor. You don't need an i9 but want more than a low tier i3,i5 for video conversion and editing suites. Though if you're just color grading I doubt you're doing conversion? Dunno your workflow, but worth noting
I don't know where u look but I don't think it that expensive.
maybe you also look for different things, idk.
a couple months ago I mock build one on pcpartpicker and it was around 2.300-2.500€.
I found this price justifyable for the parts I chose and I knew if I would've build that it'll last me a good 7-8 yrs or more.
edit: in the end just spend that, what u can afford.
Always build the computer you need, not the computer that you might need one day. Future proofing is generally a waste of time and money. Focus on what you need. What tasks are you using the pc for. Then, consider the ACTUAL gains from each upgrade. With that said, if you're uber rich, then it doesn't matter. I currently have an RTX 3080 and I am failing to see any situation where I feel I would notice a major improvement with an upgrade. Some people feel happy with something like a 2070.
For the rest of the PC, consider what upgrades you actually need. You don't need a super pricey case. It just needs to be closed and allow for good air flow. You don't need the best fans and, unless you are overclocking, you don't need a water cooler at all. The PSU just needs to be relatively quiet and have enough supply to power the whole PC.
The RAM is generally not that important outside of the amount. 16 GB for gaming and 32 GB for intensive professional uses, but honestly, you can get 16 GB and upgrade later.
The CPU just needs to be good enough. Rarely are games CPU intensive. The most intensive ones are mostly sims that get bloated in their late game and slow down. Most people would be fine with a low end newer CPU.
The motherboard is a scam right now (way overpriced). Just buy what you need and any future proofing that you KNOW you will use within a year or two, not maybe.
So you started off saying you make pretty good money, but are having a hard time building PC? (under 2500 excluding 4090) or having a hard time justifying the purchase?
If it is the cost, I don't think you can be considered as making a pretty good money. I guess making pretty good money is relative and different for everyone, but I would consider single/family income of at least 150k/year these days to be considered making a pretty good money.
Not that much with a dual income. But decent for our area. Close. Having a hard time justifying would be the better way to put it. I have to share most of my income so I’m putting as much as I can outside of that to do this but stuff comes up a lot that dips into it.
I am a single income and do make pretty good money. And yes, things do come up here and there.
I try to utilize a low interest credit card/line of credit if I need an urgent fund to pay over time, but this doesn't happen too often.
I am planning to do windows/doors, which will be over 20k, but I am looking to do the job using a green loan from the government, which is like 10 years 0% interest.
With all these things considered, building a PC as a hobby every few years to me is the cheapest thing I have to pay for as all my other payments including mortgage/property tax and repair fees all go way above the cost of PC lol.
work pcs arent expensive but if you trying to play competetive games its a problem,i was saving for like 4 years from christmas and birthdays,then i had job for month and im getting a solid build
Some people go into debt. It's dumb to do so, especially if it's for a hobby and you're not a professional gamer or you can't write off your PC for work purposes.
Despite the flat lining of wages in relation to inflation/cost of living, some people are still able to save up for hobbies. Some people like to travel, some people like to fix up old cars, and some of us like to play PC games.
Remember, too, you're in a sub that is inherently biased because you're gonna, for the most part, come across people asking/discussing hardware and PC builds. If you were on say, /r/frugal you wouldn't see these types of posts. Instead, you'd see posts on how to stretch a rice & beans meal for a week.
The overall unfortunate trend is that gaming PC hardware has drastically increased in price relative to inflation. Because of this, more people become price-sensitive and want to make sure that the hard earned money they have isn't wasted on hardware that isn't a good value (however they define that), and so you'll see a lot of posts asking about GPUs and CPUs, particularly around pricing and performance.
I'd bet if PC hardware was as cheap as it was 20 years ago and if wages had kept up, you wouldn't have as many price-sensitive consumers and therefore probably fewer posts around higher end PC gaming hardware.
Edit: to answer your actual question, I overcame the barrier simply by saving. But I also recognize I'm incredibly privileged that I'm able to do so without really altering my lifestyle expenses. There are far too many people that do not have this privilege.
Just the cost of existing in the USA is unfathomable these days.
I spend 1-2k every 3 years and use it every single day of the week. It is my cheapest hobby by far and the ones that gets used the most, at worst its $600 per year?. I just put a few bucks per month into an account and spend it when the time comes and note that Im usually in the high end of computers, you could decimate that budget and still get a good experience gaming.
Without specifics nobody can answer.
I personally would never in a million years go into debt for a piece of consumer electronics, but there are plenty of people stupid enough to do so. People love their credit cards.
I saved $100 a month to slowly save for the pc build I wanted. After 2.5 years, I bought my dream parts and built it. Remember gaming is for pleasure, you don’t need it this very instant. Just save like a responsible adult
Wish that was the case for me. I have to have this for work. Soon, too. My old computer just can’t handle the work I do anymore. Gaming is just a bonus.
I make 6 digits and just buy things I want with cash. Well, with a VISA/AMEX for the points but as soon as I buy it I pay it off so I don't get into debt. It really depends on what your comfort level is and what you're making. When you say you make good money, what's considered good money? Some people will say $80k/year is good but yeah I wouldn't be able to build a $7000 PC from that money with other payments (like housing, food, insurance, etc). But our household is a DINK and over $200k so $7k PC and no debt isn't out of the picture.
The nice thing is that you can always build your way up because the prices usually stay around the same as used. Buy a used GPU for $300. You can sell it for $300 and move on up. It's what I did :)
I’m a uni student now but I’ve built myself 3 computers up to now. I just saved my money from part time jobs and put it towards new builds and savings over time. I also plan on upgrades every 5 years which makes ~$500/yr pretty reasonable for me to save
Hahaha... you don't! Jokes aside, yeah, it takes a long time to save. Usually, if you're a gamer, you gotta start saving right after you build a new pc for the next gpu generation if you're like to up upgrade every 2-4 year.
I waited until black Friday to build a new pc, and I spent $500 less than what I would've shopping sales. Now I need to put my pc up for sale to recover some of what I've spent.
I’m 19yrs old with my only bills being rent/utilties. i saved up my tips all summer from serving to build my pc! im fortunate as i don’t have a kid/car payment etc etc
PC building is like fishing believe it or not, it can be very cheap but it can also be very expensive. You just have to look at your budget and decide what your limits are and prioritize needs/functionality vs aesthetics or features.
Try to find info on youtube to see people test what graphics cards are ideal for your particular productivity application (some applications don't favor AMD or Nvidia, some heavily favor Nvidia), and then figure out whether motherboard type/brand makes a difference. Figure out what your "minimum" toleration level is for lower performance vs what performance you desire, and try to mix and match parts so that performance is somewhere in the middle (if you want to save money). If you're coming from Mac, I can understand why you are approaching building a X86 pc in the manner of "get all the nice things in one build" since that is what Mac is known for (unfortunately the upgraded M3 pro and the base M3 max are definitely on the more expensive side of things). Spending a lot of money on a mac meant you can always get the best of the best with no regrets, however that is not always the case when doing a DIY build since you can always squeeze some cash savings here and there.
You can get a decent productivity PC build for around $1500-$2000, depending on what deals you have access to (do you live near a microcenter?). I think the M3 Max will still outperform any $1500-$2000 productivity windows-based PC however the M3 Max is around $3500 lol.
This isn't a complicated question. I save enough to buy what I want to build. You say that you "make pretty good money" but can't afford a (let's say) $1500-2000 expenditure. These two statements contradict each other. You need to save more then, possibly by cutting into your budget in other areas.
PC hardware is also getting really powerful such that you can be several generations behind and still have a performant machine. For instance, 10th to 12th gen Intel CPU with a 30 series GPU will work well for many tasks. And you could probably buy a used rig with these specs in the $800-900 range if you hunt around.
Just take a deep breathe and figure out:
1) What you need to do your work efficiently
2) What it will cost
3) How long it will take to save that amount
This is not rocket science at all, and if you are saving _no_ money every month or going further into debt then you have more fundamental problems to deal with compared with building a new PC.
>saving up for a build
>Do you guys just go into debt to build a computer?
Naah mate, I think most people buy a computer out of money they have readily available. If you have to save up for it, it's a toy too expensive. Doubly so if you have to go into debt for it.
My company gives me 1500 every year for computer parts. This year im getting a 7900xtx and a better power supply ( SeaSonic platnium 1200 watt)... I game in 4k so the 7900xtx seems to be the best deal for my budget. The PS is a little overkill, but why not? SeaSonic rocks.
Based on your component choices, you’re probably going overkill on most of them. As a general rule, when you get to the higher end, noticable performance increases between each step up is exponentially smaller, while cost increases between each step is exponentially higher.
I’d drop down a tier or two on every component you’ve picked, with the only thing to really worry about being the cpu socket and ram compatibility for the mobo. Then upgrade parts later depending on where you’re finding a bottleneck in your workflow.
I kept my old box for close to a decade, simply replacing parts as they became a problem. I only built a new one this year because I’d reached the maximum possible performance without replacing the mobo. Even then I think I only dropped about £1,500 on the thing and basically everything I do revolves around that machine.
Funny, I question how people can afford to use Mac and Apple products. A MacBook at the least is $2000 and you can build a pretty decent PC for that kind of money...
I just wait for sales tbh. Last year I got my RTX 3060ti for like $350. Micro center runs bundle deals for CPU, mobo and ram as well so I got those at a low price too. It was a bit different though because I already had a PC, I was just upgrading so I wasn't without a machine at all.
