I've built PCs for 20 years, and buying a prebuilt was my smartest move this year

Published Sep 12, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT Monica J. White is a journalist with over a decade of experience in covering technology. She built her first PC nearly 20 years ago, and she has since built and tested dozens of PCs. PC hardware is her main beat, and graphics cards and the GPU market at large are her main area of interest, but she has written thousands of articles covering everything related to PCs, laptops, handhelds, and peripherals. From GPUs and CPUs to headsets and software, Monica's always willing to geek out over all things related to computing. Outside of her work with How-To Geek, Monica contributes to TechRadar, PC Gamer, Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, SlashGear, Whop, and Digital Trends, among others. Her ultimate goal is to make PC gaming and computing approachable and fun to any audience. Monica spends a lot of time elbow-deep in her PC case, as she's always making upgrades, testing something, or plotting out her next build. She's the go-to tech support person in her immediate circle, so she's never out of things to do. Whenever she has spare time, you'll find her gaming until the early hours and hanging out with her dog. 2026 has been a weird year for me. I'm one of the most "pro DIY PC" people you'll ever meet. I built my first PC around 20 years ago, and I've never touched a prebuilt since then, except for the purpose of reviewing them. And yet, this year, I bought a prebuilt—not for me, but still. And I don't regret it. In fact, at this point, I'd go as far as to say: Please don't build your own PC right now. If you do, you'll be wasting your money. We're paying AI prices for gaming hardware It just doesn't add up Prices have been wild for months. Let's take the RTX 5090 as an example, as it's impossible not to talk about. When the RTX 5090 launched last year, many were baffled by the $1,999 MSRP. I wasn't, as the previous generation prepared us for something in that ballpark, but it was an unwelcome confirmation that the pricing of hardware wasn't going to get any better. We knew that, but still, the RAM-pocalypse hit hard. The prices skyrocketed to heights we've never seen before, and Nvidia's flagship GPU is the perfect example of that: it was pretty much never available at MSRP, not for long, at least. But now? Good luck finding one below $5,000. Some cards I found actually cost over $6,000. For comparison, Nvidia's RTX 6000 Pro, a workstation/AI GPU, started with an MSRP of $8,000, and that card has 96GB VRAM. (It now sells for over $16,000.) To think that Nvidia's consumer card now sells for something so close to the initial MSRP of an AI card is staggering. Of course, 99% of consumers don't need an RTX 5090. But do you fancy spending $1,600-$2,000+ for an RTX 5080, or $1,200-$1,600 for an RTX 5070 Ti? Yup. It's rough out there. RAM is perhaps the worst thing of all, though. Having to spend close to $500 for 32GB of DDR5 RAM just makes no sense in a consumer PC. And it's not like you can save a lot by downgrading to 16GB RAM: Those kits still cost $200-$300. Prebuilts are undercutting DIY parts right now Is this the only way to get an alright deal? A portable SSD atop a desktop PC.Credit: Monica J. White / How-To Geek So in this pricing hellscape, why are prebuilts suddenly the better option? What prompted me to buy a prebuilt PC for my mom instead of building one from scratch, when historically, building has always been the better deal that offered better value for the money? It's simple: Prebuilts haven't been hit by the full brunt of the RAM-pocalypse just yet. System builders buy parts in huge batches, often well ahead of time, so the prebuilts that are sitting on the shelves right now have been put together before the prices went wild. It also helps that OEMs buy in bulk, so I'm sure they're able to get a better deal than us, PC gamers. (Although that may no longer be true, what with RAM makers prioritizing AI.) Current prebuilt prices make a little too much sense HP's Omen Max 45L is a good example of this. You can get one for $6,000, which is as far from cheap as it gets, but on the other hand, it costs the same as one RTX 5090 GPU—or the equivalent of one plus, give or take, $500-$1,000. But you're also getting 64GB of DDR5 RAM, a 1TB SSD (which isn't much for a PC of this caliber), and the Ryzen 9 9900X3D. All in all, it's a good deal, expensive as it may be. Skytech's Azure 3 is a cheaper example of a mid-to-high-end PC that's just more worth it when bought as a prebuilt. You're getting the RTX 5080, which costs $1,500-$2,000 by itself, plus 32GB of DDR5 RAM, a 2TB NVMe SSD, an AIO cooler, the Ryzen 7 9800X3D, and more. Put together, you might be able to score the actual parts for about the same price, but here you cut out the hassle of searching for them and then building the actual PC. The only way DIY PCs are 100% worth it is if there's a value proposition there. With prebuilts priced as they are, and components too, it's hard to make that argument now. This window won't stay open for long It's already closing Credit: Ismar Hrnjicevic / How-To Geek Look, is now a good time to buy a prebuilt? Debatable, but it's a better option than building a DIY PC. But even this "debatable" state will soon turn to just plain "bad," because when system builders run out of their existing stock, they'll have to buy more at today's prices ... then pass the cost on to us, of course. Nvidia already raised the price of its GPU kits for board partners in July, and most notable system makers have spoken about upcoming price hikes. Some are even already here. Don't expect a new generation of GPUs to swoop in and save the day, either. Nvidia's RTX 50 Super is unlikely to happen, and the RTX 60 series may not come out until 2028 given the current memory shortages. What we see now is what we get, and things aren't about to improve, so even prebuilts will be even more overpriced soon. Building still wins if you're not starting from scratch Your spare parts will come in handy Credit: Justin Duino / How-To Geek Repurposing stuff you already own is the right strategy in 2026. If you already have a DIY PC, swapping to a prebuilt only makes sense if your existing PC is on its deathbed and none of its components can move with you to the new system. That's unlikely to be the case, so yes, you might be able to save some money. Even DDR4 RAM is having a bit of a comeback in this current economic climate, so if you're not looking for top-of-the-line hardware, you can use your current DDR4 RAM and build a new PC on a platform that still supports it. It'll help you save a few hundred dollars to be spent on the GPU. A cheap prebuilt can still be a terrible deal I'm far from a true convert Credit: Ismar Hrnjicevic / How-To Geek You know what's worse than spending $5,000 on a GPU? Spending any amount of money on a bad prebuilt. Prebuilt PCs can hide some unpleasant surprises within their depths, from poor cooling to used components. If you do buy a prebuilt, stick to known system builders, and insist on getting the full spec sheet. Better option? Save your money Do I think you should be buying a prebuilt right now? Well, in an ideal world, I'd just avoid buying anything. But if you need a PC, you might get something better if you buy a prebuilt rather than building a PC from scratch. It's especially impossible to build a budget PC right now, because the cost of RAM alone takes up half the budget.