Trying to find a good prebuilt pc

[rinforyou]

Hi I would really appreciate if you guys could help me find a good prebuilt PC that I can buy for my brother as a Christmas present. I am currently deployed overseas, otherwise I would have just built one for him. I would preferably have at least a 3070 within the system graphics card wise. I'm not a fan of AMD so if we can stick to NVIDIA and Intel that would be much preferred. CPU wise an I7 11 or 12 series would be great. Finally the PC must have at least 32 gigs of ram. My budget is between 2000$ and 3000$. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[cvaldes]

If I were in your shoes, I'd use a mom-and-pop shop (preferably local to where your brother lives) and have them build a custom PC based on your selection of desired components. This is one way to obtain hard-to-acquire components, particularly a GPU at MSRP (or with a slight markup). This is almost as good as building it yourself.

Independent PC shops like these live or die based on their customer service; if something goes wrong he can drive the computer for their diagnosis.

Going this way also reduces compromises in component selection which is inevitable from a prebuilt box.

Up to you.

 

[Selaya]

I second this. Ideally, find someone who'd be willing to put up a system to your specification (and charge a builders' fee for it), that way you can make sure you're not getting cheaped out. Unfortunately, that's the game of most if not all of the (larger) builders/SIs/OEMs.

 

[OolongGoat]

Where is your brother located??

 

[Bill_Bright]

My budget is between 2000$ and 3000$.

Wow! That's a very generous budget! Your brother is very lucky to have you. I hope he appreciates what he has, and your service (Thanks!).

What is he bringing to the table? That is, does he already have a monitor? Keyboard? Mouse? Speakers? Or does the budget include buying those too?

I agree totally with going with the local shop and custom build - "IF" it is not too late. In addition to the advantages mentioned above, going local helps support local small businesses - always a good thing. Plus, you could actually make contact with the shop, and the actual technician too. No way could you establish such a personal report with HP, Dell, etc.

Your biggest hurdle now is time. It is really running out - especially with availabilities of desired components being delayed due to supply channel backlogs and global computer chip shortages. In fact, I would expect, and you probably need to tell him to expect delays - into the New Year.

If this is to be a surprise, I recommend you get a parent or trusted friend to track down a local shop. If not a surprise, task your brother to find one. But tell both (and the shop) the budget is $2000, then be ready for cost overruns. Do not say $2000 to $3000 or else costs will quickly peg out at $3K, or even higher.

 

[RandallFlagg]

Below is probably the best deal going on a prebuilt right now. Look into the comments at BBuy, the main/only complaint is cooling which is not surprising with a 11700F on 105W air cooling.

One of the commenters shows how to mount a 240mm AIO. It doesn't sound like very many notice the cooling thing though, I think it is just the folks tinkering and unlocking the power limits. Probably best to leave it stock for a few months in case a warranty issue pops up anyway, and get an AIO and maybe power unlock it a bit next time you're state side.

Other thing is, I don't see wifi listed for it. A PCIe x1 wifi card is cheap, but if your brother or a local friend can't really install it then a USB wifi stick will work.

This leaves plenty in the budget to get a monitor, headset, maybe premium mouse / keyboard and so on. I personally would replace the HDD with a 2TB SATA SSD and put 32GB in it, but I'm sure this system is quite fast as is, excepting that HDD ofc.

3070 alone is running around $1300 new right now.

Tech specs are here.

Before anyone complains about OEM rigs, this has a 700W PSU and a B560 chipset with USB 3.2 G2 ports. It's not bad.

ROG Strix GT15 G15 | Gaming desktops｜ROG - Republic of Gamers｜ROG Global

Give yourself a competitive edge in eSports with the battle ready ROG Strix GT15. Designed inside and out for superior gameplay, this cooling-focused, compact Windows 10 Pro gaming desktop uses up to an NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 3080 graphics card and a powerful 12th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-12700KF CPU...

rog.asus.com

Outside of this, the best bet IMO is Alienware. Dell makes solid systems there. Lotta people will disagree with me, but it's true. They charge a lot for it though, the one I priced out with 12600K and 3070 with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD was around 2200. Maybe wait for a sale and get it below 2K.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-gaming-desktop-intel-core-i7-11700f-16gb-memory-nvidia-geforce-rtx-3070-1tb-hdd-512gb-ssd/6455823.p?skuId=6455823#tabbed-customerreviews

 

[trog100]

when buying pre-built you have to target average stuff.. avoid extremes.. 32 gigs of ram for example is not average it will severely limit choice and jack up the price..

pre-built stuff is built to a budget.. it has to be to sell.. anything out of the ordinary is best avoided..

trog

 

[Solid State Soul ( SSS )]

Check Newegg ABS series of pre built systems, they are one of the highly rated systems you can buy and are built with solid components.