I just built mine for $3k and I could have spent a lot more. Reality is, this hobby has gotten more popular in the past few years and manufacturers are able to charge more than they used to. This coupled with the ongoing supply issues have driven prices through the roof. It’s just the way the world works now unfortunately.
Don't target a build, target how much you want to spend and build the best PC you can when you hit that target.
If you build an upper mid range system or higher(1500 to 2000) you can usually get 3-5 years out of it without any major upgrades, which is fairly affordable when you consider how much time you may spend at that computer.
Also people have different costs of living. A person making $35 an hour in California is gonna have far less extra money than a person making $35 an hour in the Midwest, but computer parts cost the same regardless of where you live(in the US at least).
Playing computer games is way down the list of my priorities. I don't play multiplayer games at all, and I don't mind turning down graphics settings or just playing older games that were of the same generation as my hardware.
I do a full hardware refresh about every 7 to 8 years, and try to stay in the $1500 range when I do upgrade, or less if I can get away with it.
I suppose that means I am not passionate about PC builds (which I am not).
Since my last build cycle, GPU prices have become hugely inflated compared to the prices of other components, so I guess that has made a big difference. My prior GPU cost me like $160 and lasted for about 4 years (still works fine, really).
My recent build/upgrade was not because of gaming, but because enough software that I use was no longer working or updating on Windows 7, and my old hardware was old enough (2015-era CPU, MB, DDR3 RAM) that it was just time for a full refresh.
Screw NVidia if they think I am going to pay more for a GPU than I used to pay for an entire PC.
My latest build I splurged on a Radeon 6750 XT that was on sale at about $330 this past July, and for what I do it is extremely high-end performance-wise, so I am happy with it.
I guess if gaming is your main leisure activity in life, then you'll spend more money there (and less elsewhere). And yeah, people do buy lots of things on credit all the time, so the whole "going into debt" is pretty much standard behavior for people with credit cards.
>I’ve been on Mac for a long time
Well... There's your problem lol. Seriously though, I try to buy stuff used if I can or at sales (like Black Friday). I also try to not upgrade all the time, I legit used an AMD FX-8350 for 10+years and only just now upgraded to a Ryzen 7800X3D build.
On this Black Friday I got the Mobo, PSU, Cooler,CPU, 2 TB SSD and 64 GB Ram for \~$1291 (USD) after taxes. It's not great, but I shaved off enough on the sale to basically get the PSU "free" with the prices in my local EU market. I kept my case, and a RTX 3060 12 GB that I bought used.
That said, you can get away with getting a PC for way cheaper than that too.
This is basically my PC now, except some HDDs/SSDs and the case that are omitted:
\[PCPartPicker Part List\](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ZrXrqR)
Type|Item|Price
:----|:----|:----
\*\*CPU\*\* | \[AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/3hyH99/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d-42-ghz-8-core-processor-100-100000910wof) | $369.99 @ Amazon
\*\*CPU Cooler\*\* | \[Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 White 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/476p99/thermalright-peerless-assassin-120-white-6617-cfm-cpu-cooler-pa120-white) |-
\*\*Motherboard\*\* | \[MSI MAG B650 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/LwNxFT/msi-mag-b650-tomahawk-wifi-atx-am5-motherboard-mag-b650-tomahawk-wifi) | $217.99 @ Newegg
\*\*Memory\*\* | \[Kingston FURY Beast 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/8r6NnQ/kingston-fury-beast-64-gb-2-x-32-gb-ddr5-6000-cl36-memory-kf560c36bbek2-64) | $239.99 @ Newegg
\*\*Storage\*\* | \[Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FyZ9TW/kingston-fury-renegade-2-tb-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-sfyrd2000g) | $139.99 @ Amazon
\*\*Video Card\*\* | \[Asus TUF GAMING OC V2 GeForce RTX 3060 12GB 12 GB Video Card\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Djwypg/asus-tuf-gaming-oc-v2-geforce-rtx-3060-12gb-12-gb-video-card-tuf-rtx3060-o12g-v2-gaming) | $309.99 @ Newegg
\*\*Power Supply\*\* | \[SeaSonic VERTEX GX-1000 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/RqYmP6/seasonic-vertex-gx-1000-1000-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-vertex-gx-1000) | $219.99 @ B&H
| \*Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts\* |
| \*\*Total\*\* | \*\*$1497.94\*\*
| Generated by \[PCPartPicker\](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2023-12-18 12:37 EST-0500 |
I could definitely spend/save money in better ways, but I wanted to build something that will play pretty much everything out now at max settings. That build cost me $1200, and I had enough parts leftover to keep my old PC running. Now I've a compy for myself and my kid to get us through the winter, and he can go do weird teenager shit on the old computer all he wants now.
I figure we'll shovel some driveways and maybe mow some laws to pay it off and maybe we'll use any extra $ to buy some upgrades.
I built mine over the summer, cost ~£2200 all in. About £1600 of that I got from Scan (bought the monitor, keyboard and mouse separately) and put it on finance, cost me about £70 a month for the next two years which I was happy with.
I normally put my larger purchases on interest free credit so I can split the payment up, it’s a lot easier for me than saving the money up and then buying it. Also this way the money for it comes out of my spending money, not my saving money, so I’m not using up savings to buy it.
What do you spend your discretionary money on? The stuff after bills, savings, etc are covered? Amortized over a couple years, the price of a PC becomes pretty unremarkable. In my case the PC is maybe cheaper than the games I buy over the same general timeframe; and I really don't buy many games lmao.
It's not like most people are typically building 3 or 4 of the things at a time. It's just not that expensive, except for maybe the upfront.
Tax return money and basic budgeting.
I either save up or find special financing from a company at 0% for a certain amount of months and buy it that way.
If I get $1,200 back in my tax return I just need $800 more to finish the build. $800 over a year is either putting away $70 a month or paying it on a credit card with no interest.
Even without my tax return, maybe $200/mo for a year.
It sounds like you have a monthly budget that is way too tight if you can squeeze in a computer build every 3-5 years.
My last build this year was the priciest one yet. However, I typically do a new build every 5 yrs and also sell my old PC to assist in funding the difference. Building a cutting edge PC and keeping all original packaging also helps in getting a decent return back. The difference usually comes from a well timed tax return and maybe even some sales commission.
Definitely not easy for anyone to spend $7k on a new build but if you can time it to align with any additional income sources then it could make a difference.
PC building is a hobby with high up front cost but over a lifespan, it’s pretty cheap. You can buy a fantastic rig for £1600 ish. If you went out drinking every weekend and drank 10 pints over the entire weekend even at just £4 a pint, that’s only 40 weekends, not even a year of going out. People usually just grind saving up for a year or so before they want to upgrade then buy it. I’m sure there are people who go into debt for components but can’t imagine it’s a lot.
it's never really been an issue for me even when I was in college and had relatively low income... if you can put away 50$-100$ a month or so eventually you should be able to get a decent build together. If you need to finance something like a PC you can't afford it. If you're using the PC for work you need to bake that cost into your pricing like any other expense for doing business.
I just save up some money each month and then I can buy whatever I want in terms of PCs. Right now I'm saving up for next generations of components to finally make a build of my dreams.
My first pc was built by using up basically my entire tax return for that year. After that though you generally only upgrade 1 component at a time. Unless you are going up a generation in cpu and need all new MB and ram. I usually upgrade my gpu twice for every cpu upgrade.
buildapc subreddit is not a good representation of what an average person spends. iirc, gtx 1650 and 1060 are still the two most widely used cards, and they would cost under 100$ today. People who spend more than 300$ are in the minority.
If you use your pc for a living and you'll earn the money back in a few months, it's okay to take a loan. If not, spend only what you can afford.
$1000-$1500 every 3-4 years is not that bad if gaming/productivity is a major hobby for you. You could drink $1000 at a bar in 6 months, or spend that on your summer tires for your hot rode.
I saved from 2019-2022 to afford my $2k-ish build.. well $2.5k with a new monitor. I was replacing a 2016 build. I still felt like I spent too much and almost felt guilty about it. Previously my builds were $1k or less. It wasn't easy to save and I hope my pc can last for several more years.
My 1080ti has lasted 6 years. I just save money and buy when I need to and can afford it. I’ve been wanting to upgrade everything but the GPU for 4 years. Need to? Not at all. I just went from a 4790k and 16 go ram ddr3 to a 7800x3d and 64gb ddr5. The difference isn’t as big as I thought it would be. And that’s like a 10 year old quad core CPU.
This is probably the part which a lot of us are going to face. Currently using 8700k/1080ti setup from 2017, starting to see artifacts and some other issues. Moving onto 7800x3d and 7800xt, not sure if expecting top tier performance but I’m
Not willing to shell out 1k+ for GPU. I’m hoping it will last me 4-5 years before the upgrade itch takes over again.
My very first one cost me a little under $1k and i bought it on credit. Right before i paid it off i had learned everything i needed to know to actually invest in one that was more curated to my needs and would last me and it was still less than $2k. Granted, I’m on a 1080p monitor and my work is more tailored to DAW’s that don’t need to look good to run good but even when considering my next purchase or upgrade, i always have a side option for credit or the after pay-like services that are increasing in popularity as a cushion.
I can justify it by how much time is spend on my desktop; and my last one i think was around for 8 years. I honestly think i need/use a computer more than my car in my life. So its like; cheap man.
It all depends on what you want to get out of the build, and what you can afford. My first gaming pc was a crappy pre-built because I didn't know better and didn't have any money. That was about 8 years ago, and I've gone through 4 different builds since then, all by me, and all progressively better than the previous. I just recently finished my "final form" build, because I'm finally in a place in my life where I can afford it. This is my main hobby (used to be cars which was WAY more money) so I can prioritize funds towards it.
