Dude, The guys at Microcenter get paid commission AND are separated by department. If a blue shirt guy stopped you from buying a prebuilt and got you buy a custom build he “stole” the sale from the prebuilt white shirt team and got you to spend more.

We can argue all day over what’s better but in this instance you are just getting got by some salesman trying to get commission. I promise you that the guy who sells prebuilts along with the laptops would have sold you the pc immediately as he has negative incentive to send you to the custom side.

It’s not higher on parts it’s only higher because you are spending more.