Building a Computer is Cheaper Than Ever

[DarkSwordsman]

Yes, it is.
 

Almost 5 years ago now, I built my first pc. It had the following specs.

CPU: i5-3570k
RAM: 8 GB DDR3 Corsair Vengeance 1866 Mhz
PSU: Corsiar TX850M
GPU: ASUS GTX 770
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i
MoBo: ASUS P8Z77-V PRO

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM
OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit

It costed me $1450.

I built an equivalent-performance system here, which may be a little faster in some areas, and a little slower in some: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/EnsignLedo/saved/4XD8YJ
 

CPU: i3-8350k
RAM: 8 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 Mhz
PSU: EVGA Super Nova 750 G3
GPU: MSI GTX 1050 Ti
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i v2
MoBo: ASUS Prime Z370-P

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit|

This system? Costs: $960

That's about $500 less than what I paid for my old system and is still a very capable machine that can play many games well.

Now what can we get for $1450? This: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/EnsignLedo/saved/cZNNQ7
 

CPU: i7-8700k
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 Mhz
PSU: EVGA Super Nova 750 G3
GPU: MSI GTX 1060
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i v2
MoBo: ASUS Prime Z370-P
SSD: Samsung 960 EVO - 500 GB (yes, the one that gets 3.4 GB/s read)

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

That is $1455. $5 more than my first system.

Lets put that into perspective.

5 years ago, I could get a machine that could play many games well at likely medium to maybe high settings and achieve 60 fps on most of them at 1080p, however, could barely stream for anything, and could barely pull off a 720p @ 30fps @2500 Kbps stream.

Today? That gets you a machine that can probably play any game near 144 fps on high-ultra settings at 1080p, as well as pull off a 1080p @ 60 fps @ 6000 Kbps stream. 

What about 1440p? Well, you can probably easily play the games at 60 fps no problem and still handle that stream like a champ.

Lets now build a system that would be equal to our 2018 $1455 system back in 2013. The prices on PC Part Picker may not line up perfectly with what they were, but we will do an educated guess.

Here it is: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/EnsignLedo/saved/rHPsZL
 

CPU: i7-3930k - ~$500
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 Mhz ~$210
PSU: Corsair TX850M ~$110
GPU: EVGA GTX 780 ~$650
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i ~$120
MoBo: ASYS X79 deluxe ~$350
SSD: Intel 910 Ramsdale 400GB PCI-e SSD ~$2250

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM ~$90
OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit ~$120

Adding up those prices? About: $4,400

Ridiculous, right? Well, hardware has come a long way.

I was gonna do a $4,400 build in 2018 next, but I'll save the best for last.

Now after a while, I got 16 GB of ram, a GTX 970, i7-2600k, new EVGA power supply, upgraded to Windows 10 Pro for free, and an 840 EVO SSD. Let's add the value of these items up at new as if it were 2013, not the total cost since I bought the PC:

 

CPU: i7-2600k ~$320
RAM: 16 GB DDR3 Corsair Vengeance 1866 Mhz ~$210
PSU: Corsiar TX850M ~$110
GPU: ASUS GTX 970 3.5 GB ~$370
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i ~$110
MoBo: ASUS P8Z77-V PRO ~$220
SSD: 500 GB 840 EVO ~$300

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM ~$90
OS: Windows 7 Pro 64-bit ~$130

Total value? *drumroll*: $1,860

Not too bad I guess. Now lets build a 2018 machine with that money.

Here ya go: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/EnsignLedo/saved/wzJV6h
 

CPU: i7-8700k
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 Mhz
PSU: EVGA Super Nova 850 G3
GPU: MSI GTX 1080
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i v2
MoBo: ASUS Prime Z370-A
SSD: Samsung 960 EVO - 1 TB (yes, the one that gets 3.4 GB/s read)

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

This comes out to about $1870. This think is a baller AF machine that'll certainly kick ass and take names, even at 4k I presume.

I would have maybe gone with the 1060 and 32 GB of ram instead for a more video-editor oriented build. 

Now, the moment you all have been waiting for... What the hell can you do with $4,400?!?!?! Well...

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/EnsignLedo/saved/kfXHhM
 

CPU: i9-7980XE 18 Core
RAM: 32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400 Mhz
PSU: EVGA Super Nova 1000W G1
GPU: EVGA GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB SC2
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X72
MoBo: ASUS TUF X299 Matrix 2
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO - 2 TB

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Okay, yes, I went over $4,400 and hit $4,480, but that was because I wanted 2 TB of SSD storage and not just 1 TB. 