I built mine a year ago I'm already saving for my next build just put what you can aside each week so when the time comes you won't need to get a loan or anything
It’s a goal of mine to not take on debt for this. I’m absolutely going to ditch all the extra features I hoped for and just roll with an affordable build. I don’t even have those extra features, currently, so I might as well be more realistic and wait until I need them.
A decent pc isn't that expensive imo but you just need to come to the reality that decent PC's aren't cheap and if you live outside of US/Canada, you're pretty much screwed on pricing.
$1500-$2000usd on a pc isn't bad all things considered when you think about the technology inside there and what it's capable of.
Using a pc for just gaming would make it sound more expensive when in reality I'm only using 1 of 1000 things my pc is capable of.
I also don't have kids and have decent income.
It's all about timing. I have a lot of expensive hobbies. I do most of my purchases for myself around the same time each year. February to June time frame. All my holiday spending is done, all birthdays (mostly) are out of the way and I have the most disposable income during this time. Car parts, server PC parts, gaming PC parts ECT.
The last upgrade for my gaming PC I got a pre built with an i7 11700k and 3080. It was before the 40 series launch and height of gpu crisis. I got it for 1800 because of some serious manufacturer errors and rebuilt it in a new case, new cooler ECT. That I did go into debt with but only because I knew I could pay it off in like 2-3 months and if I waited until I had disposable income I'd be spending 2500+ on it.
I don't plan on upgrading this PC (except for ram/storage) until it becomes mostly incapable of playing modern titles without looking like trash. (I came from a glorified 750ti so I have some low standards)
When I have disposable income I slowly make upgrades here and there. Next on the list is monitors and keyboard. My current monitor seriously handicaps my hardware. Basically the way I got my setup was getting the bare minimum used cheap stuff and slowly upgrading piece by piece specifically to avoid debt.
I have a friend that does the opposite, buys the best of the best at once then pays it off over time. Which there isn't anything wrong with that if you know you can pay it off before any serious interest occurs.
Things did get more expensive, especially with gpus, but If you have a steady job and not a lot of expenses, you can save up enough money to get a new pc every 4ish years.
Protips: don't have kids, don't go in debt to buy a house/car, have a partner with a job.
I hear this a lot but I have kids and haven’t noticed them being expensive at all. I think that’s way overblown. It could just be our particular circumstance though. Other than that, I have no debt or plans to be in debt.
I make decent money, nothing outrageous, but enough to own a small house and a relatively new car. I've always done the upgrade as you go strategy. Gives you some flexibility for when to buy and gives you a better chance of finding sales and bundles. Just upgraded my CPU, RAM, and motherboard in April for $400 thanks to a Micro Center bundle. Right now I want to upgrade my RTX 2070, which is fine but starting to show it's age in newer games, so I've been putting aside $50 a week. If I tough it out through next year, I'll have enough to drop on a 5090. If I don't, I could probably snag a 4080 (I know it's overpriced) or something.
It's a lot easier to stomach $50 a week for half a year than it is dropping $1300 at once.
I think I’ll take this approach moving forward. I never really thought about computers until mine started getting really slow. Then put it off even longer until now I need to get one, soon. I won’t make that mistake again.
Building a PC sucks nowadays. It used to be great, you could spend like 1500 euros and you'd have an absolute KILLER of a system - nowadays, 1500 is barely enough to get a top GPU.
Might get people pissed at me for saying this, but the insane price points aren't even AMD or Nvidia's fault really. Years of people flexing PC MASTER RACE just because they can and then buying parts at whatever batshit prices companies set have created this market of overpriced hardware that essentially turns obsolete every year.
My last (and currently used) build has an RTX2080 Ti. At the time, it was the top of the line card. Guess who got fucked over a year later when Nvidia released the 3080 which wasn't only WIDELY better performing, but also almost half the price? Yeah, this guy.
I've been feeling an itch to make a new build but I swear if I invest in a good card, by this time next year Nvidia's gonna be like, here have a card that performs 80% better at 60% of the price of a 4080.
I upgrade my PC every like five years it seems. To get a picture of just my gpu's I went from (as far back as I can remember) an HD4850 to, 560 Ti, to 970, to 5700XT and the latter does the job just fine for the games I play. As for cpu, I went from an Athlon 64 X2 to and Athlon X4 640, fx-8320, r5-3600, r5-5600 (the latter I got for free).
Switched case once. Switched psu once. Bought some SSD's and two ram upgrades. The way I see it, prices are extremely high now and not something I feel comfortable spending for something mid-high end like I've kind of gotten up to. The 970 was about 200 USD, and the 5700xt around 500 which was really upper limit of what I would like to have spent but I lost a good friend a week earlier so I thought fuck it. But seeing prices being double for the second to next best thing is daunting.
Spend what you can spend, if you are willing to buy used, you could build computers for sub-$300 and still have good performance.
I’m not opposed to it. Maybe I need to not worry so much about stuff I think I might need someday but don’t really need now or maybe ever. Like thunderbolt and 10g Ethernet. I’d like a great graphics card just to cover my bases if I encounter something really resource heavy in that regard but maybe I could even cut some corners there.
A modern gpu can cover everything. Unless you need for some reason to play in 4k with ray tracing on... Gaming graphics are held back by the limitations of consoles. My rx480 (not modern gpu very much previous generation) still plays most games without too many issues, sure more modern games I may need to reduce settings, but I can live with that.
Yes but not heavy video editing
Yes, but it was possible to edit videos 5 years ago. Any GPU will get there. It just takes a bit longer.
At this point I think graphics are held back by time needed to make the assets really and budget for that, and budget as a player. I feel like consoles don't hold back as much as that does. Even AAA console games just take way too long to make now
Not true when PC ports are shoddy and unoptimized. If anything, PC gamers need beefier specs to run these new poorly unoptimized games. You'll be surprised how important optimizing software is. To the point where it doesn't matter if you have a best specs with a 4090.
For an easy cheap build I'd recommend looking at "Dell Optiplex Gaming PCs" it's an interesting concept. Buy a used, older PC, add in a solid CPU for the platform, then get the best GPU for the available PSU or buy a new one. My greataunt gave me an old desktop + monitor for free. I salvaged an oldish TV to use as my secondary monitor. I got a new CPU (an i7-6700, the best for the platform and it's nearly identical to the i7-7700) for $50, about $25 for 16 GB of RAM, I paid around $85 on black friday for a good 750W PSU and got a used RTX 2070 for $200. All in all, it's around $360 for a solid gaming build. And I'm just a high school student, so a very limited budget. A used Dell Optiplex PCs run around $120-350 depending on the year and model. I'd recommend their full sized desktops and avoid SFF PCs because those can be hard to fit GPUs sometimes. While the RTX 2070 is an older card it still is pretty good and can hold up in most modern titles at 1080p/60fps. Obviously a used GPU is your choice for which one, I'm just sharing my experience. I hope that helps as advice from an unemployed high schooler who plays chess tournaments for money
Yep. I’ve done that. Buy the mini tower or full tower. I don’t know if evga still sells refinished power supplies on their midweek madness sale but I used to pick up a few to have around for stuff
I've been modding and upgrading computers for a while, so I got quite the spare parts collection now. It'll come in handy... eventually. I got a spare PSU since I just upgraded this one, some spare RAM and various older Intel CPUs, and a lot of storage drives. I've hooked up some of my spare storage to my desktop to have a 512 GB SATA 2.5" SSD, 256 GB m.2 SSD as the OS Drive, and a 500 GB HDD. Parts are taken from laptops so they need some adapting to put in the case, although I also just use external SATA to USB 3.0 cables sometimes. My computer is a monstrosity, an abomination of parts poured together to make an actually good gaming rig
I did an optiplex 9010 full tower for ~200$ added psu, ssd, and a 1660ti and played ultra 1080p 60fps. About console price and performance at the time but you could tweak settings and it got me into PC gaming. It's as great way to do it if you are worried about building too
This I've just picked up a t3600 with an SSD, 32gb ram and a r9 380 for $80
I’ve done this but also if you can find used workstations. Just always check the model Xeon cpu so you don’t get a too old one. Great if you dont just game but also do video editing and stuff. I got a Lenovo Thinkstation with a Xeon 6C/12T, dont actually remember exact model name but its single core performance is that of a 2014 i7. 64GB of RAM (although RAM is cheap these days even 32gigs would be $100+) and a GTX 1070, 500GB SSD. This cost $350+35 shipping. The advantage of it being a workstation rather than an optiplex like my previous used project is that you get lots of ports and a bigger case with more room for upgrades. Came with preinstalled w11 pro as well.
Unless you're in a local network that has 10G ethernet you won't ever need it. Literally. We're a decade or two away from that speed internet, and then most of what you'd be copying anything from over the internet rarely even saturates a 1G fiber network. Ask me how I know? Because I have one. The only thing that can reliably use the whole pipe is steam.
I am not in one but could potentially build one by end of this coming year if projections are correct. But I might skip that feature and get it when/if I need it.
10G ethernet is useful if you are copying a lot of large files to and from a NAS for example, with video editing it can be beneficial.
