As many of us know, the recent and ongoing pandemic has affected the cost and supply chains for many products.
This unfortunately did not skip over the computer space. Many new products have been deemed “paper launches” due to the lack of actual product being put on the shelves. This has been going on for over two years now and has seemed to shift the cost of consumer products towards the upper end of the price charts.
Examples of this can be seen with Graphics Cards(GPUs). The most recent offerings from AMD and Nvidia were some of the best we’ve ever seen on the market. A jump of almost 50% performance across the board from both Team Green and Team Red was unheard of. However getting those products was near impossible as scalpers and crypto miners bought up a large percentage of the supply.
The scalpers in particular turned around and began selling the cards at massive markups; some cards going for 500% over MSRP at times. This markup not only permeated the second-hand market, but also affected the retail spaces. With many retailers seeing that people are willing to pay the marked-up prices, they eventually followed suit and began selling for almost double MSRP on the products. This simply caused the scalpers to raise their prices for the higher-end cards.
GPUs aren’t the only products affected in this way. The recent release of Intel’s 12th Gen CPUs and Z690 brought support for DDR5 on the consumer side of the industry. Not only are the Z690 boards very expensive due to the implementation of the new standard; the memory for the board is being bought up and resold for massive markups. So if you’re wanting to take on the latest and greatest high-end computer build, be prepared to pay massive premiums for that “early-adopter tax”.
These are just two of the many issues that have plagued the custom build space for computers. Supply lines for cases, power supplies, SSDs, and other components have driven up costs. This simply means that consumer prices will be rising as well. What does this mean for the customers that want to build a new gaming system?
Don’t expect to budget out less than $3000, for a decent mid-range system if you’re not going to do the build yourself. Anything below this budget is extremely difficult to pull together on the newest hardware with the pricing of GPUs. If you don’t require a GPU at the time, then a budget of $1500 is perfectly fine, and get you a system that is usable for office work, home use, and some light games that aren’t graphically intensive.
If you’re in the market for a new custom built computer in Austin, consider Frankenstein Computers for your build needs. We’ve built hundreds of computers for satisfied clients. We focus both on function and form, and give special care to make sure they meet our high standards. Fill out our quick questionnaire under the Custom Builds section to get started.
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