For $4,480, you can get a beast that will probably need replacement parts over time before it even starts to slow down. Why a 7980XE? Well, why not? You can easily encode a 1080p @ 60 FPS @ 6000 Kbps with no issues, and probably get into 1440p @ 60 FPS in the future with no issues at all. Next, your 1080 Ti would be unrivaled and would probably be the first item to be replaced by a next-gen or 2 generations new GPU. 32 GB of Ram for all the applications and editing you'd do. 

Want something that'll still probably be less than 60% CPU utilization all the time but can be more versatile?

Behold: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/EnsignLedo/saved/38pbXL
 

CPU: i9-7900X 10 Core
RAM: 64 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX 2666 Mhz
PSU: EVGA Super Nova 1000W G1
GPU: EVGA GTX 1080 Ti 11 GB SC2
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X72
MoBo: ASUS TUF X299 Matrix 2
SSD: Samsung 970 EVO - 2 TB

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200 RPM
OS: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Cost: $3820

This beast has a few less core, but still more than you'll probably ever need for the next 5 years or more. Complete with twice the ram for as many fun adventures as you'll need for video editing. Not to mention, you can use that $600 you saved on something else fun.

Conclusion:

Computer are cheaper than ever. I had to work my butt off at Mickey D's to get this "beast" of a PC I have now. If I can get something that performs significantly worse than your $1450 machine in 2018, you have no reason to cheap out on a system. 

Don't worry about the pricing being overpriced, becuase it's not. Software has become more efficient and hasn't really caught up to what hardware can really do, so enjoy it. 

 

 

 

 

[PlayStation 2]

Well, rather than comparing performance-to-performance, it'd be better and more accurate to compare actual card tiers as the generation goes by (say, Nvidia's xx70 and AMD's xx50 and x90/80 cards) rather than performance equivalents.

[Fasauceome]

1 minute ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Well, rather than comparing performance-to-performance, it'd be better and more accurate to compare actual card tiers as the generation goes by (say, Nvidia's xx70 and AMD's xx50 and x90/80 cards) rather than performance equivalents.

Agreed. Core i5 k-sku and xx70 GPU are more accurate for the first comparison, but the second comparison is where your point really shines, and no adjustment for inflation as well, increasing margin for error.

[DarkSwordsman]

28 minutes ago, Dan Castellaneta said:

Well, rather than comparing performance-to-performance, it'd be better and more accurate to compare actual card tiers as the generation goes by (say, Nvidia's xx70 and AMD's xx50 and x90/80 cards) rather than performance equivalents.

I see what you mean, but the point of this was really to show what you can get for the same price/performance. This is following a general trend of what you would upgrade. 

Sure you can get a 1080 ti, but it won't do much if you only have a 8350k. Same thing with the 8700k. It'll do great, but not much if it's paired with a 1050. 

 

26 minutes ago, fasauceome said:

Agreed. Core i5 k-sku and xx70 GPU are more accurate for the first comparison, but the second comparison is where your point really shines, and no adjustment for inflation as well, increasing margin for error.

Inflation doesn't matter in this case. It's strictly to show what $xxx would have gotten you in 2013 vs today. If I have $1450 in 2013 and keep that same cash until 2018, it's still worth $1450. 

Adjusting for inflation is just estimating what values would be or would have been. If I was really adjusting for inflation, the right thing to do would be to calculate what a GTX 1080 ti would be worth in 2013. Probably into the $3000-$4000 zone because that technology didn't exist yet. And even if it did, it was so far ahead of what was out at the time.

[dizmo]

Shhhh. People here love to bitch about prices. You'll insult them.

[jiyeon]

I don't disagree with this theory whatsoever, but you need to factor in economical factors such as inflation, early technology pricing, and competition at that era.

 

It's basic marketing law that products will decline as price, following the product life cycle, so you cannot say "I bought this in 2010, let's see what we can buy in 2018" because the value of that money will have changed within a certain period, and therefor render any sort of direct comparison useless.

 

Let's take the Pound Sterling of ol' United Kingdom, its value is nowhere near where it was in 2010, and therefor we can't compare it to today. The trends do not match. It does not matter how much of that money you keep, because the product life cycle ensures that products released over a decade ago will degrade in value by today's economy.

