Is PC Ever Affordable?

by Rian

When was it ever a good time to build a PC? And I’m not talking about simple web browsing and office work level of hardwares — the ones the hobbyists are building are never the most common spec. For hobbyists, there is a news we often see almost every year, like a halloween scare, ‘check your candy for razors’, that the price gouging is on going.

I’ve prepared this piece for quite some time. In fact, I thought to do some a long series: a. there is always a hidden cost behind building and maintaining a PC, b. the upgradability is not a guarantee, c. the optimization will always be a struggle, d. the community support will always differ per hardware, per software, per game, and etc., and e. there is always an alternative. It is a myth propagated based on misconceptions PC is always the most affordable and practical option.

Going back as far as 2008 recession, there was a scandalous price fixing between the graphics card giants. Then the 2011 flood in Thailand led to HDD shortage. In around 2013, the crypto mining started a spike. In around 2017 or 18, crypto wiped out most of consumer level graphics card, and no one could get one for suggested MSRP. Not to mention there was another DRAM price fixing scandal. Starting from 2020 is just history: more crypto, more AI, and more DRAM.

One could theoretically navigate difficult times with a healthy build of a PC: upgrade when the part is priced right and hold out as much when it isn’t. For the majority of the users, PC building is not a hobby. Building a PC is only secondary to the primary objective, for work, for entertainment, for gaming, for something else other than the experience of building the machine. In a lot of ways, it’s like fishing. If you have the flexibility to move around by boat, it will be easier to focus the main entree of your hobby. It’s high time to stop pretending fishing by the shore has the same level of flexibility because it is the same “fishing”.

I was talking to some of the indie game enthusiasts recently, and we all agreed PC is still a great platform. In fact, the irony of SteamOS and gaming scene on Linux front has to do with major indie developers who are willing to support the said platforms are already big enough to support other platforms too, such as smartphones and gaming consoles. On one hand, I realized PC is indomitable in certain genres. However, on the other hand, we are comparing PCs like reverse Victorian dog breeds — each specialized to the owner’s need, but not recognized.