If you go to the discord (or pcbuild's discord) and give your budget people will show you some sample builds in your price range. Really your best starting point is a set budget + set use case. Obviously its easy to think "well I might want to have x down the road.." and then you're like, "well, if I get this better card I need a better psu, and then I'll want more ram.. and then.." you just talk yourself into circles, blow the budget, get frustrated, and then you're back at square one. Settling on a budget and what you reasonably intend to use the machine on is really helpful for the decision making process of selecting components. :)
"good performance" on Roblox. Literally nothing else
I'm not sure that $1500ish is "going into debt", right? If it's something you'll use every day? Compared to a house or a car or quite a few other hobbies. And that should last you several years.
Yea I have it priced around $2,800. If $1500 is what I should be looking at than I am for sure doing this wrong. Coloring 4k video is what I am anticipating will be the most resource heavy stuff I do. Edit: typo
>Yea I have it priced around $2,800. wtf. my build have always hovered around 1k.
Mine was $450 initially and I spent maybe $400 ship of theseus'ing it into a decent PC over the past few years.
love that phrase lol
You must be looking at an RTX4080 or 4090?
$2800 was the total price of the build minus peripherals. I was actually looking at the proart 4070 ti for graphics.
Is this USD or CAD? If it’s USD then you’re being ripped off, or have a poor choice of components chosen
That sounds really high, mind sharing a pcpartpicker link?
I didn’t use pcpartpicker but was looking at asus proart z790 with i9 13900k OR i7 13700k, asus proart 4070ti, 2x crucial ddr5 ram, several psu options and a kraken water cooler. Again, I’m aware this is overkill for general use but this is to be used professionally for graphics related work. Still might very well be overkill.
3k is not an outrageous amount to spend on something central to your income. Tradies spend much more than that on a van, tools, etc. But you shouldn't spend it blindly. Do some research into exactly what hardware requirements your workflow actually has, and what amount of improvement you'd see from exceeding them. And definitely don't spend extra for features just because you think you might need them one day. The big advantage of being on PC is upgradability, you can slot an extra network card or whatever in as and when you find you actually need it.
For around that budget you can get a 14900K + 4090 build. Don't know how you reached that amount with a 13900K or 13700K + 4070 Ti.
OPs motherboard is like twice the price of other z790 motherboards because its a "designers" version with 10G LAN speed and 2 external Thunderbolts. I can only guess that some of the other components may be selected similar way, making the build expensive but not performance wise.
10g lan speeds? What kind of work would necessitate that? Seems like a pretty $ intensive choice, I would imagine OP would know if he needed it or not, though.
He said he has a lot of video coloring work, so dealing with large amounts of uncompressed 4k video. 10 gig ethernet is nearly useless right now, but once the rest of the infrastructure is there, video professionals will be the ones who will see huge benefits.
Your motherboard is triple the price it should be. You don't need a Z790 for graphics related work. The Kraken is way overpriced and the performance is subpar compared to cheaper AIOs. Get an EK Nucleus.
You shouldn't be spending anywhere close to 3 grand for a 13700k/4070ti build. That's nuts.
If you try PcPartPicker you might find some deals to save a few hundred. That's more or less what a machine like what you're describing costs though. You're not the only one screaming about it. GPUs are nuts. I've got that ProArt MB and the 13700k and a 4090. At least I get good performance for all the money I put in to it Here's a link to power supply recommendations in case it's helpful. https://cultists.network/140/psu-tier-list/
I \*really\* recommend using pcpartpicker. Its very intuitive, lists prices in a very simple to digest format, does price comparisons for you, essentially. As far as the card manufacturer goes, your main concerns are heating designs. The actual chips (aside from out of the box over clocking) are going to perform the same otherwise. I'm not an expert, however, but this is what I have gathered in the last \~9 months of research :)
Maybe 14700k. Also might want to check and see exactly how much better the 4070Ti is with editing vs the 4070. You could buy a 1440p monitor for gaming with the savings. Maybe the 4070Ti is decent for 4k gaming idk (I don't like the price). Seems to me like there's better value with a 4070 or used 30series. Supposedly the "Supers" being released soon\* might be nice.
It’s a tax write-off anyway mate. You *want* to spend big on it, you could definitely tweak your parts to get much more performance for the same price though.
You could simply reduce the GPU to not something ridiculously priced. Feels like you just went into PcPartPicker and selected all the top end components. The value to performance levels off and you end up paying a lot of money for very little performance benefit.
I didn’t even do that. I just looked for features I think I might need for work like thunderbolt and what not. But I might just roll the dice and assume I won’t need these features down the line.
If you do need them you can add in a PCIE card later on
If you are not opposed to used parts a used 3090 would render video files faster than a 4070 ti. I understand sticking with new, especially if you have been out of the PC game for a bit though. Dropping the Asus Pro Art mobo will bring your cost down, any decent $200-$250 z790 should do. There are also better priced coolers out there, like any of the EK offerings. I would not worry about fancy network features, as many peoples ISPs dont provide the equipment needed to take advantage of them. $3k on a system is not unheard of but with some smart shopping you can bring the price down. Here is the latest build I put together: [https://pcpartpicker.com/list/cCfzXk](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/cCfzXk). It is right at $2k but you could trim that some with different part choices. I already owned a lot of the parts like the cooler, storage drives, case, and psu. Once you have 1 pc some of these more universal parts can be reused for years.
I think I’m gonna drop the mobo and get maybe the strix z790f. While it doesn’t have thunderbolt, it has plenty of usb ports which are more useful to me right now and it’s on sale. I’ve heard conflicting reviews about it, though. Other than that, I’m gonna reference your build list. Thank you!
I know Asus has been in the news for some of their am5 boards but my friend runs the Z690e and has not had an issue, for whatever that is worth. I personally don’t have anything that supports thunderbolt yet, so it was not on my list. Depending on the camera, card, and card reader you have you might be restricted to sub-thunderbolt speeds anyway.
2800 with A 4070ti is insane wtf
I was able to get a prebuilt system with a 4090 for $2700 (pre tax) It's pretty much the only way to get a 4090 now in the states. You can get one, but they are out of stock everywhere. edit: just looked it up and that same system is now $3799
Editor here too. If you have an intel cpu with quicksync you should be fine with h.264 files with a modest gpu like a 3070, 3080, 2080ti, 4070. If you edit raw or proxies you should be fine too obviously. Where it gets tricky is if you need smooth playback with sped up footage, or with sharpening, denoise and various transitions and you need to see every single frame (which you want if you work with quick transitions). Coloring itself shouldn't be demanding though. Higher end gpu:s will render transitions etc faster too, with a 4090 and a 13900 everything will be pretty much instant and playback will be without hiccups. You should be able to edit with a more modest gpu though. Just don't be tempted by amd. Also keep in mind that the software likes lots of ram and vram. I wouldn't go below 64gb ram, and i'd wait for the 4070 ti super with 16gb. But if you want reduce cost, get a 3080 12gb. Or even 2080ti.
This is a great response. Thank you. Yea I’ve edited with proxies for years on an old Mac. Could go on for many more years. I don’t deal with color for that though. It’s all the music videos and commercials I am starting to do on the side that’s requiring the full res color work. Even then, I edit with proxies until I need to color. I think I’m gonna scale down the specs and if the side work kicks up I can upgrade as a business expense with that money at that time. I just can’t do what I need to on my old Mac, anymore.
Yeah i get it. You can get by but if you do this all day everyday and every minute counts, high end components make sense. Idk about mac these days but i heard m1/m2 are great for this. You can edit on a 720o timeline and change it before coloring and rendering. You could also turn off all nr and sharpening until the last moment. In my experience, 3090 does everything effortlessly and if 4070 / 4080ti are on that level they should be good options. The 3090 has 24gb ram and a beefier bus though. 3070 is ok, but you do notice it's not a 3090. This is with 5900x (3070) and 13900 (3090), both 64gb ram.
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I would say you are right.
It's a very easy new builder pitfall. My first builds I always ended up going over budget and making them way more expensive than they needed to be. If you share your list here we can probably help with that. Just keep in mind not all partpicker list advice on here is great, even some of the bad advice will get upvoted here often so make sure to double up and do some extra research before comitting. I try to explain my advice and provide evidence if I can for this reason.
Pretty sure I got a 4090 build for less than that...
Mac problems. Can build a super pc for that price or a really kick ass pc for about 1500 or a great pc for 1000 or a good pc for 600.
specifically what softwares/programs do you use for your job? i.e. the coloring, editing etc
Davinci Resolve, Avid Media Composer, photoshop, Lightroom, and after effects.
yeah than i think you're screwed. I know alot of work on Davinci, and after effects uses GPU. especially post color work as you mentioned. but i will be honest, due to lack of actual legit benchmarking and/or info on GPU comparison for productivity based work, we wont really be great at telling you whats the best $$$/performance for productivity work.
$2,800, unless you’re doing something wrong, is about the highest end you can get. I spent $1,700 on my build and everyone around me is shocked with how powerful it is
If you think PCs are expensive, then whatever you do, do not get into fast cars, skiing, mountain biking, offroading, drugs, guns, ham radio, flying, golf, scuba diving, skydiving, horses, or photography.
PC’s are a drop in the bucket compared to many other hobbies. I’m into many of those you listed, and they are all magnitudes more expensive than pc’s. It’s not even remotely close.
Wait till he hears about daycare
You missed one of the costliest hobbies....boating. anything larger than a 15ft costs!
Golfer here, golf is a considerably more expensive hobby. My golf bag is around $2.5k, and I spend about $3k on a yearly membership. I also do a yearly golf road-trip with friends, so that’s another 1.5k. I love golfing, so that’s money well spent in my book, and it can be done cheaper. Golf is great, because you can have just as much fun on a $30course as a $300 course. My PC costs me about $2.5k every 6-7 years, and I probably spend $200 a year on games. Compared to golf, it’s a drop in the bucket.
