I've been building computers since the first Pentium chips were introduced in the early '90's. I was going to build a new i9 machine with a 2080 Super a couple years ago and started pricing things. The processor and video card were going for around $1,500 combined. After adding the motherboard, case, HD, PSU and RAM, I was just under $2,500. I decided to look into prebuilt computers, just for comparison. I found a Lenovo Legion with a liquid cooled i9, 2080 Super 2TB HD (1TB SS and 1TB spinner) with 32GB RAM for $1,450. Needless to say, it was a no brainer to just fork over the cash and buy the prebuilt.
While I did miss the hours of building and configuring my new system, I did not miss spending the extra $1k on it. I figured worst case, I buy a different MB and case and just swap in the parts if I had an issue with the generic build. After almost 3 years, I couldn't be happier with my decision.
I haven't been looking at prices much lately. Has the gap between building and buying prebuilt narrowed since the pandemic and chip shortage issues? Or, are some people just totally against buying a prebuilt?