 

You must also factor in how competition affected pricing, I can guarantee back then that either Intel or Nvidia had a comfortable monopoly and therefor could raise prices, such isn't the case in 2018 where new competitiors emerge and are taking market share, once again breaking the economy.

[Daniel644]

your logic makes no sense, of course a modern mid level system with the performance of a 5 year old high end system is cheaper to build, that doesn't mean it's the cheapest time to build a PC ever, just look at basic component costs, PSU's are up 10-20% from a PSU shortage in the high end parts, RAM is still DOUBLE what it was 2 years ago and GPU pricing is barely getting back to normal. 2 years ago was literally 100's cheaper to build a hich end consumer system, even when factoring for increased costs of newer CPU's compared to 2 generations ago (like slot an 8700k price in place of a 6700k) it would still be cheaper due to the much higher RAM, GPU and PSU pricing.

[DarkSwordsman]

1 minute ago, seoz said:

I don't disagree with this theory whatsoever, but you need to factor in economical factors such as inflation, early technology pricing, and competition at that era.

 

It's basic marketing law that products will decline as price, following the product life cycle, so you cannot say "I bought this in 2010, let's see what we can buy in 2018" because the value of that money will have changed within a certain period, and therefor render any sort of direct comparison useless.

 

Let's take the Pound Sterling of ol' United Kingdom, its value is nowhere near where it was in 2010, and therefor we can't compare it to today. The trends do not match. It does not matter how much of that money you keep, because the product life cycle ensures that products released over a decade ago will degrade in value by today's economy.

 

You must also factor in how competition affected pricing, I can guarantee back then that either Intel or Nvidia had a comfortable monopoly and therefor could raise prices, such isn't the case in 2018 where new competitiors emerge and are taking market share, once again breaking the economy.

This also doesn't really need to be done. The prices then and now are reflected through those factors already, therefore are already calculated. I am going off of the facts that these parts perform this amount and cost this much. I'm not going off of hypotheticals to reach a "common ground" of what the price *would* be if all the factors were the same. That's not realistic at all.

This post is strictly about what a certain amount of money can get you at a certain period of time. It's also about what a similar level of performance would cost at a certain period of time. 

[aezakmi]

yeah I wish in my countr ya 1060 is over 400 dollars

this 8600k build costed me an arm and a leg, I really don't want to do the math but I'm sure I spend over 1500 on it.

[DarkSwordsman]

9 minutes ago, Daniel644 said:

your logic makes no sense, of course a modern mid level system with the performance of a 5 year old high end system is cheaper to build, that doesn't mean it's the cheapest time to build a PC ever, just look at basic component costs, PSU's are up 10-20% from a PSU shortage in the high end parts, RAM is still DOUBLE what it was 2 years ago and GPU pricing is barely getting back to normal. 2 years ago was literally 100's cheaper to build a hich end consumer system, even when factoring for increased costs of newer CPU's compared to 2 generations ago (like slot an 8700k price in place of a 6700k) it would still be cheaper due to the much higher RAM, GPU and PSU pricing.

My point is that, basically with how technology used to be, the newer items would always be so overpriced that people would have to cheap out and get stuff that doesn't exactly perform as well as the higher end stuff. Now, you can get items that used to cost about twice as much for about half as much of what the mid-level system has done.

So instead of the "higher performance" items being items that can play games well and are overpriced, those "higher performance" items are now items that are fairly inexpensive and can perform drastically better than the previous generations could have, according to their respective models.

For example, like back in 2010-2015, every time a new game would come out, it would generally require a much more expensive graphics card and processor in order for it to run well.

Now what it happens is that people can still buy graphics cards that are, essentially low-level (1050-1050ti) and still run a game over 60 FPS @ 1080p on higher settings. Something like that never used to happen. And even someone that may still have a GTX 770 can play these newer games at 60 FPS @ 1080p no problem on medium-high settings. 

[jiyeon]

2 minutes ago, DarkSwordsman said:

This post is strictly about what a certain amount of money can get you at a certain period of time. It's also about what a similar level of performance would cost at a certain period of time. 

That's a very closed-minded way of pricing. Of course back then £500 wouldn't net you a lot of performance compared to today's standards, because the technology back then wasn't matured enough as well as economical levels. 

