The original post: /r/buildapc by /u/lordraboon on 2025-02-21 08:22:02.

Hello, everyone. My aunt recently bought me a new PC as a gift, and I’m feeling a bit unsure about its value. We live in Quebec, Canada, and I’m a novice when it comes to PC building, although I know some basics. I’ve never actually built a entire PC by myself, and being cautious about spending a lot of money, I probably would’ve waited an eternity to build one on my own.

So my aunt dragged me to a local computer shop. After some discussions with the owner, she ended up buying the fellowing setup for $4160 (including taxes and labor). Here are the specs:

SPECS (COMPUTER SHOP): * GPU: MSI RTX 4060 TI 8GB Monster Hunter Edition (upgraded to an ASUS TUF 4070 Super 12GB) * CPU: Intel i7-12700KF (12 cores, 20 threads) * Cooler: MSI E360 Liquid Cooler Monster Hunter Edition * RAM: G. Skill DDR5 2x16GB * STORAGE: Kingston KC3000 2TB SSD * PSU: MSI PCIe 5, 750W, 80+ Gold Modular * CASE: MSI GUNGNIR 300 Monster Hunter Edition

We ended up upgrading the GPU to a 4070 12GB Super for an additional $679, bringing the total cost to $4160.

I had originally wanted to spend around $2500 for a new pc with maybe older gen parts or even refurbished, but from what I could understand the shop did not have neither of those in stock. I was expecting this particular built to be around $3000-3500 (including labor and taxes). After looking up prices online, I’m starting to feel like we might’ve overpaid a little. Here’s a breakdown of what I found, the receipt only showed the overhaul price of the entire built not for each part so I had to search for each of them.

BREAKDOWN: * MSI Monster Hunter bundle (case, cooler, motherboard) $940 * 4060ti 8GB GPU Monster Hunter Edition $690 or the 4070 Super 12GB: $1200 * CPU: $250 * PSU: $150 * RAM: $133 * SSD: $220 * CPU BENDING BRACKET: $23 * Labor: $500 (rough estimate) (it’s a simple build, no custom loop or anything really specific)

TOTAL: $3360 (with taxes) without labor, adding it ($500) brings the total to around $3854. Keep in mind that we saw this build running on the store shelf for about 5 months. So we did overpaid?

I also did some research on an alternative build and pricing.

ALTERNATIVE BUILD: * GPU: Sapphire AMD Radeon 7900XT 20GB ($1818) * CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D ($649) * PSU: MSI MAG A850GL PCIE5 850w 80+ GOLD (160$) * MB: ASUS TUF GAMING B850-PLUS WIFI (AMD 7000, 8000, 9000 series) ($340) * RAM: CRUCIAL 2x 16GB 6000 MHz ($120) * CPU COOLER: NZXT 360mm AIO Liquid Cooler ($229) or NOCTUA NH-D15 ($140) * COOLING: 120mm fans (got some already) * SSD: WD BLACK SN770 2TB NVMe M.2 ($174) * Case: NZXT H6 Flow ($120)

TOTAL (with taxes) is around $4152 with the 7900 XT and $3341 with the 4070 super

Was this $4160 (from the computer shop) build worth it with the current prices or am I overthinking it? This PC was a humongous investment for us, as we won’t be able to afford another one for at least 6-7 years or ever… It comes with a 1 year limited warranty from the computer shop. What’s a usual labor fee for a simple build?

I’d be using this pc for primarily to run heavily modded games at at least 1080p (HDR) on medium settings if needed, but at high if it can handle it (60 fps is gold) and recording at the same time. I do use apps like blender, gimp, adobe and do some video/ photo editing and handle large files. RTX is optional and not a issue if I didn’t have it. Needed at the very least 8gb of vram for the gpu if the price was low enough, but for $3000 and more desktop I really wanted a higher end gpu and more vram. If it matters, performance, good temps and upgradability in the long run was the most important for me, but looks not really.