Is a DIY Gaming Desktop still a value in 2018?

Image Courtesy of PCPartPicker.com

It is June of 2018 and the Do-it-Yourself PC Market is still out of control.  RAM prices are way up, video cards prices are still way too high, and new processors are coming to market and with them the need to upgrade to a new motherboard.  My question today is this: Is it still worth it to build your own PC in 2018?  Let's take a closer look and find out.

Why Build your Own?

In the last couple of decades the DIY PC market has changed completely.  Today, it is easier than ever to get in to a straightforward custom build with less than ten components, and the quality of those components (and return policies of vendors like Amazon and NewEgg) have improved to the point where there is little risk and a lot of satisfaction to building your own rig.

The main pre-built PC vendors really excel at one thing, and that is warranty service.  When you buy an HP Omen, Lenovo Legion, or a Dell Alienware, you are going to get the support from a world class company that is built to handle difficult requests from home and business customers alike.  They may not have a physical store in your city, but they have on-site technicians on duty and fast shipping and returns services as well.  When you build your own, you also have to warranty your own parts as well, and that can quite often be a challenge if you are outside the normal return window for your vendor.  Cross-shipping parts to Taiwan, where many of the big DIY companies like Gigabyte, Asus, and MSI are based, from another country is often very frustrating and slow.

On the other hand, you just can't get the state-of-the-art customized PC experience from a pre-built PC vendor.  Actually, that is not quite true.  Vendors like Digital Storm, iBuyPower, and Maingear go out of their way to stock and work with many of the same components you would purchase on your own through Amazon or NewEgg.  They even offer custom RGB lighting effects, water cooling, and full customization right down to the brand and speed of the RAM and SSD as if you were building it yourself.  Just like Dell, HP, and Lenovo, they offer compelling warranty return services, but lack the on-site technician option that the giants in this space can afford.

Still, there is nothing quite like the experience of building your own PC, choosing every detail and painstakingly assembling the machine, feeling like an engineer prototyping a brand new invention, coordinating the look and lighting, taking hundreds of photos and posting them on sites like PCPartPicker to show off to the community how inventive you were with your design, or how practical you were with your choices.  The feedback from the community and the satisfaction of a job well done are worth it, even if you encountered problems along the way, people will gladly chime in and tell you where you made a mistake, and they will celebrate with you when everything comes together.

At the end of the day however, it is still just a computer.  It might look awesome and you might be super proud of the results, but building the PC is just the first part of the long journey of OS installs and updates, software troubleshooting, complex configurations for live streaming or video production, code compilation or audio engineering, or any of a hundred other niche and specific tasks you require this system for.  You want it to be fast, but also stable and reliable.  Software can be buggy enough without having to worry about the stability of the hardware as well.  This is why it is so important to research and communicate with communities of experienced system builders. Get ready for the ride!  It is full of ups and downs but always enjoyable as long as you remember your goals and don't let the experience of building a PC distract you from the reason you needed one in the first place.