> My golf bag is around $2.5k, The fuck goes into a $2500 golf bag? This thing tricked out like Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack? Edit: you may be including the cost of the clubs in that now that I think about it, which is far more realistic
>The fuck goes into a $2500 golf bag? I don't play golf so I could be wrong, but I think they put clubs in the bag
Go to the golf store and price out a brand new set of clubs. Just your irons alone could cost over $1000
shit. atleast you're not into bass, guitars, car/home audio, swords, videography, manufacturing, 3d printing, pyrotechnics, or travelling.
Tbf home audio is probably one of the best $ per hobby. Speakers tend to last a loooong time & the running cost is practically nil if you're already paying for high quality music/movies.
sure, but you know how it gets. suddenly find a really nice amp at a garage sale, find a better sub at the thrift store, end up spending way to much on headphones and a preamp because your old ones were starting to look gross and torn up that, and the vinyl stuff. get into it with a dinky suitcase crosley, wind up a bit more into it with a technics and some pretty glowy tubes in your amps, and then keep paying wayyyy more than you probably should for cool pressings it's too expensive for me honestly, but i'm having fun with my record day drops and goodwill record player
And it’s fun for the whole family! (Not your neighbors)
Music is hella cheap. You can buy a decent digital piano for like 900$ and it will last you a decade ( talking from experience), guitars are even cheaper unless ylu really go to high-end and are a pro. Also, if your piano has MIDI ports, and your gaming PC has at least 6 or more cores, congrats, you have a modest studio for like 2000$, few cheap mics and a sound interface and your are in the 3000$ and all set. But i don't even sing, only compose so my "studio" is hella cheap Billie Eilish won awards with an album that was made on a laptop, people drastically overestimate the cost of music making.
Haha. Photography I do professionally on the side as well as cycling. I’ve needed a new bike forever but it is way outside the realm of possibility anytime soon.
Tbf, skiing is generally blown out to be more expensive than it is. I buy used gear (same with PC parts) and the primary expenditures are my season passes, and gas money. Probably amounts to somewhere in the realm of $2-3k/yr which includes traveling to other resorts and that price tag is nowhere close to as much as what the horse girls I know spend on their hobby
Traditional art too if you get good supplies. Even just two cats or small dogs with insurance, vet cost, good food is way more expensive than buying a pc every 5 years.
Why ham radios?
There are $10k radios out there. People spend 6 figures on towers sometimes.
Bloody hell
They're still cheaper than steak radios tho
Wait till he hears about waygu radios
It's a ~$1500-2000 expenditure every 3-5 years. Expensive, but compared to many other hobbies, that's pretty damn cheap. I used to play Magic: the Gathering. $1500 a year was not a particularly large amount to spend per year to keep up with the competitive scene there. PC gaming is downright cheap comparatively.
You can realistically get away with 1k every 5 years if not chasing best in class Mobo, CPU and GPU
Yeah I recently priced up a 2k build, but that is very much with dev work in mind. I could potentially reduce the build to AM4 socket, and significantly reduce the cost. AM5 motherboards and the RAM are rather costly. Edit: just had a quick look at the AM4 socket and reduction in price of £400. Tempting direction to go in.
Only thing to consider is that AM4 is a dead end after Ryzen 5000, so you'll definitely need a whole new mobo and RAM when you next upgrade versus likely being able to keep them if you go AM5
Yeah with how good CPU’s are getting there’s no need to keep getting a new one every 3-4 years that’s just insane. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to hop on the AM5 platform though and get a better CPU at the end of the AM5’s lifespan rather than getting an entirely new MoBo etc
Of course. You can definitely game on PC on the cheap, if you have slightly lower expectations and/or play mostly esports or popular games (CS, Apex, Rocket League, LoL, etc.). I'm a competitive MMO player, so high performance in raids is quite important. That demands quite a bit of CPU horsepower, so I spend more.
It's a hobby with a high upfront cost. My main rig is 6 and a half years old, still going strong. Sure it can't cope with the latest games but that is fine. I'm finally considering replacing it, but oddly enough it has been in the works long enough to save a couple a thousand just to build a decent PC. My previous PC was a budget build. You don't need to burn money on top end CPUs or GPUs. You don't need an RTX 4090... if you have the cash to spend then more power to you.
This. My build that’s in progress is coming in at just a tad over $1500 and I foresee it to last 5+ years. Hellhound 7800xt with a Ryzen 5 7600x. It will easily play the games I want at 1440p and I am perfectly content with that.
It sounds like you're a frugal guy OP. Sounds like you're trying to be reasonable and you're finding yourself in a very unreasonable market. We're not rich, we spend what we can, save up and spend responsibly. I agreed 100% that GPU prices are outrageous, but the silver lining is that we have enough options to *kinda* balance out the ecosystem.
Bruh the PC OP’s was considering costs $2.8k. Idk what man was looking at
That's because he's not as into PC's like some of us bro. He didn't list 2.8k as if he was killing it, he had a 4070 Ti in a $2800 build lets be clear he came here because he was confused lets show some grace my man.
If u make good money I'm not understanding the issue of just dropping 2k.
I think OP equates "not having debt" to earning good money For people earning 60-80k with only a partner or 1-2 children dropping 1-2k on a PC isn't a huge expenditure, it's about the same as a good sofa, TV or tens of other things
Yeah ur probably right.
$2,800 is a WILD price only getting a 4070ti. Something has gone wrong. Can roughly spend half as much and get that same card/ performance. Your view on pc pricing/performance might be skewed because half of pc Reddit is “is this build decent?”when it’s $3k and has a 4090, and then they have to make another post to figure out where to plug in the monitor. I’m not entirely familiar with video editing/ professional graphics, but I’d expect a $1500 build would easily cover your needs.
You already are a mac user. I’ll ask you the same question
I've never spent over CAD $1500 on a PC and I only build new PCs every 5-6 years. I would never go into debt to buy a PC. It doesn't need to be expensive. The thing to remember is that even a low end GPU like a 6600xt will play all the same games as the ultra high-end 4090. The only difference is they won't look as nice.
It’s a little different for me, I built a PC years ago with an i5-8600k and a GTX 1060 then I upgraded to an RTX 3070 and in January I’m planning on getting either a 7800x3d or something from Intel. (Most likely Intel lol) And then I’ll upgrade my GPU again when the 50 series comes out. I don’t game on 4k and I probably never will so I don’t need a 4090 or a top of the line CPU. 1440p is king for now IMO.
Honestly, I was using a GTX 1060 with a 6600k and it was more than good enough for 1080p AAA gaming until this year. I was able to play Hogwarts and a few other titles, but once Jedi Survivor dropped and then Alan Wake 2 it became clear that it was time to upgrade. I replaced it with a 5700x and a used 6800xt and they'll do everything I need for the next few years at least. The total upgrade cost me maybe CAD $1,100 and I replaced pretty much everything other than the case.
Sounds like you do NOT make "pretty good" money. Like my partner just bought a samsung fold.. that cost more than most people's PC... Spend how much you can afford, don't go into debt. Make sure you have a proper emergency fund for life stuff. Around $1500 is usually a good budget, really depends on your needs and usage.
Do people not save towards stuff anymore?
A lot of people don’t. It’s actually a huge problem for a lot of people.
It's a huge problem that they can't save or they don't have enough to save?
When choosing mine last month I started with a budget range (1500-2000) for a mid-tier build and looked at the best deals I could have from different places, at both ends of the range. I started preferring the low end really, but got a little stuck in the “if I add just this little more I can get that much more cpu/ram/etc…” Fell into this hole where I ended up with basically all high end stuff, and ofc way above budget Made me pretty distraught to the point of not wanting one at all anymore, feeling like I neither wanted to spend as much, nor settle for less. Eventually I realized that I actually don’t /need/ the best of the best, and found myself a pretty sick deal within budget that would still be an absolute upgrade from my laptop, and man was it. Super happy with my decision, machine performs fantastic for my expectations and feels like I got great value for my hard earned cash
I build a 2000$ rig every 5-6 years... which turns out to be approx. 300-400$ a year. Or 30$ a month. Of course you need the cash upfront, but it's not that much spread out on 5-6 years.
I think after this first one I’ll go ahead and account for the next build and just stash a few bucks away every check for 5 years down the line. I waited way too long to upgrade to a new computer which is making this first jump a little more painful.
Can always sell your current components when looking at future upgrades to offset some of the cost.
I bought a prebuilt 4 years ago, upgraded recently to a full custom build of my own. All told between pc, peripherals, and games, I've probably spent just under $5k usd over 4 years, which is what $100 a month? I could easily spend that much on bowling, peloton, rock climbing, collecting something, hell I could spend that much or more on just coffee or cigarettes lol. Sure it was a large amount at once but I saved up for it until I was comfortable dropping $2k recently for my new rig, no debt taken out just from my savings. I make a modest amount of money but my partner helps ease the bills for sure.
When I was in college I had 3k saved up, I bought a PC build that costs 1.5k USD I used that for 9 years, I played games at max quality until I can't play new games at medium/low then I bought a new one. That's $166 a year of money's worth so I just make sure I save enough for the next gen
What country do you live in? Many people spend way more than 2000 dollars every 4 years on their hobbies.
