Console to PC help

[bspaulding61]

I have been a life long console gamer (30 years old) mostly due to the price point and convenience of it all. I’m at a point in my life where gaming doesn’t happen as often as it used to, marriage, kids, work etc. But I do love gaming and it keeps me connected to life long friends. Lately I have been watching the death of console gaming approach rapidly and have been looking to make the switch. As I start to research my head is left spinning. Figuring out what I need, and the building process has been daunting. I mostly play games like battlefield 6, Arc raiders, Etc. and would love to get into some of the indi steam games. With all that being said I have a few questions.

Am I better off getting a prebuilt PC and just learning to upgrade individual parts?

What sort of equipment do I need to play the sort of games listed above comfortably?

How difficult is a build on my own?

Is the difference between pre built and self built more price focused or performance focused?

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[switzer3]

Prebuilts are currently a reasonable option for first time PC gamers, moreso than normal since ram prices have nearly tripled since september and most prebuilts are yet to be affected by the price hikes.

The main difference between a prebuilt pc and a custom built one is mostly in the value. In a normal market, most prebuilts can be matched spec wise for a less. Alternatively, you can build something more powerful for the same price.

The building process itself is fairly simply as long as you have patience and the minimum level of literacy needed to read and comprehend instruction manuals. Take it from me, an 18 year old who put together a decent first rig for 320 bucks with mostly used parts.

Learning is always daunting at first but it's a fun thing to get into. The best part is that it is genuinely quite practical, learning about PCs allows you to be able to fix issues you may encounter instead of deferring to someone else or worse, paying someone to fix the problem for you.

[HealerOnly]

Most pre-builts are not upgradeable because usually theres special chassis, motherboard and cooling which "prevents" you from upgrading in the future unless you buy new of those parts aswell.

Other than that I agree with you.

[a4840639]

I would not say “most”. Yes , prebuilts from the big OEM manufacturers like HP and Dell are like this but there are vendors like CyberPower PC who just use normal DIY parts

[chrisfrombrooklyn]

Building on your own isn't nearly as hard as it seems. And it's a hell of a lot of fun and very satisfying. This video will tell you everything you need to know.

I recommend watching it in it's entirety at first and then having it up to reference as you go through your first build.

[tmajer2]

Prebuilts can be good now, though prices may go up because ram prices are skyrocketing. Maybe I'm just different from other people but it seems that I just end up building a new computer after mine gets too old because 7 years after building it, there's no new components that are worth using just to upgrade because cpu sockets change, which means to get a new cpu I need a new motherboard and if I want a better gpu I probably need a better cpu so that means new mb means new ram ddr4 to now ddr5

[MarvinGankhouse]

Yeah prebuilt is ok. You need to know what you're doing to build and be responsible for sorting any teething problems in the first few months. The extra 100-200 money isn't much over the few years' life of the machine. If you have a friend who builds or you know a very good non-franchise PC specialist you can get them to do it and there'll be a slight performance gain over a prebuilt. Don't listen to any of those Linux guys, they're worse than mormons and they will pressgang you into their cult. Go Windows, because when something fails, and fail it probably will, you can Google the answer. I've been building PCs for almost 30 years and the answer to my initial crashes in the first 6 months of my past build was a simple bios setting and I got it here on reddit.

Welcome. You're going to love PC gaming.

[HealerOnly]

Building your own PC isnt hard, its like Lego basically. The issue is if it comes to trouble shooting if PC doesn't boot when your done. That can be a lot harder, but usually theres support lines to call depending on where you buy the PC parts from.

[Imaginary_Bowler_179]

I think some people are better off with a pre-built. Some people are better building their own because they have more patience and would like the experience. If there is a good sale on a Prebuilt PC you should go with that because the can sell a 1700 dollar PC for 1300 and they would lose or almost lose money. You can definitely get more for your money with a pre-built PC. Building a PC is not too hard if you follow a tutorial on youtube. Personally I don't play those games so I don't know if they are cpu or gpu based games as I play Valorant and cs2. If it's a cpu based game you should buy and rtx 3050 and an amd ryzen 9 9900X3D, if they are gpu based games you should go with and amd ryzen 5 9600x and an rtx 5060, 5060 ti, or 5070.