https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Sohcahtoa82/saved/n76zkL
I think I paid a total of around $5,500 for the current components of my PC. Hard to say for sure since my PC has been a Ship of Theseus for over 30 years and started as a 486. The link merely reflects its current state.
At one point, PCPartPicker was showing my PC as worth $11,000. It's now at $7,200 without including the RAM or PSU. That would put it at $9,000.
> It's a clear sign that we're back to the bad old days of pc gaming being a 'prosumer' hobby
Yup.
I think it's especially bad since the gap between budget-grade and mid-grade feels like it's gotten wide. If you wanna play the latest AAA games and not feel like you need to upgrade in 3 years, you can't settle for the budget grade unless you're still gaming at 1080p.
I wouldn't recommend spending under $3,000 for a gaming PC these days, and that's just an absurd price.
There's nothing wrong with 1080p gaming though.
You can get a $200 to $300 microcenter cpu+motherboard+16GB DDR5 bundle [1], then $300-$400 GPU, and you'll be able to play nearly every game on the market just fine at 1080p.
I'm sure there are pre-builts using stockpiled RAM that are similar $1000 price range.
And if you buy used you can do even better. $300-400 might get you a 5060 or a 9060XT right now [2][3] but if you go used you can get something like a 3080 instead.
I play games at 1080p with a 1660 Ti and, outside of some newer UE5 games that heavily rely on frame gen for performance (Monster Hunter Wilds performance was too poor to play), everything I've thrown at it has been playable and some games even 100+ FPS.
[1] https://www.microcenter.com/site/content/bundle-and-save.asp...
[2] https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=594,593&sort...
[3] https://pcpartpicker.com/products/video-card/#c=596&sort=pri...
There's not necessarily anything wrong with gaming at 1080p, but I shudder to recommend anyone use a 1080p display for productivity. I feel like 27" 1440p is a good minimum experience. I also think that you're doing yourself a disservice going with an 8GB gpu in 2026, even for 1080p
>There's nothing wrong with 1080p gaming though
Yeah. 4K is nice for text, but doesn't seem like a great deal for gaming given the 4x hardware requirement and/or weirdo interpolation technologies that may or may not work on AMD + Linux anyway.
you've 'upgraded' the same pc since a 486? i really can't believe that unless you're counting your mouse and keyboard.
I'm just trying to imagine what I would tell a younger cousin who was still in highschool. I'm not sure I could recommend they get into pc gaming the way things are now, and that makes me sad.
I would say there's a ton of great games made >= 5 years ago, almost all still available, and cheap :)