Also, you can choose much better quality components for cheaper. Even with economies of scale, it seems like OEMs can't build a high end gaming PC for cheaper than what you can do yourself.

There are a few exceptions. If you get a mid-range pre-built, especially with sale prices, you can actually save some money and round it out with your own parts to make a nicer, more complete unit. It requires some real comparison shopping for sure, and it's probably isn't worth doing unless you're staring at a hell of a deal but that does happen.

The weird thing is how pre-builts seem to tier the products at. You can get Pre-builts with good CPU/GPU combos but absurdly low RAM/Storage quantities.

They like to tier at 16GB RAM/500GB SSDs and then go up from there for hundreds of dollars without a change of the CPU/GPU and that really confuses me.

It's a shame there is little to no physical retail for this stuff anymore as it used to be easier to find a fire sale on a pre-built that needs to move because of how brick and mortar works.

That said, it truly is easy to do it yourself and that has its own satisfaction.

Self-build is only meaningfully cheaper if you don't pay for a Windows license. If you place any real value on your time, just buy a system from Puget - their support is first class and they understand the real needs of power users.

https://www.pugetsystems.com