Talked to a client who builds gaming PCs for his kids every 3 years

Had a guy come in last week with a dead power supply. While I was testing it he told me he builds a new PC for each of his 3 kids every 3 years. Not upgrades, full rebuilds. Said it's cheaper than buying a prebuilt from Best Buy and they get to learn how computers work. I asked why not just swap parts and he said the old ones go to the living room for family use. That hit different for me. I usually push clients to upgrade but he's got a whole system that makes sense. He spends about $800 per build total. Has anyone else seen this approach work long term? The cable management in his case was immaculate too.

2 comments

2 Comments

spencer66414d ago

Oh man, that's a smart setup honestly. The trick is sticking to a tight budget and buying smart on sales or used parts, otherwise that $800 per build creeps up fast. He's probably saving big on the family hand-me-downs since those don't need to be super powerful for streaming and browsing.

jason11214d ago

$800 per build still makes me wince a bit tbh. I just spent like half that on a used Optiplex and slapped a GPU in it, and it's been a champ for Youtube and Minecraft. Meanwhile I've got a bin of old parts in my closet that could probably build a whole other PC if I had the energy to sort through the tangled mess of cables.