 

4 minutes ago, DarkSwordsman said:

I am going off of the facts that these parts perform this amount and cost this much. I'm not going off of hypotheticals to reach a "common ground" of what the price *would* be if all the factors were the same. That's not realistic at all.

I would argue it's more realistic if you were to take in present-day pricing of a 2010-era system and then compare that to a 2018 system.

[DarkSwordsman]

6 minutes ago, seoz said:

That's a very closed-minded way of pricing. Of course back then £500 wouldn't net you a lot of performance compared to today's standards, because the technology back then wasn't matured enough as well as economical levels. 

 

I would argue it's more realistic if you were to take in present-day pricing of a 2010-era system and then compare that to a 2018 system.

A current 2010 - era system would likely cost nearly nothing. Even something with a 3770k and a GTX 780 would only cost about $300-400 or so because it's old. 

There's no way that stripping these items down to nearly no factors by doing a ton of math and then comparing them is realistic at all. Taking a car and putting it in a high-tech testing chamber with all the factors controlled is not a realistic test. A realistic test is taking a car out on a test track in a real race and logging that data.

[Daniel644]

2 minutes ago, DarkSwordsman said:

My point is that, basically with how technology used to be, the newer items would always be so overpriced that people would have to cheap out and get stuff that doesn't exactly perform as well as the higher end stuff. Now, you can get items that used to cost about twice as much for about half as much of what the mid-level system has done.

So instead of the "higher performance" items being items that can play games well and are overpriced, those "higher performance" items are now items that are fairly inexpensive and can perform drastically better than the previous generations could have, according to their respective models.

so you are saying it's cheaper to build because computers have gotten faster in general, well the same could be said for most everything technological, an $800 4k TV today is way better then a 1k 1080p TV from 2010 as well.

 

if you compare units of the same point in the product stack, like a 6700k, 7700k and 8700k, the prices have only been going up generation after generation. sure you can match the performance of an older system with cheaper hardware now but thats been true for the entirety of the history of computers up to this point an FX6300 smoked a Q6600 from 5 years before it and was cheaper too.

[DarkSwordsman]

8 minutes ago, Daniel644 said:

so you are saying it's cheaper to build because computers have gotten faster in general, well the same could be said for most everything technological, an $800 4k TV today is way better then a 1k 1080p TV from 2010 as well.

 

if you compare units of the same point in the product stack, like a 6700k, 7700k and 8700k, the prices have only been going up generation after generation. sure you can match the performance of an older system with cheaper hardware now but thats been true for the entirety of the history of computers up to this point an FX6300 smoked a Q6600 from 5 years before it and was cheaper too.

Right, but take into consideration the fact that from 2600k-7700k, not much has changed at all. All these processors are about the same. Going off of what Dan said, if we went by tiers, the 7700k-8700k would be a ridiculously unfair comparison. Yes, it's $350 when the 7700k was about $320, but now it's a 6 core hyperthreaded processor. The 8600k, at $260, is better than the 7700k at $320, and even so with the 8400 at $190. 

Same thing with the 1060 vs 970. The 1060 is generally a much better card and costs about $350, while the 970 costed about $370. There wasn't much of a performance difference between the 970 and 780, where the 780 cost about $550 and the 970 was about $370. 

My point is that, now more than ever, hardware is advancing at such a high rate and decreasing in price so much that the difference between performance to price is ridiculously high. And, if we were to include how our markets are doing, wages have generally increased (in the US) and prices have generally decreased.

It's no longer the times of "spending only $900 on a system won't really get you much for what you want" to, "Hell, I can spend $800 on a system and it'll run my games at 1080p 60 fps really no problem".

[Sernefarian]

$1450 2013 -> ~$1568.47 2018

 

3570k MSRP 2013 @ $225.00 -> ~$243.39

GTX 770 MSRPs 2013 -$399.00 2013 -> ~$431.60 2018 |  $329.00 -> ~$355.88 2018

 

Conversion for GTX 1070 from 2018 to 2013: $379 2018 -> ~$350.38 2013

Conversion for an 8600k MSRP from 2018 to 2013: $258 -> ~$238.52

 

CPU price for inflation seems to be near linear in comparison to CPU performance spectrum,and for GPUs with this small sample we get the indication that you are getting a little more GPU* for your money now than you did then in comparison to other portions of the GPU Performance spectrum(greater once price drop for 10 series occurs.)

