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> Cursory look gives you a ~$3500 price tag for a gaming PC with a 3090 That 3500 is for a DIY build. So, sure, you can always save on labor and hassle, but pr

> Cursory look gives you a ~$3500 price tag for a gaming PC with a 3090 That 3500 is for a DIY build. So, sure, you can always save on labor and hassle, but prebuilt 3090 rigs commonly cost over 4k. And if you don't want to buy from Amazon because of their notorious history of mixing components from different suppliers and reselling used returns, oof, good luck even getting one.

sudosysgen 5y ago
Prebuilt 3090 builds can often be found for less than the cost of the corresponding parts.
airstrike 5y ago
You mean I get to save AND have fun building my own PC?
- _joel 5y ago
  FSVO fun if you use Newegg
  - chrisweekly 5y ago
    FSVO: For Some Value Of (I've been accused of overuse of acronyms, but that one's rare!)
- unicornfinder 5y ago
  Not to mention if you build your own PC you can upgrade the parts as and when, unlike with the new Mac where you'll eventually just be replacing the whole thing.
  - ricardobeat 5y ago
    Since the context here is using these machines for work, a mid-level engineer will easily cost an extra $1000* in his own time to put that together :) EDIT: I’m quite confident this is not at all an exaggeration. Unless you have put together PCs for a living. $100/h (total employment cost, not just salary), 1-2 hours of actual build & setup, 8 more hours of speccing out parts, buying, taking delivery, installing stuff and messing around with windows/Linux (I’ve probably spent 40 hours+ in the past couple years just fixing stuff in my windows gaming pc. At least 1 of those looking for a cabled keyboard so I could boot it up the first time, ended up having a friend drive over with his :D)
    - gtvwill 5y ago
      1000 bucks for 45 mins work? Maybe 1.5hrs tops? I didn't realise their wage was >500 an hour?
      - Normal_gaussian 5y ago
        To be fair here, there is more to it than just assembly. You have to spec out the parts, ensuring compatibility. Manage multiple orders and deliveries. Assemble it. Install drivers/configuration specific packages. All of these things are easier today than ten or twenty years ago - but assigning it to a random mid-level engineer and I'd set my project management gamble on half a day for the busiest, most focused engineers least likely to take the time to fuss over specs, or one day for the majority. ofc. to get to $1000 for that they'd still have to be on $230k to $460k.
        rpmisms 5y ago
        PC part picker will do the heavy lifting for you. There are also management tools that will let you install software bundles easily, no real extra time investment.
        asoneth 5y ago
        Just knowing about services like PC Part Picker and the management tools you mention requires time and expertise that people generally do not have before they build a computer, so "no real extra time investment" may only be true for someone who can amortize those upfront costs across many builds. In my case I have built a couple PCs before, but it was so long ago that I'd have to re-learn which retailers are trustworthy, what the new connection standards are these days, etc. It's just not worth it to me to spend a dozen hours learning, specing, ordering, assembling, installing, configuring, etc to save a few hundred bucks.
        fouc 5y ago
        Given that the last time I put together a PC computer was 2006, it'd probably take me DAYS to spec out a machine because of all the rabbit holes I'd be exploring, esp with all the advances in computer tech.
  - momothereal 5y ago
    I believed that until I realized I couldn't individually upgrade my CPU or RAM because I have a mobo with LGA1150 socket and only supports DDR3 (and it's only 6 years old). So eventually you still have to "replace everything" to upgrade a PC.
    - mixedCase 5y ago
      AMD has never disappointed me in this regard.
      - doublepg23 5y ago
        Zen 4 will being using a new socket, I wouldn’t go buying a Zen 3 with plans to upgrade the CPU down the road.
        kllrnohj 5y ago
        Well, you should still get one last upgrade out of an AM4 socket in the form of the upcoming 5800X3D ( https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-7-5800x3d https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-7-5800x3d )
        arvinsim 5y ago
        This is already known for a long time already. You would have to actively choose to not listen to AMD news to not know.
        doublepg23 5y ago
        I understand just making sure no one jumps on Zen 3 now with a promise of forwards compatibility.
        zamalek 5y ago
        8 years isn't a bad run for a CPU socket.
    - Macha 5y ago
udbhavs 5y ago
And there is usually a premium for small form factor prebuilts
freemint 5y ago
At MicroCenter you would be hard pressed to pay more then $250 on their PC building service, you'll even get water coling installed and tested for this price. https://www.microcenter.com/site/service/instore-custom-pc-build-services.aspx https://www.microcenter.com/site/service/instore-custom-pc-b...
zamalek 5y ago
The 3090 claims are overstated. There are multiple competitors in that space, and all of them need the TDP. Performance per watt? I could see that being disrupted, but an iGPU in 2022 will be orders of magnitude less powerful than a dGPU, if wattage is ignored.
- cma 5y ago
  They are still a year+ ahead of 3090 on process node. Max was about equivalent to a 2080, so 2X max does line up with a 3090. A big difference is no ray tracing hardware, which takes up a lot of die space. Same process node and no ray tracing hardware and nvidia would come in at far less die space (3090 is 628.4 mm ^2, M1 ultra is 850mm^2). If Nvidia were on the same node and increased die space to match M1 (ignoring the CPU portion of the die size), they would then be able to run at a lower clock with more compute units and probably match the TDP discrepancy. An iGPU isn't necessarily slower if the system ram is fast, and M1 was one of the first consumer CPUs to move to DDR5. 3090 has 936.2 GB/s with GDDR6X, M1 Ultra with DDR5 memory controllers on both dies gets 800GB/s.
  - zamalek 5y ago
    Having had my M1 MB pro from work freeze and stutter, I'm just not buying it. Your theory is great, never once expected this BS in practice. For the record: I was the first M1 recipient (temporary 16gb MB, stock issues). I needed an Intel MBP because Rosetta ain't all that. I opted for, and was upgraded to, the 32gb M1 MBP. I chose M1 over Intel because it was unbelievably faster for the form-factor. My original comment does not concern laptops. My PC is orders of magnitude more powerful. TDP is physics. You all might perceive Apple as perfect and infallible and all so lovely, but physics is physics. I use AMD, not NVIDIA. And "what if" is irrelevant. It's like intentionally neutering Zen2 by comparing it to Intel single-core (as was done all the time). The reality is absolute, not relative. Comparing effective performance, not per-TDP, is what matters to the user. And my network/gpu/audio drops on both my 16gb M1 MB and 32gb M1 MBP under load. Seriously not buying that "Apple can do nothing wrong" bias. Take those #Ff6600-colored glasses off. The M1 has unbeatable value proposition in a pretty wide market, but Apple couldn't be further from a universally good machine.
ProAm 5y ago
I'm not being snarky but I dont believe Mac people would know how to build a PC given their history of non-modifiable hardware and no way to repair them.

