Boutique PC Builders vs OEM Pre-Built Gaming PCs

[Amir Shoam]

Buying a new gaming PC today presents a few challenges due to the GPU shortage. We recently compared our recommended PC building specs to OEM gaming PCs. Now let's do the same comparing pre-builts to boutique PC builders.

Read the full article here.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2258-boutique-gaming-pc-vs-oem-prebuilt/

 

[Dimitriid]

Sorry but this is nonsense: All scenarios here are only entertained because system integrators can actually get stock and DIY builders cannot.

That's it: nothing else has changed. They're still over-priced, poorly thought out, often not very well optimized and charging a premium for service and warranties that are at the best of cases questionable.

If you need a 4 weeks lead time to even build a 3060 rig what happens if the card turns out to be defective once it reaches the user? That's another 4 weeks of lead time to replace it plus 2 weeks for shipping both ways and maybe 2 to 4 more weeks for some useless warranty department to just confirm it indeed needs to be RMA'd?

Just keep waiting. I promise you: you'll survive without being able to play garbage AAA games like 2077 for another year.

 

[QuantumPhysics]

Bottom Line: the GPU shortage has made now the absolute worst possible time to build or buy a gaming PC.

 

[Irata]

Having watched Gamers‘ Nexus videos on OEM and boutique gaming PC, I am even more sceptical than before. Discussing these systems on a theoretical / spec sheet level vs actually testing them does seem to make a difference.

 

[Art5performance]

Bottom Line: the GPU shortage has made now the absolute worst possible time to build or buy a gaming PC.

This was allready the case for at least half a year

 

[BadThad]

 

[godrilla]

The shortages are no longer limited to gpus. Rumored shortages coming for flash and hard drives due to chiacoin. Cryptomining is facilitating the rate of inflation exponentially!

 

[Mr Majestyk]

Just build it yourself, much cheaper and with better components in general if you are serious.

I've never once seen a custom pre-built PC that wasn't underpecced and over-priced to what I could do. It's convenient if you got the time or are scared to try it yourself, but if an idi0t like me can build a PC anyone can.

What sort of loser site censors the word idi0t. This site allows pernicious political comments when it suits them but heavy handedly censors minuscule remarks.

 

[draihl]

Seriously guys? You consider these high end boutique builders!?

Absolutely not. They may be a bit better than HP/Dell/ECT, but definitely aren't comparable with the true high end builders like FalconNW.

Get a grip.

 

[Amir Shoam]

Seriously guys? You consider these high end boutique builders!?

Absolutely not. They may be a bit better than HP/Dell/ECT, but definitely aren't comparable with the true high end builders like FalconNW.

Get a grip.

The phrase "high-end boutique builders" doesn't appear in the article even once.

 

[8600M GT]

I sort of agree with draihl's criticism; when I think of "boutique builders" I think of builders like Maingear, Origin PC, Falcon Northwest, and Puget Systems, maybe Eurocom as well. CyberPowerPC, iBuyPower, XoticPC, and maybe AVADirect are kind of in between the mass-market Dells and HPs, and the boutiques - they offer tons of customizeability, but focus on the gaming crowd rather than the crowd seeking top-end build quality. Not sure if there's a term for it though.

Of course the ones featured in this article are generally more affordable than what I think of as "boutique builders". Maybe the closest analogy is the the old independent shops that mostly went out of business in the '90s. They'd built whatever you wanted, and charged more than Dell, but the build quality could vary, unlike the true boutiques who always had high build quality.

I'll probably follow Dimitriid's recommendation myself and keep my current rig.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Seriously guys? You consider these high end boutique builders!?

Absolutely not. They may be a bit better than HP/Dell/ECT, but definitely aren't comparable with the true high end builders like FalconNW.

Get a grip.

Falcon has gone downhill... and they no longer even offer the Mach V anymore...

While I'd have agreed with you maybe 5 years ago, Falcon can no longer be considered worth the premium - but you still pay astronomically for the privilege of owning one.

As a comparison though, the "Talon" configured with AMD's X570 chipset is:
Case: Talon 20th Anniversary Edition
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 750W
Motherboard: Asus ROG Crosshair VII Dark Hero (only option)
CPU: Ryzen 5800X
Cooler: Falcon 280mm liquid (I believe it's basically Asetek, but someone correct me if I'm wrong)
RAM: 32GB (2 x 16GB G.Skill TridentZ RGB @ 3200MHz)
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 Founders Edition
Storage: 1TB Crucial P2 (Or add $112 for the Samsung 980 Pro)
OS: Win 10 Pro

Cost: $4,018.00

Yes, it has a better motherboard and double the RAM (you can't configure 16GB), but I don't think it's worth almost DOUBLE the price...

 

[Soulburn74]

The only reason I could see buying a machine from a boutique builder is the fact with the right builder you can actually choose which parts you want. But if your knowledge of PC's are that great, that you have the knowledge of knowing which parts you want, then you probably have the skillset to build it yourself as well, which will save you tons of money in the process.

As the rest have stated, now a days, the only reason to go this route is to actually get the parts you want, which are terribly hard to come by without using tools like stockdrop to get instant notifications on stock availability (and be quick enough on the draw to be successful at your purchase......even then its hard.)

 

[McMurdeR]

Having watched Gamers‘ Nexus videos on OEM and boutique gaming PC, I am even more sceptical than before. Discussing these systems on a theoretical / spec sheet level vs actually testing them does seem to make a difference.

Steve is leading the charge in systematically highlighting a myriad of quality issues in consumer PC and gaming hardware. Did you see the Dell review? Wow.

Distributers are apparently using high demand of certain products to force retailers to buy aged stock of other products, in order to clear old inventory. So if a retailer wants to order x amount of the latest GPUs they have to also have to agree to buy a bunch of crappy old PSUs that couldn't be shifted otherwise. The system builders are better placed to offload the old stock, hence they're the only ones holding stock of the high demand items. The problem is, you're the one going to end up with that crappy PSU.

There are probably some good system builders out there, but the likelihood of corners being cut seem very high with them.

 

[Kshipper]

Your faith in Thermaltake PSUs is questionable. I have had quite a few bad TR2 PSUs from them and trying to obtain warranty was impossible. Each time they just ignored the submission, so I started selling Seasonic and Corsair in my builds and I have had zero problems for quite a few years now. I run a local computer shop and people like to buy from me so I too have had to buy prebuilt systems from various places (just to get graphics cards) and all of them have had issues.

The first one from NewEgg under their ABS label advertised a RTX3800 rig with 3200MHz ram but it shipped with the RAM running at 2133MHz. Ok that is a minor fix but most users wouldn't even know it was wrong. The 2nd NewEgg ABS unit was a RTX3060 and it shipped without a Windows 10 license! The I bought a Armoury PC from Canada Computers and it was built using some Deep Cool cooler that does not work well on the Ryzen 5 3600. it's loud and the CPU runs at the edge of temps 89c on a light benchmark of 3DMark or Passmark (not good). and they have 3 fans pulling air in and 1 pushing it out. What were they thinking? /boggle