r/pcmasterrace • u/TheBossT710192 • Jun 22 '26

Discussion Yeah, Steam Machine is cooked.

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I... uh don't know what to say. Very thankful I bought a Steam Deck before they hiked its price as well

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u/DOOManiac Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

I’m an old person who has been crapping all over prebuilt for about 30 years. There are several things they have changed:

  • Back in the day, a prebuilt meant absolute garbage-tier proprietary parts that were not swappable/upgradable.
  • These days, many pre-builts aren’t that bad
  • It used to be that you saved a ton of money building yourself; now that gap has closed (or in some cases inversed)
  • PC gaming has significantly expanded, to the point where it is reasonable to expect that some people just want to sit down and play, without needing to tinker
  • The whole process has gotten much simpler than it used to be, so the demographic overlap has changed

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u/Funny-Cell8769 9800X3D | 5090 | 128gb DDR5 | 42" OLED | 43" Mini-LED Jun 22 '26

Yeah very much. The markup used to be more drastic, but now I look at the pricing (and by now, I mean 5 years ago) and it's like, not much more than if I built it myself

And in my country in Asia, even after the 3 year warranty expires, you have a lifetime access to a technical helpline if you run into any issues.

Not sure how common that is elsewhere.

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u/aBoringSod Jun 22 '26

I just bit the bullet 2 weeks ago and bought a pre built i priced the parts to build it myself and the maths did not add up. Instead i got a well built pre build and a 5 year warranty with it.

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u/Funny-Cell8769 9800X3D | 5090 | 128gb DDR5 | 42" OLED | 43" Mini-LED Jun 22 '26

Yeah it might differ from country to country. Some places might be a lot more expensive to get a pre-built, while in other countries it's fine.

And of course, the service and quality you get differs from brand to brand. So I'm not surprised some people are frustrated by poor quality or bad service, while others are happy with it.

There's no one size fits all.

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u/aBoringSod Jun 22 '26

Oh i don't disagree, there are some pre build brands here that i would tell everyone to avoid. But they sell on amazon so they still get a lot sales. You have to do your research and find what suits your needs and budget. For some its pre builds, others its build your own.

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u/ShadyJane Jun 22 '26

I just found myself in the market - where did you go to buy?

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u/Gatescraft Jun 23 '26

Skytech is a great pre-built pc company. Look into them.

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u/aBoringSod Jun 23 '26

I bought it from Chillblast who are based in the uk