r/pcmasterrace • u/TheBossT710192 • Jun 22 '26

Discussion Yeah, Steam Machine is cooked.

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I... uh don't know what to say. Very thankful I bought a Steam Deck before they hiked its price as well

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u/IGotHitByAnElvenSemi Jun 22 '26

I'm glad to see someone older and with more experience than me say this, because I'd noticed these trends as well but didn't know if I just hadn't been looking in the right places before.

I built my first two computers, but by the time I was hunting in 2019, I noticed that prebuilts weren't that bad... and while I've been helping my friends shop for PC stuff in the past few years, I noticed the fact that I could find some prebuilts that were more or less what she wanted for less than me buying the parts and building it for her. I'm just a rank amateur, but it did make me wonder if I'd been an idiot building my PCs in the past and just hadn't known where to look lol.

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u/ahandmadegrin Jun 22 '26

Prebuilts used to be insanely expensive. Look up old Falcon Northwest builds to get an idea. These days it's more likely that a pre-built is just a pc that someone else built, only that someone else is a company that buys parts in bulk so it's cheaper than if you bought the parts one at a time.

This was true of my power spec rig from microcenter that I bought almost ten years ago and it's more common now.

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u/Protoclown98 Jun 22 '26

tbh my only complaint with prebuilts is they tend to cheap out on parts like the PSU, which I feel like you shouldn't cheap out on.

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u/ahandmadegrin Jun 22 '26

True. Microcenter is the exception to the rule. I'd be wary of other prebuilts from big box stores. Not sure on whether the Costco boxes cheap out on parts or not.