sudosysgen 5y ago

Prebuilt 3090 builds can often be found for less than the cost of the corresponding parts.

airstrike 5y ago

You mean I get to save AND have fun building my own PC?

_joel 5y ago
FSVO fun if you use Newegg
- chrisweekly 5y ago
  FSVO: For Some Value Of (I've been accused of overuse of acronyms, but that one's rare!)
unicornfinder 5y ago
Not to mention if you build your own PC you can upgrade the parts as and when, unlike with the new Mac where you'll eventually just be replacing the whole thing.
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  Since the context here is using these machines for work, a mid-level engineer will easily cost an extra $1000* in his own time to put that together :) EDIT: I’m quite confident this is not at all an exaggeration. Unless you have put together PCs for a living. $100/h (total employment cost, not just salary), 1-2 hours of actual build & setup, 8 more hours of speccing out parts, buying, taking delivery, installing stuff and messing around with windows/Linux (I’ve probably spent 40 hours+ in the past couple years just fixing stuff in my windows gaming pc. At least 1 of those looking for a cabled keyboard so I could boot it up the first time, ended up having a friend drive over with his :D)
  - gtvwill 5y ago
    1000 bucks for 45 mins work? Maybe 1.5hrs tops? I didn't realise their wage was >500 an hour?
    - Normal_gaussian 5y ago
      To be fair here, there is more to it than just assembly. You have to spec out the parts, ensuring compatibility. Manage multiple orders and deliveries. Assemble it. Install drivers/configuration specific packages. All of these things are easier today than ten or twenty years ago - but assigning it to a random mid-level engineer and I'd set my project management gamble on half a day for the busiest, most focused engineers least likely to take the time to fuss over specs, or one day for the majority. ofc. to get to $1000 for that they'd still have to be on $230k to $460k.
      - rpmisms 5y ago
        PC part picker will do the heavy lifting for you. There are also management tools that will let you install software bundles easily, no real extra time investment.
        asoneth 5y ago
        Just knowing about services like PC Part Picker and the management tools you mention requires time and expertise that people generally do not have before they build a computer, so "no real extra time investment" may only be true for someone who can amortize those upfront costs across many builds. In my case I have built a couple PCs before, but it was so long ago that I'd have to re-learn which retailers are trustworthy, what the new connection standards are these days, etc. It's just not worth it to me to spend a dozen hours learning, specing, ordering, assembling, installing, configuring, etc to save a few hundred bucks.
      - fouc 5y ago
        Given that the last time I put together a PC computer was 2006, it'd probably take me DAYS to spec out a machine because of all the rabbit holes I'd be exploring, esp with all the advances in computer tech.
- momothereal 5y ago
  I believed that until I realized I couldn't individually upgrade my CPU or RAM because I have a mobo with LGA1150 socket and only supports DDR3 (and it's only 6 years old). So eventually you still have to "replace everything" to upgrade a PC.
  - mixedCase 5y ago
    AMD has never disappointed me in this regard.
    - doublepg23 5y ago
      Zen 4 will being using a new socket, I wouldn’t go buying a Zen 3 with plans to upgrade the CPU down the road.
      - kllrnohj 5y ago
        Well, you should still get one last upgrade out of an AM4 socket in the form of the upcoming 5800X3D ( https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-7-5800x3d https://www.amd.com/en/products/cpu/amd-ryzen-7-5800x3d )
      - arvinsim 5y ago
        This is already known for a long time already. You would have to actively choose to not listen to AMD news to not know.
        doublepg23 5y ago
        I understand just making sure no one jumps on Zen 3 now with a promise of forwards compatibility.
      - zamalek 5y ago
        8 years isn't a bad run for a CPU socket.
  - Macha 5y ago