 

inflation from 2013 to 2018 used for this is 8.17%

 

* Disclaimer: The manufacturer intends for you to. Good luck getting most cards @ MSRP or below.

Edited July 28, 2018 by Sernefarian
blargh! wrong parenthetical sentence entirely. disclaimer

[JoostinOnline]

This is such a silly statement. 

[kirashi]

4 hours ago, DarkSwordsman said:

--SNIP--
Computer are cheaper than ever.

--SNIP--

If you live in America. Anywhere else and prices are marked up well above the exchange rate for no good reason.

[JoostinOnline]

9 minutes ago, kirashi said:

If you live in America. Anywhere else and prices are marked up well above the exchange rate for no good reason.

And his statement is only true if you pretend that standards and system requirements don't change.

[Daniel644]

1 hour ago, JoostinOnline said:

And his statement is only true if you pretend that standards and system requirements don't change.

exactly, his whole argument is that you can buy lower tier parts for cheaper and get the same performance as a 8 year old machine like that 8 year old machine is still valid in some way. the only way to accurately claim when it's the cheapest of all time to build is doing a performance per dollar scale to see what generation  gives the best bang for the buck. and with RAM, GPU and PSU pricing right now 2 years ago was way better on all those parts and give it another year, maybe 2 and RAM prices will drop back to normal and the current generation parts will get marked down to clear inventory for the next gen parts and you'll have even better pricing.

[DarkSwordsman]

1 hour ago, JoostinOnline said:

And his statement is only true if you pretend that standards and system requirements don't change.

That's the thing though. Requirements have not increased that much.

 

21 minutes ago, Daniel644 said:

his whole argument is that you can buy lower tier parts for cheaper and get the same performance as a 8 year old machine like that 8 year old machine is still valid in some way. 

3

The point of this is that you can buy newer hardware that will perform about the same, but because software has become much more efficient than it was, you can run a game with those specs and still get some pretty dang good graphics and frames for low-medium settings.
 

2 hours ago, Sernefarian said:

$1450 2013 -> ~$1568.47 2018

 

The funny thing is that your argument of inflation makes these results look even better.

You guys obviously can't just take the point of this thread. It's to show how far we have come with hardware, software, and the market of these products and to show that we should appreciate it. I'm not here to give a super technical analysis based on calculations that, really, don't even matter. Sure we can go and calculate the specifics of the market and inflations and values of products, whatever, but there's no need in this case. It just ruins the fun of the thread.

We know what a 8350k and a GTX 1060 can run games well with no real issue, and we know what it was like back then when the 3570k and 770 existed. We don't need to do all these calculations when we already understand the situations that we were in.

[DarkSwordsman]

2 hours ago, Sernefarian said:

Conversion for GTX 1070 from 2018 to 2013: $379 2018 -> ~$350.38 2013

Conversion for an 8600k MSRP from 2018 to 2013: $258 -> ~$238.52

 

 

I also want to point out how ridiculous this is. Doing just this doesn't prove your point without calculating all of the factors, which is too much to do for such a simple problem.

The MSRP for the GTX 780 Ti was $700 in it's time. The MSRP for the 1070 is $379. If you look at the Userbenchmark for the 1070 vs 780 Ti, the 1070 blows it out of the water. 

Even though the inflation price is technically "$350" or so as you say, it realistically should have cost well over $1000 in the standards of its performance for the time. 

Same thing with the 8600k. An equivalent processor would have been something like a 3930k, which was great at the time, but cost about $500 and performs similarly to the 8600k depending on if it's a mutli-core test or not. The 8600k back then should've been worth well over $500 for what it offered in performance.

Is it so wrong to go with our technology instincts and just know the literal performance comparisons and what the cost was then versus now?

[JoostinOnline]

27 minutes ago, DarkSwordsman said:

The point of this is that you can buy newer hardware that will perform about the same, but because software has become much more efficient than it was, you can run a game with those specs and still get some pretty dang good graphics and frames for low-medium settings.

You came to a tech forum to let everyone know that old technology is less expensive than when it was new. Well mind = blown, let's hope it gets mentioned on the next WAN Show.

[DarkSwordsman]

3 hours ago, JoostinOnline said:

You came to a tech forum to let everyone know that old technology is less expensive than when it was new. Well mind = blown, let's hope it gets mentioned on the next WAN Show.

new technology is less expensive* ftfy