How's this look - shopping for new desktop gaming PC

[Pew-Pew]

Here you go:

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/rVBdfv

I put almost no effort into reducing the cost of this, and it includes a monitor. I'm sure you could get a lot of these components a bit cheaper if you tried, too.

I'm not sure I would build a system like this right now if I were you - if I had to, I would probably go AMD and just absorb the extra 200$ for a decent motherboard if budget isn't an issue, and probably get a used RTX 3080 or whatever to tide me over.

I actually built a system with a 12600k and DDR5 recently, but I already had a GPU from my previous PC so it wasn't such a bad option. Maybe I'll post it in a thread.

[Solitaire]

Wow, thanks for all that! I'll definitely look into this. I've never built a PC before, no, and it would be 95% gaming and hopefully future-proof for a bit, at least. I'm wanting to run STALKER 2 on full blast, hopefully they'll be able to finish the game

[Mantis]

They are remarkably easy to assemble, just a few screws here and there and most stuff slots very clearly into particular positions. If you do go down the self build route the main advice I'd give is to assemble the whole thing on a box and test it first before you go to the effort of screwing it into the case. Far easier to troubleshoot any boot problems when you can easily remove stuff right in front of you than when you've already done all your wire routing before realizing that boot up can't get past your BIOS screen.

It used to be the case that you could get a decent rig for cheaper if you went down the self build route but I'm not so sure that holds true anymore. Still probably worth it for the extra customisability though.

[arqueturus]

I looked at self build for my last PC (Christmas last year) but due to the price and availability of GPU's at the time it just wasn't feasible. Things might well have changed now though. Building them isn't that complicated, the biggest issue was making sure the cables were tidy!

[Pew-Pew]

They are remarkably easy to assemble, just a few screws here and there and most stuff slots very clearly into particular positions. If you do go down the self build route the main advice I'd give is to assemble the whole thing on a box and test it first before you go to the effort of screwing it into the case. Far easier to troubleshoot any boot problems when you can easily remove stuff right in front of you than when you've already done all your wire routing before realizing that boot up can't get past your BIOS screen.

It used to be the case that you could get a decent rig for cheaper if you went down the self build route but I'm not so sure that holds true anymore. Still probably worth it for the extra customisability though.

Yep, I do this for every build I do. Always make a 'box top' PC before putting it in the case.

As for the relative value of pre-built vs. self-built - I think during the chip shortage/mining craze there was definitely a long period where GPU prices were so mental that pre-built worked better. I don't think that's the case anymore. Also, pre-builts (depending on the company) often use crappy motherboards, RAM, OEM stuff that is probably 'good enough' but not something I'd want. It also sometimes reduces the upgradeability of stuff, especially if it's in a weird case.

[Alan]

When I was stripping my PC last week I was thinking of back to the first PC I built where the cpu cooler was attached via a metal clamp you have to stick a screwdriver into and bend into a clip with a lot of force. If the screwdriver slipped, bye bye mobo. Who the fuck thought that was a good idea when you could just have four screws!?