udbhavs 5y ago

And there is usually a premium for small form factor prebuilts

freemint 5y ago

At MicroCenter you would be hard pressed to pay more then $250 on their PC building service, you'll even get water coling installed and tested for this price. https://www.microcenter.com/site/service/instore-custom-pc-build-services.aspx https://www.microcenter.com/site/service/instore-custom-pc-b...

zamalek 5y ago

The 3090 claims are overstated. There are multiple competitors in that space, and all of them need the TDP. Performance per watt? I could see that being disrupted, but an iGPU in 2022 will be orders of magnitude less powerful than a dGPU, if wattage is ignored.

cma 5y ago
They are still a year+ ahead of 3090 on process node. Max was about equivalent to a 2080, so 2X max does line up with a 3090. A big difference is no ray tracing hardware, which takes up a lot of die space. Same process node and no ray tracing hardware and nvidia would come in at far less die space (3090 is 628.4 mm ^2, M1 ultra is 850mm^2). If Nvidia were on the same node and increased die space to match M1 (ignoring the CPU portion of the die size), they would then be able to run at a lower clock with more compute units and probably match the TDP discrepancy. An iGPU isn't necessarily slower if the system ram is fast, and M1 was one of the first consumer CPUs to move to DDR5. 3090 has 936.2 GB/s with GDDR6X, M1 Ultra with DDR5 memory controllers on both dies gets 800GB/s.
- zamalek 5y ago
  Having had my M1 MB pro from work freeze and stutter, I'm just not buying it. Your theory is great, never once expected this BS in practice. For the record: I was the first M1 recipient (temporary 16gb MB, stock issues). I needed an Intel MBP because Rosetta ain't all that. I opted for, and was upgraded to, the 32gb M1 MBP. I chose M1 over Intel because it was unbelievably faster for the form-factor. My original comment does not concern laptops. My PC is orders of magnitude more powerful. TDP is physics. You all might perceive Apple as perfect and infallible and all so lovely, but physics is physics. I use AMD, not NVIDIA. And "what if" is irrelevant. It's like intentionally neutering Zen2 by comparing it to Intel single-core (as was done all the time). The reality is absolute, not relative. Comparing effective performance, not per-TDP, is what matters to the user. And my network/gpu/audio drops on both my 16gb M1 MB and 32gb M1 MBP under load. Seriously not buying that "Apple can do nothing wrong" bias. Take those #Ff6600-colored glasses off. The M1 has unbeatable value proposition in a pretty wide market, but Apple couldn't be further from a universally good machine.

ProAm 5y ago

I'm not being snarky but I dont believe Mac people would know how to build a PC given their history of non-modifiable hardware and no way to repair them.