Looking for a proper and trustworthy place to buy a PC from. Or I just build my own (Unlikely).

[whytthundr]

I want to start off by saying whoever reads this, hi, I am new to both PC building and the Linus community and hope y'all can help me with my dilemma.

Budget (including currency): $2500 - $3000 USD

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mainly just gaming. Stuff like Cyberpunk 2077, Gray Zone Warfare, Elden Ring (random games with fairly large PC usage I think)

Other details: From what I have researched and it was minimal research, I have 2 PC's the "HAVOC" from Meta PCs and NZXT's "Player Two Prime." Now whether or not these are good PC's I need help with, and if they are, I need help figuring out which is better. I currently have a prebuilt from BestBuy which has actually done very well for me for the past 2-3 years and I think I got lucky with some complaints I see online. I cant see myself upgrading it and would rather buy myself a new PC.

 

[Dedayog]

9 minutes ago, whytthundr said:

I want to start off by saying whoever reads this, hi, I am new to both PC building and the Linus community and hope y'all can help me with my dilemma.

Budget (including currency): $2500 - $3000 USD

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mainly just gaming. Stuff like Cyberpunk 2077, Gray Zone Warfare, Elden Ring (random games with fairly large PC usage I think)

Other details: From what I have researched and it was minimal research, I have 2 PC's the "HAVOC" from Meta PCs and NZXT's "Player Two Prime." Now whether or not these are good PC's I need help with, and if they are, I need help figuring out which is better. I currently have a prebuilt from BestBuy which has actually done very well for me for the past 2-3 years and I think I got lucky with some complaints I see online. I cant see myself upgrading it and would rather buy myself a new PC.

 

You can always have microcenter assemble a PC, if you have one near.

 

 

[Why_Me]

47 minutes ago, whytthundr said:

I want to start off by saying whoever reads this, hi, I am new to both PC building and the Linus community and hope y'all can help me with my dilemma.

Budget (including currency): $2500 - $3000 USD

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mainly just gaming. Stuff like Cyberpunk 2077, Gray Zone Warfare, Elden Ring (random games with fairly large PC usage I think)

Other details: From what I have researched and it was minimal research, I have 2 PC's the "HAVOC" from Meta PCs and NZXT's "Player Two Prime." Now whether or not these are good PC's I need help with, and if they are, I need help figuring out which is better. I currently have a prebuilt from BestBuy which has actually done very well for me for the past 2-3 years and I think I got lucky with some complaints I see online. I cant see myself upgrading it and would rather buy myself a new PC.

 

What resolution do you game at?

[Why_Me]

4 hours ago, whytthundr said:

I want to start off by saying whoever reads this, hi, I am new to both PC building and the Linus community and hope y'all can help me with my dilemma.

Budget (including currency): $2500 - $3000 USD

Country: USA

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Mainly just gaming. Stuff like Cyberpunk 2077, Gray Zone Warfare, Elden Ring (random games with fairly large PC usage I think)

Other details: From what I have researched and it was minimal research, I have 2 PC's the "HAVOC" from Meta PCs and NZXT's "Player Two Prime." Now whether or not these are good PC's I need help with, and if they are, I need help figuring out which is better. I currently have a prebuilt from BestBuy which has actually done very well for me for the past 2-3 years and I think I got lucky with some complaints I see online. I cant see myself upgrading it and would rather buy myself a new PC.

 

After looking at both of those prebuilts you listed, both are way overpriced hose jobs. The Havoc uses a no name psu, no mention of RAM latency and a crappy Kingston NV3 SSD.  The NZXT Player Two Prime starts out at $2300 with a 9700X, 750W psu and no name RAM not to mention the B650 board that doesn't support PCIe 5.0 for the gpu that they include with it that does support PCIe 5.0. Any build on the plus side of $1500 better include a board that supports PCIe 5.0 for the gpu. I'll give you the same advice I give anyone who's not comfortable with building their own PC: Order the components and after you receive them call around to local PC / laptop repair shops and have them build it for you for a small fee. This way you know exactly what you're getting inside your case without breaking the bank.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($359.50 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler  ($29.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: *Asus TUF GAMING B850-PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($219.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($91.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: *MSI SPATIUM M480 PRO 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($134.99 @ Newegg) 
Video Card: *MSI SHADOW 3X OC GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB Video Card  ($852.98 @ Amazon) 
Case: *Antec FLUX SE ATX Mid Tower Case  ($113.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: *Montech CENTURY II 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.90 @ Newegg) 
Monitor: *MSI G272QPF E2 27.0" 2560 x 1440 180 Hz Monitor  ($189.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $2083.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-06-24 02:20 EDT-0400

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/windows-11-free-or-cheap 

 

A better look at those components.

