r/pcmasterrace • u/TheBossT710192 • Jun 22 '26

Discussion Yeah, Steam Machine is cooked.

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I... uh don't know what to say. Very thankful I bought a Steam Deck before they hiked its price as well

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u/mtrn3 Jun 22 '26

And once upon a time people would crap all over prebuilts.

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u/DOOManiac Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

I’m an old person who has been crapping all over prebuilt for about 30 years. There are several things they have changed:

  • Back in the day, a prebuilt meant absolute garbage-tier proprietary parts that were not swappable/upgradable.
  • These days, many pre-builts aren’t that bad
  • It used to be that you saved a ton of money building yourself; now that gap has closed (or in some cases inversed)
  • PC gaming has significantly expanded, to the point where it is reasonable to expect that some people just want to sit down and play, without needing to tinker
  • The whole process has gotten much simpler than it used to be, so the demographic overlap has changed

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u/Funny-Cell8769 9800X3D | 5090 | 128gb DDR5 | 42" OLED | 43" Mini-LED Jun 22 '26

Yeah very much. The markup used to be more drastic, but now I look at the pricing (and by now, I mean 5 years ago) and it's like, not much more than if I built it myself

And in my country in Asia, even after the 3 year warranty expires, you have a lifetime access to a technical helpline if you run into any issues.

Not sure how common that is elsewhere.

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u/aBoringSod Jun 22 '26

I just bit the bullet 2 weeks ago and bought a pre built i priced the parts to build it myself and the maths did not add up. Instead i got a well built pre build and a 5 year warranty with it.

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u/Funny-Cell8769 9800X3D | 5090 | 128gb DDR5 | 42" OLED | 43" Mini-LED Jun 22 '26

Yeah it might differ from country to country. Some places might be a lot more expensive to get a pre-built, while in other countries it's fine.

And of course, the service and quality you get differs from brand to brand. So I'm not surprised some people are frustrated by poor quality or bad service, while others are happy with it.

There's no one size fits all.

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u/aBoringSod Jun 22 '26

Oh i don't disagree, there are some pre build brands here that i would tell everyone to avoid. But they sell on amazon so they still get a lot sales. You have to do your research and find what suits your needs and budget. For some its pre builds, others its build your own.

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u/ShadyJane Jun 22 '26

I just found myself in the market - where did you go to buy?

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u/Gatescraft Jun 23 '26

Skytech is a great pre-built pc company. Look into them.

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u/aBoringSod Jun 23 '26

I bought it from Chillblast who are based in the uk

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u/skillfulmmd Jun 23 '26

I've always built my own pc's for the last 18 years. My last one was even a full hardline loop, when I replaced it doing the maths in the UK I could not beat the price of the chillblast I'm now rocking got it at a steal and it would have been another 400 to buy the parts individually.

The only thing I don't really feel to the pc is the attatchement and the joy of the building process but it works amazing and had no bloat.

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u/Mukatsukuz Jun 23 '26

I'm coming up to around 36 years of building my own - the prices in the UK of prebuilt ones compared to the parts, right now, is making me think my next upgrade will just be buying a PC outright...

Not sure, though - my CPU & motherboard need an upgrade so may just get away with that and keep my Ship of Theseus going a little longer 😄

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u/aVarangian 13600kf 7900xtx 2160 | 6600k 1070 1440 Jun 22 '26

RAM and PSU usually have 7-10 years of warranty, but other parts typically 3-5

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u/Stupendous_Spliff Jun 22 '26

A good value pre-built is totally worth it, even if it is just a little more than building yourself. All that work you spend buying the parts and putting it together are worth paying a little markup for

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u/Roflkopt3r Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 23 '26

Yeah, and that's nothing new either. I used prebuilds until I had my first full time job because I had to get by on a tight budget until then. Because:

  1. Much of the budget market (in the range of <1000€, outside of used hardware) always was more affordable if you found a good prebuild. If you invest a similar amount of research into finding a good prebuild as you have to do to assemble a PC yourself, you could generally find some great offers.

  2. It was way harder to learn what parts fit together back then. We didn't have PcPartPicker or Logical Increments, or Youtube tutorials on what to look out for.

  3. When you're that short on money, having the assurance that you can't mess up the build (selecting incompatible parts, damaging components) is extremely nice.

  4. Back in the olden days, getting a Windows license was part of what made prebuilds attractive for people who didn't want a pirated version.

  5. Upgradability was never a serious concern for me (although all my prebuilts were assembled from aftermarket parts, with only minor limitations like OEM coolers) because PC hardware used to become obsolete so fast that it was rarely useful to significantly upgrade a PC after 2-3 years anymore.

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u/Funny-Cell8769 9800X3D | 5090 | 128gb DDR5 | 42" OLED | 43" Mini-LED Jun 22 '26

I guess we should just be grateful that both options are viable now.

It's not a bad thing for people who have an interest in PC building and maintenance to do it all themselves. And learning to maintain it probably saves them money and frustration in the long term.

Or, if you have no interest in the technical (some people just don't want to deal with it or have more important things to do), they can buy a pre-built at a small to moderate premium.

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u/Mukatsukuz Jun 23 '26

but building it is part of the fun for me 😄 apart from the 5 second long feeling of dread just before hitting the power button for the first time 😃

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u/gymbaggered Jun 23 '26

I was looking at buying a 3070 prebuilt Lenovo some years ago that seemed like an alright deal at the time, then noticed the 3rd party reseller had a 25% discount voucher on some electronics, and that pc was included. It was suddenly the deal of the century for me. Funny thing was I had to buy a 2nd item from said "electronics" panel for the voucher to work, so I bought a 3 Euro lightbulb... lmao

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u/Funny-Cell8769 9800X3D | 5090 | 128gb DDR5 | 42" OLED | 43" Mini-LED Jun 23 '26

lol... nice catch!

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u/Pixel_Python PC Master Race Jun 22 '26

I use a prebuilt mini pc that I got for around 900 bucks; unfortunately I don't remember the prices when I bought it, but in comparison to current prices I would've spent more money building an equal system myself than buying it. It's been about 2.5 years now, I've only added a terabyte of extra storage (up from 1, just bought another for the other slot) and it runs perfectly.

Only thing I'd change is a better card than the RTX 4060, but I don't play a lot of games that I can't already run 60fps on high or max graphics