Why There's Simply No Need To Build Your Own Computer Anymore

Whether you're looking to build a PC for gaming or as a hobby, doing so right now can be a poor financial decision. And while that may sound sacrilegious for computer enthusiasts, it's the sensible truth. As the rampant costs of RAM, storage, and even processors continue to rise, the homemade PC has come to its knees. 

Costs aside, prebuilt PCs have plenty to offer, and the prices have remained fairly consistent — in most cases, you can find entirely prebuilt PCs for about the same cost of just RAM and a graphics card. That being said, some brands, like Maingear, have started selling PCs without RAM entirely, as the buyout and shuffling of stock towards AI data centers is causing a lot of tech prices to rise. It's recommended that you check in on major brands first, as these will typically be the most reliable and cost-effective PCs that you can find. That's why in 2026, and the foreseeable future, there's simply no need to build your own PC.

When prices were sensible, building a PC was one of the key skills every user should get accustomed to, but now it's far too expensive. Looking at pricing trends on PCPartPicker, the costs of submitted completed builds in the mid-tier to high-tier ranges are prohibitively high. The trends also show that prices have risen and now settled at these peak levels. It's never been easier to put parts together into a gaming PC, but it's never been harder or more expensive to acquire those pieces.

Prebuilt PCs might not always be the top in terms of quality, but they can be the perfect jumping-off point for some budding builders, especially those who want to upgrade their PC into a gaming setup. Just because they've come prebuilt doesn't mean you can't begin tinkering with the inner guts to get it where you like. With so many options out there, what gaming PC should you go for? Aside from avoiding brands like iBuyPower and Cyberpower, which tend to ship PCs with cooling problems or even general build issues like poor cable management, also be cautious of of deals that look too good to be true that may be hiding outdated or underpowered hardware to cut down on costs.

After graphics cards saw a massive price rise during 2020 and 2021 due to a combination of an electronics shortage and a cryptocurrency bubble, neither Nvidia nor AMD completely lowered the prices to pre-pandemic levels. These companies saw that users would still pay top dollar for hardware, and only mildly lowered the prices to meet previous generations. Since then, we've seen prices explode, with the GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card launching at $1,599 and recently spiking to prices nearing $4,000 on Newegg. 

Manufacturing costs might subside at some point in the future, but we'll have to wait and see if the actual prices of the hardware that goes into the gaming PCs will go down. That being said, the argument for prebuilt PCs may come into questions as the costs of goods continue to increase due to global tariffs and the war in Iran. Once the current stock of prebuilt PCs dwindles, prices of new inventory may rise to reflect the higher costs to build, ship, and import these products.