Boutique PC building has been getting expensive since crypto hoarders bought up GPUs and scalpers drove the prices through the roof pushing it further out of reach. We had a couple early hits with the HDD and memory shortages due to factory damage, those were relatively short lived, crypto otoh was long-term. Now we’ve got LLM datacenters hoarding all the hardware along with manufacturers perfectly happy to allow scarcity to drive up prices.

On top of all that we’re seeing less-subtle suggestions to kill the personal PC and force everyone into a subscription model for everything.

Personally I’d wait for any dip in the market and build another good quality PC. I figure there’s not too many years left before they get their wish.