The last time I built a gaming PC was upwards of a decade ago, and at that time the prevailing …

> and at that time the prevailing wisdom was to never buy a pre-built That's still the case, and always will be — with a pre-built you're at the very least paying for someone to assemble it for you, so it's always going to be more expensive as a baseline. Beyond that, the chance they've chosen good components and haven't tried to screw you over on less flashy ones like the motherboard and power supply is low. That's not to say it's literally impossible to ever find a good deal. You very well might have. Doesn't change anything though.

I did the exact same thing during Covid, the prebuilt ended up being ~20% cheaper than buying the individual components (I needed a full upgrade). Maybe a little less since I could have reused my case.

> I ended up picking one up for <$5k I'm struggling to put this in context. For comparison, what was your budget for refreshing the pc you had? Were the planned upgrades going to exceed $5k at current prices? Or is the situation that a pre-build machine with far better components was now only marginally more? Or is it that pre-built gaming PCs have stopped being a joke? I had the experience building a bicycle: I was certain I was taking the frugal path sourcing each component individually and putting it together myself. At the end I was horrified to realize I spent far more than a new bike with superior components. It was pointed out that bicycle makers are buying by the pallet and will beat diy every time — so long as they're building something I want to buy.