 

https://www.msi.com/Monitor/G272QPF-E2 

 

https://www.asus.com/us/motherboards-components/motherboards/tuf-gaming/tuf-gaming-b850-plus-wifi/ 

 

https://www.idcooling.com/product/detail?id=496&name=FROZN A620 PRO SE 

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/id-cooling-frozn-a620-pro-se-cpu-air-cooler/6.html 

 

https://www.teamgroupinc.com/en/product-detail/memory/T-CREATE/expert-u-dimm-ddr5-black/expert-u-dimm-ddr5-black-CTCED532G6000HC30DC01/ 

 

SSD w/DRAM cache.

https://www.msi.com/Storage/SPATIUM-M480-PRO-PCIe-4.0-NVMe-M.2

 

https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/GeForce-RTX-5070-Ti-16G-SHADOW-3X-OC

 

This psu is manufactured for Montech by Seasonic.

https://www.montechpc.com/century-ii-850w 

 

https://www.antec.com/product/case/flux-se

 

[whytthundr]

1 hour ago, Why_Me said:

What resolution do you game at?

 

28 minutes ago, Why_Me said:

After looking at both of those prebuilts you listed, both are way overpriced hose jobs. The Havoc uses a no name psu, no mention of RAM latency and a crappy Kingston NV3 SSD.  The NZXT Player Two Prime starts out at $2300 with a 9700X, 750W psu and no name RAM not to mention the B650 board that doesn't support PCIe 5.0 for the gpu that they include with it that does support PCIe 5.0. Any build on the plus side of $1500 better include a board that supports PCIe 5.0 for the gpu. I'll give you the same advice I give anyone who's not comfortable with building their own PC: Order the components and after you receive them call around to local PC / laptop repair shops and have them build it for you for a small fee. This way you know exactly what you're getting inside your case without breaking the bank.

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D 4.2 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($359.50 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: *ID-COOLING FROZN A620 PRO SE 58 CFM CPU Cooler  ($29.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: *Asus TUF GAMING B850-PLUS WIFI ATX AM5 Motherboard  ($219.99 @ Amazon) 
Memory: *TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  ($91.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: *MSI SPATIUM M480 PRO 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  ($134.99 @ Newegg) 
Video Card: *Gigabyte WINDFORCE SFF GeForce RTX 5070 Ti 16 GB Video Card  ($824.99 @ Newegg) 
Case: *Antec FLUX SE ATX Mid Tower Case  ($113.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: *Montech CENTURY II 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  ($89.90 @ Newegg) 
Monitor: *MSI G272QPF E2 27.0" 2560 x 1440 180 Hz Monitor  ($189.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $2055.33
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2025-06-23 23:09 EDT-0400

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/windows-11-free-or-cheap 

 

A better look at those components.

 

https://www.msi.com/Monitor/G272QPF-E2 

 

https://www.asus.com/us/motherboards-components/motherboards/tuf-gaming/tuf-gaming-b850-plus-wifi/ 

 

https://www.idcooling.com/product/detail?id=496&name=FROZN A620 PRO SE 

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/id-cooling-frozn-a620-pro-se-cpu-air-cooler/6.html 

 

https://www.teamgroupinc.com/en/product-detail/memory/T-CREATE/expert-u-dimm-ddr5-black/expert-u-dimm-ddr5-black-CTCED532G6000HC30DC01/ 

 

SSD w/DRAM cache.

https://www.msi.com/Storage/SPATIUM-M480-PRO-PCIe-4.0-NVMe-M.2

 

https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Card/GV-N507TWF3OC-16GD 

 

This psu is manufactured for Montech by Seasonic.

https://www.montechpc.com/century-ii-850w 

 

https://www.antec.com/product/case/flux-se

 

Hey, I really appreciate the time you took to respond to my question/dilemma. I truly appreciate it. Even though this is a late response, I game at a normal 1080P 144Hz. From the response you gave me, at this point I think your way of doing things is WAY better than buying some slop as you mentioned above. Now, I live in an area where there isn't many computer places (except for Best Buy and idk if they build it for you, I will research that and look if there are) unless I drive over an hour away which is possible for me to do but on one hand I'm busy with other matters. So, I am going to keep researching and figure out what to do, and if worse comes to worst then I will just build it myself. (I'm only genuinely scared of breaking parts) But, again thank you for the amazing and detailed response.

[Why_Me]

1 hour ago, whytthundr said:

 

Hey, I really appreciate the time you took to respond to my question/dilemma. I truly appreciate it. Even though this is a late response, I game at a normal 1080P 144Hz. From the response you gave me, at this point I think your way of doing things is WAY better than buying some slop as you mentioned above. Now, I live in an area where there isn't many computer places (except for Best Buy and idk if they build it for you, I will research that and look if there are) unless I drive over an hour away which is possible for me to do but on one hand I'm busy with other matters. So, I am going to keep researching and figure out what to do, and if worse comes to worst then I will just build it myself. (I'm only genuinely scared of breaking parts) But, again thank you for the amazing and detailed response.

Most PC / laptop repair shops will come out to your place RE field service.