Of course it's not cheap on an absolute scale if you buy the absolute top of the line specs. It is still relatively cheap — try buying a laptop with those specs

Of course it's not cheap on an absolute scale if you buy the absolute top of the line specs. It is still relatively cheap — try buying a laptop with those specs (or, more reasonably, the other way around). Especially if you don't buy the latest gen, which really isn't needed. I'm still running an i7 6700. Initially it was one of the fastest components in my system, but has become the bottleneck as I've upgraded the parts around it (added a discrete gpu and nvme ssd, affecting the bottleneck for gaming and compiling, respectively). But honestly, it's still good enough most of the time, and I'm in no hurry to replace it. Also/especially, while the initial build is not that much cheaper, the cost over time is — both the longer expected lifetime of the parts and the ability to upgrade piecemeal instead of replacing the whole thing.