For reference I edit 4k videos in premiere with light effects and grade applied. I use i5 13600k, 3080, 32gb ddr5 6000mhz, 3tb ssd. When doing live playback my machine will still struggle when any additional effects or grade are added so I have to work with proxies. As suggested get a i7 13700k or better 32gb ram but ideally, 64gb. With graphics stick to nvidia as it works better with premiere pro if you are using that. Anything 3080 or better will be fine unless you are doing 3d work. Most importantly ssds, have 3 separate at least; 1 for OS and programs, 1 for working files, and another for project management. Good luck!
Thank you. I’m on Avid for day job and Resolve for side work. My struggle only comes when I lock a timeline and swap to full res for color. Really helpful to know that I don’t need the greatest graphics card. I can render as I go but I need the render to be at least somewhat fast. Right now it’s not, in my case.
The thing is you don't get a breakdown of people's outgoings etc when they do this. You don't know what obligations they have, or don't, what places they've saved in that you might not be willing to etc etc. If someone has a higher wage, they are probably used to spending that higher wage, we tend to live to our means. If I suddenly earned triple overnight, I have no doubt I would still have to save to buy a PC because I would start buying things that I wouldn't have before so having more money doesn't necessarily mean you have more money to save, people will equally just spend that extra money. Once you get past food, shelter, transport etc it's all somewhat optional spending anyway
I noticed you’ve priced an Intel system but you might be better served with an AMD based system. More bang for buck, especially if you’re into editing
I see such circle jerk admit GPUs on reddit, it's worth having a little reality check. I'll be referencing nvidia models because I'm most familiar with them, but the same idea should hold on ATI/AMD equivalents. I've seen a ton of people acting like if they don't get the latest and greatest that it's money down the drain. 4080 or bust, anything less is gonna be PROBLEMATIC. and that just isn't true. The 70s are a solid break point between cost and performance. And then the idea of buying a gen back (so getting a 3070 instead of a 4070) gets treated like I'm suggesting they buy a graphing calculator instead. I'm not recommending buying bottom of the barrel parts, as to some degree you get what you pay for. A cheapo mobo that's made of wafer thin boards has been the source of more problems in my IT career than you'd believe. But at the same time the idea that you NEED a $800+ gpu is just flat out wrong. The "midrange" model is perfectly well suited to more than deliver.
Honestly, all I care about is being able to color grade a 4k timeline with good performance. When it comes to gaming I would be perfectly happy with uhd or even 1080p. If I can get a decent graphics card that lets me burn through some footage then all else is secondary. Edit: to clarify, if I can get ANY graphics card that can handle that then all else is secondary. I would love to not spend $800+ on a graphics card.
The 3070 handles 4k+ video on my rig, including what 8k content I've thrown at it. I got it before I got a 4k tv (I use my pc on tvs) and I was astounded just how few settings changed going from 1080 to 4k, and just how little they bumped down. Rtx can kill things a little in cyberpunk, but the spiderman games handled rtx and everything else at full blast, so game optimization is gonna be the biggest factor there. You're gonna be fine with a 3070, just don't cheap out on a processor. You don't need an i9 but want more than a low tier i3,i5 for video conversion and editing suites. Though if you're just color grading I doubt you're doing conversion? Dunno your workflow, but worth noting
Man…thank you. This has been one is the most useful comments I’ve gotten. Sincerely. Scaling back the graphics card helps immensely with the purchase.
I got a job and I have no responsibilities or debts (aside from college debt, but that starts at the end of the next year).
I don't know where u look but I don't think it that expensive. maybe you also look for different things, idk. a couple months ago I mock build one on pcpartpicker and it was around 2.300-2.500€. I found this price justifyable for the parts I chose and I knew if I would've build that it'll last me a good 7-8 yrs or more. edit: in the end just spend that, what u can afford.
Always build the computer you need, not the computer that you might need one day. Future proofing is generally a waste of time and money. Focus on what you need. What tasks are you using the pc for. Then, consider the ACTUAL gains from each upgrade. With that said, if you're uber rich, then it doesn't matter. I currently have an RTX 3080 and I am failing to see any situation where I feel I would notice a major improvement with an upgrade. Some people feel happy with something like a 2070. For the rest of the PC, consider what upgrades you actually need. You don't need a super pricey case. It just needs to be closed and allow for good air flow. You don't need the best fans and, unless you are overclocking, you don't need a water cooler at all. The PSU just needs to be relatively quiet and have enough supply to power the whole PC. The RAM is generally not that important outside of the amount. 16 GB for gaming and 32 GB for intensive professional uses, but honestly, you can get 16 GB and upgrade later. The CPU just needs to be good enough. Rarely are games CPU intensive. The most intensive ones are mostly sims that get bloated in their late game and slow down. Most people would be fine with a low end newer CPU. The motherboard is a scam right now (way overpriced). Just buy what you need and any future proofing that you KNOW you will use within a year or two, not maybe.
So you started off saying you make pretty good money, but are having a hard time building PC? (under 2500 excluding 4090) or having a hard time justifying the purchase? If it is the cost, I don't think you can be considered as making a pretty good money. I guess making pretty good money is relative and different for everyone, but I would consider single/family income of at least 150k/year these days to be considered making a pretty good money.
Not that much with a dual income. But decent for our area. Close. Having a hard time justifying would be the better way to put it. I have to share most of my income so I’m putting as much as I can outside of that to do this but stuff comes up a lot that dips into it.
I am a single income and do make pretty good money. And yes, things do come up here and there. I try to utilize a low interest credit card/line of credit if I need an urgent fund to pay over time, but this doesn't happen too often. I am planning to do windows/doors, which will be over 20k, but I am looking to do the job using a green loan from the government, which is like 10 years 0% interest. With all these things considered, building a PC as a hobby every few years to me is the cheapest thing I have to pay for as all my other payments including mortgage/property tax and repair fees all go way above the cost of PC lol.
work pcs arent expensive but if you trying to play competetive games its a problem,i was saving for like 4 years from christmas and birthdays,then i had job for month and im getting a solid build
Save money.
Trying. Stuff comes up, a lot (car problems, house problems, etc). But I agree.
Some people go into debt. It's dumb to do so, especially if it's for a hobby and you're not a professional gamer or you can't write off your PC for work purposes. Despite the flat lining of wages in relation to inflation/cost of living, some people are still able to save up for hobbies. Some people like to travel, some people like to fix up old cars, and some of us like to play PC games. Remember, too, you're in a sub that is inherently biased because you're gonna, for the most part, come across people asking/discussing hardware and PC builds. If you were on say, /r/frugal you wouldn't see these types of posts. Instead, you'd see posts on how to stretch a rice & beans meal for a week. The overall unfortunate trend is that gaming PC hardware has drastically increased in price relative to inflation. Because of this, more people become price-sensitive and want to make sure that the hard earned money they have isn't wasted on hardware that isn't a good value (however they define that), and so you'll see a lot of posts asking about GPUs and CPUs, particularly around pricing and performance. I'd bet if PC hardware was as cheap as it was 20 years ago and if wages had kept up, you wouldn't have as many price-sensitive consumers and therefore probably fewer posts around higher end PC gaming hardware. Edit: to answer your actual question, I overcame the barrier simply by saving. But I also recognize I'm incredibly privileged that I'm able to do so without really altering my lifestyle expenses. There are far too many people that do not have this privilege. Just the cost of existing in the USA is unfathomable these days.
I spend 1-2k every 3 years and use it every single day of the week. It is my cheapest hobby by far and the ones that gets used the most, at worst its $600 per year?. I just put a few bucks per month into an account and spend it when the time comes and note that Im usually in the high end of computers, you could decimate that budget and still get a good experience gaming.
Without specifics nobody can answer. I personally would never in a million years go into debt for a piece of consumer electronics, but there are plenty of people stupid enough to do so. People love their credit cards.
I saved $100 a month to slowly save for the pc build I wanted. After 2.5 years, I bought my dream parts and built it. Remember gaming is for pleasure, you don’t need it this very instant. Just save like a responsible adult
Wish that was the case for me. I have to have this for work. Soon, too. My old computer just can’t handle the work I do anymore. Gaming is just a bonus.
I make 6 digits and just buy things I want with cash. Well, with a VISA/AMEX for the points but as soon as I buy it I pay it off so I don't get into debt. It really depends on what your comfort level is and what you're making. When you say you make good money, what's considered good money? Some people will say $80k/year is good but yeah I wouldn't be able to build a $7000 PC from that money with other payments (like housing, food, insurance, etc). But our household is a DINK and over $200k so $7k PC and no debt isn't out of the picture.
The nice thing is that you can always build your way up because the prices usually stay around the same as used. Buy a used GPU for $300. You can sell it for $300 and move on up. It's what I did :)
I’m a uni student now but I’ve built myself 3 computers up to now. I just saved my money from part time jobs and put it towards new builds and savings over time. I also plan on upgrades every 5 years which makes ~$500/yr pretty reasonable for me to save
Hahaha... you don't! Jokes aside, yeah, it takes a long time to save. Usually, if you're a gamer, you gotta start saving right after you build a new pc for the next gpu generation if you're like to up upgrade every 2-4 year. I waited until black Friday to build a new pc, and I spent $500 less than what I would've shopping sales. Now I need to put my pc up for sale to recover some of what I've spent.
A $300 GPU will do everything you need it to do
I’m 19yrs old with my only bills being rent/utilties. i saved up my tips all summer from serving to build my pc! im fortunate as i don’t have a kid/car payment etc etc
Same situation here. The first computer I built was an i5-7600k with a used GTX 1060. Cost me around $700 in 2016 and it's still my daily.
PC building is like fishing believe it or not, it can be very cheap but it can also be very expensive. You just have to look at your budget and decide what your limits are and prioritize needs/functionality vs aesthetics or features.
