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this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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Frugal
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Discuss how to save money.
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I always used to figure a decent desktop computer would cost me between $2k and $3k. That's going back to the early 90s. But even though the value of a dollar has plummeted since then, you can get a decent desktop for significantly less, maybe half.
I was able to build a desktop capable of 4k60 for around $1500, and I overbuilt in places. You can definitely do okay at $1000 or less if you’re aiming for lower resolutions these days.
Yep, for sure. And you can get a serviceable system for closer to $500, though you aren't going to pay high end games.
Where do you source cheap parts? Maybe its a Canada thing, but things are still not cheap in my experience
Microcenter is the gold standard for cheap PC parts, but they don't sell much online and they have very limited locations.
Beyond that, Newegg and amazon will have sales quite frequently that make a budget builds possible.
In the US $500 might get you a decent office desktop, but I would say to expect closer to $800 minimum for a PC with a dedicated gpu.
FYI, Newegg got sold to some company a few years back and is no longer the geek nirvana it once was. So YMMV if you use it. It can still be good, it's just not as central as it used to be to computer geekdom.
Yeah RIP tigerdirect and old Newegg.
B&H has been a good experience, but their pricing tends to be a bit high with only a handful of good deals.
There's no consistently great place to buy pc components online as far as I'm aware. Amazon is rife with sketchy sellers, Newegg will sell you damaged goods and blame you on the return, best buy hides/mislabels specs, and everywhere else is expensive.
Dude I'm still salty that CompUSA merged into TigerDirect right around the time TigerDirect got sketchy
For those really cheap ones, you're probably talking prefab - hard to complete with them on the low end last I looked (which, admittedly, has been some years). Things like this.