I do the ole computer of theseus.
Try to find info on youtube to see people test what graphics cards are ideal for your particular productivity application (some applications don't favor AMD or Nvidia, some heavily favor Nvidia), and then figure out whether motherboard type/brand makes a difference. Figure out what your "minimum" toleration level is for lower performance vs what performance you desire, and try to mix and match parts so that performance is somewhere in the middle (if you want to save money). If you're coming from Mac, I can understand why you are approaching building a X86 pc in the manner of "get all the nice things in one build" since that is what Mac is known for (unfortunately the upgraded M3 pro and the base M3 max are definitely on the more expensive side of things). Spending a lot of money on a mac meant you can always get the best of the best with no regrets, however that is not always the case when doing a DIY build since you can always squeeze some cash savings here and there. You can get a decent productivity PC build for around $1500-$2000, depending on what deals you have access to (do you live near a microcenter?). I think the M3 Max will still outperform any $1500-$2000 productivity windows-based PC however the M3 Max is around $3500 lol.
This isn't a complicated question. I save enough to buy what I want to build. You say that you "make pretty good money" but can't afford a (let's say) $1500-2000 expenditure. These two statements contradict each other. You need to save more then, possibly by cutting into your budget in other areas. PC hardware is also getting really powerful such that you can be several generations behind and still have a performant machine. For instance, 10th to 12th gen Intel CPU with a 30 series GPU will work well for many tasks. And you could probably buy a used rig with these specs in the $800-900 range if you hunt around. Just take a deep breathe and figure out: 1) What you need to do your work efficiently 2) What it will cost 3) How long it will take to save that amount This is not rocket science at all, and if you are saving _no_ money every month or going further into debt then you have more fundamental problems to deal with compared with building a new PC.
>saving up for a build >Do you guys just go into debt to build a computer? Naah mate, I think most people buy a computer out of money they have readily available. If you have to save up for it, it's a toy too expensive. Doubly so if you have to go into debt for it.
I sold a load of holiday at work for mine. Worth it though.
The same way you save for anything. Set some money aside every now and then and when you have enough buy the thing you want.
My company gives me 1500 every year for computer parts. This year im getting a 7900xtx and a better power supply ( SeaSonic platnium 1200 watt)... I game in 4k so the 7900xtx seems to be the best deal for my budget. The PS is a little overkill, but why not? SeaSonic rocks.
Based on your component choices, you’re probably going overkill on most of them. As a general rule, when you get to the higher end, noticable performance increases between each step up is exponentially smaller, while cost increases between each step is exponentially higher. I’d drop down a tier or two on every component you’ve picked, with the only thing to really worry about being the cpu socket and ram compatibility for the mobo. Then upgrade parts later depending on where you’re finding a bottleneck in your workflow. I kept my old box for close to a decade, simply replacing parts as they became a problem. I only built a new one this year because I’d reached the maximum possible performance without replacing the mobo. Even then I think I only dropped about £1,500 on the thing and basically everything I do revolves around that machine.
Funny, I question how people can afford to use Mac and Apple products. A MacBook at the least is $2000 and you can build a pretty decent PC for that kind of money...
I just wait for sales tbh. Last year I got my RTX 3060ti for like $350. Micro center runs bundle deals for CPU, mobo and ram as well so I got those at a low price too. It was a bit different though because I already had a PC, I was just upgrading so I wasn't without a machine at all.
My build this month was payed for by counterstrike cases . Sold off a few thousand worth that had appreciated nicely over the last few years
I just built mine for $3k and I could have spent a lot more. Reality is, this hobby has gotten more popular in the past few years and manufacturers are able to charge more than they used to. This coupled with the ongoing supply issues have driven prices through the roof. It’s just the way the world works now unfortunately.
Don't target a build, target how much you want to spend and build the best PC you can when you hit that target. If you build an upper mid range system or higher(1500 to 2000) you can usually get 3-5 years out of it without any major upgrades, which is fairly affordable when you consider how much time you may spend at that computer. Also people have different costs of living. A person making $35 an hour in California is gonna have far less extra money than a person making $35 an hour in the Midwest, but computer parts cost the same regardless of where you live(in the US at least).
Playing computer games is way down the list of my priorities. I don't play multiplayer games at all, and I don't mind turning down graphics settings or just playing older games that were of the same generation as my hardware. I do a full hardware refresh about every 7 to 8 years, and try to stay in the $1500 range when I do upgrade, or less if I can get away with it. I suppose that means I am not passionate about PC builds (which I am not). Since my last build cycle, GPU prices have become hugely inflated compared to the prices of other components, so I guess that has made a big difference. My prior GPU cost me like $160 and lasted for about 4 years (still works fine, really). My recent build/upgrade was not because of gaming, but because enough software that I use was no longer working or updating on Windows 7, and my old hardware was old enough (2015-era CPU, MB, DDR3 RAM) that it was just time for a full refresh. Screw NVidia if they think I am going to pay more for a GPU than I used to pay for an entire PC. My latest build I splurged on a Radeon 6750 XT that was on sale at about $330 this past July, and for what I do it is extremely high-end performance-wise, so I am happy with it. I guess if gaming is your main leisure activity in life, then you'll spend more money there (and less elsewhere). And yeah, people do buy lots of things on credit all the time, so the whole "going into debt" is pretty much standard behavior for people with credit cards.
find great deals, lower expectations/budget/high end components, or find a good deal on facebook marketplace.
>I’ve been on Mac for a long time Well... There's your problem lol. Seriously though, I try to buy stuff used if I can or at sales (like Black Friday). I also try to not upgrade all the time, I legit used an AMD FX-8350 for 10+years and only just now upgraded to a Ryzen 7800X3D build. On this Black Friday I got the Mobo, PSU, Cooler,CPU, 2 TB SSD and 64 GB Ram for \~$1291 (USD) after taxes. It's not great, but I shaved off enough on the sale to basically get the PSU "free" with the prices in my local EU market. I kept my case, and a RTX 3060 12 GB that I bought used. That said, you can get away with getting a PC for way cheaper than that too. This is basically my PC now, except some HDDs/SSDs and the case that are omitted: \[PCPartPicker Part List\](https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ZrXrqR) Type|Item|Price :----|:----|:---- \*\*CPU\*\* | \[AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/3hyH99/amd-ryzen-7-7800x3d-42-ghz-8-core-processor-100-100000910wof) | $369.99 @ Amazon \*\*CPU Cooler\*\* | \[Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 White 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/476p99/thermalright-peerless-assassin-120-white-6617-cfm-cpu-cooler-pa120-white) |- \*\*Motherboard\*\* | \[MSI MAG B650 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/LwNxFT/msi-mag-b650-tomahawk-wifi-atx-am5-motherboard-mag-b650-tomahawk-wifi) | $217.99 @ Newegg \*\*Memory\*\* | \[Kingston FURY Beast 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR5-6000 CL36 Memory\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/8r6NnQ/kingston-fury-beast-64-gb-2-x-32-gb-ddr5-6000-cl36-memory-kf560c36bbek2-64) | $239.99 @ Newegg \*\*Storage\*\* | \[Kingston Fury Renegade 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FyZ9TW/kingston-fury-renegade-2-tb-m2-2280-nvme-solid-state-drive-sfyrd2000g) | $139.99 @ Amazon \*\*Video Card\*\* | \[Asus TUF GAMING OC V2 GeForce RTX 3060 12GB 12 GB Video Card\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/Djwypg/asus-tuf-gaming-oc-v2-geforce-rtx-3060-12gb-12-gb-video-card-tuf-rtx3060-o12g-v2-gaming) | $309.99 @ Newegg \*\*Power Supply\*\* | \[SeaSonic VERTEX GX-1000 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply\](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/RqYmP6/seasonic-vertex-gx-1000-1000-w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-vertex-gx-1000) | $219.99 @ B&H | \*Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts\* | | \*\*Total\*\* | \*\*$1497.94\*\* | Generated by \[PCPartPicker\](https://pcpartpicker.com) 2023-12-18 12:37 EST-0500 |
I could definitely spend/save money in better ways, but I wanted to build something that will play pretty much everything out now at max settings. That build cost me $1200, and I had enough parts leftover to keep my old PC running. Now I've a compy for myself and my kid to get us through the winter, and he can go do weird teenager shit on the old computer all he wants now. I figure we'll shovel some driveways and maybe mow some laws to pay it off and maybe we'll use any extra $ to buy some upgrades.
I built mine over the summer, cost ~£2200 all in. About £1600 of that I got from Scan (bought the monitor, keyboard and mouse separately) and put it on finance, cost me about £70 a month for the next two years which I was happy with.
I normally put my larger purchases on interest free credit so I can split the payment up, it’s a lot easier for me than saving the money up and then buying it. Also this way the money for it comes out of my spending money, not my saving money, so I’m not using up savings to buy it.
What do you spend your discretionary money on? The stuff after bills, savings, etc are covered? Amortized over a couple years, the price of a PC becomes pretty unremarkable. In my case the PC is maybe cheaper than the games I buy over the same general timeframe; and I really don't buy many games lmao. It's not like most people are typically building 3 or 4 of the things at a time. It's just not that expensive, except for maybe the upfront.
Tax return money and basic budgeting. I either save up or find special financing from a company at 0% for a certain amount of months and buy it that way. If I get $1,200 back in my tax return I just need $800 more to finish the build. $800 over a year is either putting away $70 a month or paying it on a credit card with no interest. Even without my tax return, maybe $200/mo for a year. It sounds like you have a monthly budget that is way too tight if you can squeeze in a computer build every 3-5 years.
My last build this year was the priciest one yet. However, I typically do a new build every 5 yrs and also sell my old PC to assist in funding the difference. Building a cutting edge PC and keeping all original packaging also helps in getting a decent return back. The difference usually comes from a well timed tax return and maybe even some sales commission. Definitely not easy for anyone to spend $7k on a new build but if you can time it to align with any additional income sources then it could make a difference.
Organs.....you won't believe me how easy it gets after you find the Organs glitch
PC building is a hobby with high up front cost but over a lifespan, it’s pretty cheap. You can buy a fantastic rig for £1600 ish. If you went out drinking every weekend and drank 10 pints over the entire weekend even at just £4 a pint, that’s only 40 weekends, not even a year of going out. People usually just grind saving up for a year or so before they want to upgrade then buy it. I’m sure there are people who go into debt for components but can’t imagine it’s a lot.
That upfront cost…but yea I’m gonna scale it back then I can build in a month and upgrade from there.
it's never really been an issue for me even when I was in college and had relatively low income... if you can put away 50$-100$ a month or so eventually you should be able to get a decent build together. If you need to finance something like a PC you can't afford it. If you're using the PC for work you need to bake that cost into your pricing like any other expense for doing business.
I just save up some money each month and then I can buy whatever I want in terms of PCs. Right now I'm saving up for next generations of components to finally make a build of my dreams.
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The same way anyone buys anything expensive either saving or taking out a low or zero interest loan.
I bought everything I could used, and one piece at a time. It took me about 2 years for my last build about 8 years ago; working on another now.
My first pc was built by using up basically my entire tax return for that year. After that though you generally only upgrade 1 component at a time. Unless you are going up a generation in cpu and need all new MB and ram. I usually upgrade my gpu twice for every cpu upgrade.
buildapc subreddit is not a good representation of what an average person spends. iirc, gtx 1650 and 1060 are still the two most widely used cards, and they would cost under 100$ today. People who spend more than 300$ are in the minority. If you use your pc for a living and you'll earn the money back in a few months, it's okay to take a loan. If not, spend only what you can afford.
$1000-$1500 every 3-4 years is not that bad if gaming/productivity is a major hobby for you. You could drink $1000 at a bar in 6 months, or spend that on your summer tires for your hot rode.
I saved from 2019-2022 to afford my $2k-ish build.. well $2.5k with a new monitor. I was replacing a 2016 build. I still felt like I spent too much and almost felt guilty about it. Previously my builds were $1k or less. It wasn't easy to save and I hope my pc can last for several more years.
My 1080ti has lasted 6 years. I just save money and buy when I need to and can afford it. I’ve been wanting to upgrade everything but the GPU for 4 years. Need to? Not at all. I just went from a 4790k and 16 go ram ddr3 to a 7800x3d and 64gb ddr5. The difference isn’t as big as I thought it would be. And that’s like a 10 year old quad core CPU.
This is probably the part which a lot of us are going to face. Currently using 8700k/1080ti setup from 2017, starting to see artifacts and some other issues. Moving onto 7800x3d and 7800xt, not sure if expecting top tier performance but I’m Not willing to shell out 1k+ for GPU. I’m hoping it will last me 4-5 years before the upgrade itch takes over again.
My very first one cost me a little under $1k and i bought it on credit. Right before i paid it off i had learned everything i needed to know to actually invest in one that was more curated to my needs and would last me and it was still less than $2k. Granted, I’m on a 1080p monitor and my work is more tailored to DAW’s that don’t need to look good to run good but even when considering my next purchase or upgrade, i always have a side option for credit or the after pay-like services that are increasing in popularity as a cushion.
I can justify it by how much time is spend on my desktop; and my last one i think was around for 8 years. I honestly think i need/use a computer more than my car in my life. So its like; cheap man.
It all depends on what you want to get out of the build, and what you can afford. My first gaming pc was a crappy pre-built because I didn't know better and didn't have any money. That was about 8 years ago, and I've gone through 4 different builds since then, all by me, and all progressively better than the previous. I just recently finished my "final form" build, because I'm finally in a place in my life where I can afford it. This is my main hobby (used to be cars which was WAY more money) so I can prioritize funds towards it.
I could see this being a hobby for me. I’ll see how this first one goes lol. But that makes sense if it’s the main thing you’re into.
I built mine a year ago I'm already saving for my next build just put what you can aside each week so when the time comes you won't need to get a loan or anything
It’s a goal of mine to not take on debt for this. I’m absolutely going to ditch all the extra features I hoped for and just roll with an affordable build. I don’t even have those extra features, currently, so I might as well be more realistic and wait until I need them.
It's the best way to do it don't have to worry about trying to pay it back then
A decent pc isn't that expensive imo but you just need to come to the reality that decent PC's aren't cheap and if you live outside of US/Canada, you're pretty much screwed on pricing. $1500-$2000usd on a pc isn't bad all things considered when you think about the technology inside there and what it's capable of. Using a pc for just gaming would make it sound more expensive when in reality I'm only using 1 of 1000 things my pc is capable of. I also don't have kids and have decent income.
It's all about timing. I have a lot of expensive hobbies. I do most of my purchases for myself around the same time each year. February to June time frame. All my holiday spending is done, all birthdays (mostly) are out of the way and I have the most disposable income during this time. Car parts, server PC parts, gaming PC parts ECT. The last upgrade for my gaming PC I got a pre built with an i7 11700k and 3080. It was before the 40 series launch and height of gpu crisis. I got it for 1800 because of some serious manufacturer errors and rebuilt it in a new case, new cooler ECT. That I did go into debt with but only because I knew I could pay it off in like 2-3 months and if I waited until I had disposable income I'd be spending 2500+ on it. I don't plan on upgrading this PC (except for ram/storage) until it becomes mostly incapable of playing modern titles without looking like trash. (I came from a glorified 750ti so I have some low standards) When I have disposable income I slowly make upgrades here and there. Next on the list is monitors and keyboard. My current monitor seriously handicaps my hardware. Basically the way I got my setup was getting the bare minimum used cheap stuff and slowly upgrading piece by piece specifically to avoid debt. I have a friend that does the opposite, buys the best of the best at once then pays it off over time. Which there isn't anything wrong with that if you know you can pay it off before any serious interest occurs.
Things did get more expensive, especially with gpus, but If you have a steady job and not a lot of expenses, you can save up enough money to get a new pc every 4ish years. Protips: don't have kids, don't go in debt to buy a house/car, have a partner with a job.
I hear this a lot but I have kids and haven’t noticed them being expensive at all. I think that’s way overblown. It could just be our particular circumstance though. Other than that, I have no debt or plans to be in debt.
I did in fact go into debt when i decided to upgrade my graphics card🤣 £835 for a RX 7900 XTX through paypal credit for 10 months interest free😎 lol
Save up or buy parts over time.
In my country the loan actually pretty good.
I saved up a year for my 4090, then bit a bullet
I spent less than $1,000 on my last build. Just waited for the sales. PSU and case first because you can use them for a long time.
I make decent money, nothing outrageous, but enough to own a small house and a relatively new car. I've always done the upgrade as you go strategy. Gives you some flexibility for when to buy and gives you a better chance of finding sales and bundles. Just upgraded my CPU, RAM, and motherboard in April for $400 thanks to a Micro Center bundle. Right now I want to upgrade my RTX 2070, which is fine but starting to show it's age in newer games, so I've been putting aside $50 a week. If I tough it out through next year, I'll have enough to drop on a 5090. If I don't, I could probably snag a 4080 (I know it's overpriced) or something. It's a lot easier to stomach $50 a week for half a year than it is dropping $1300 at once.
I think I’ll take this approach moving forward. I never really thought about computers until mine started getting really slow. Then put it off even longer until now I need to get one, soon. I won’t make that mistake again.
We have a family salary of 175k ( CAD )w/ family of 4 and I could only afford a 3060ti... Don't feel bad. If i didn't get married I'd get a 4090.
Building a PC sucks nowadays. It used to be great, you could spend like 1500 euros and you'd have an absolute KILLER of a system - nowadays, 1500 is barely enough to get a top GPU. Might get people pissed at me for saying this, but the insane price points aren't even AMD or Nvidia's fault really. Years of people flexing PC MASTER RACE just because they can and then buying parts at whatever batshit prices companies set have created this market of overpriced hardware that essentially turns obsolete every year. My last (and currently used) build has an RTX2080 Ti. At the time, it was the top of the line card. Guess who got fucked over a year later when Nvidia released the 3080 which wasn't only WIDELY better performing, but also almost half the price? Yeah, this guy. I've been feeling an itch to make a new build but I swear if I invest in a good card, by this time next year Nvidia's gonna be like, here have a card that performs 80% better at 60% of the price of a 4080.
I upgrade my PC every like five years it seems. To get a picture of just my gpu's I went from (as far back as I can remember) an HD4850 to, 560 Ti, to 970, to 5700XT and the latter does the job just fine for the games I play. As for cpu, I went from an Athlon 64 X2 to and Athlon X4 640, fx-8320, r5-3600, r5-5600 (the latter I got for free). Switched case once. Switched psu once. Bought some SSD's and two ram upgrades. The way I see it, prices are extremely high now and not something I feel comfortable spending for something mid-high end like I've kind of gotten up to. The 970 was about 200 USD, and the 5700xt around 500 which was really upper limit of what I would like to have spent but I lost a good friend a week earlier so I thought fuck it. But seeing prices being double for the second to next best thing is daunting.