Many years ago I used to take apart and put together personal computers. However, it was not for gaming purposes.
The last machine that I ‘plug-and-play’ put together was back in 2007. I imagine a lot has changed since then.
My sons want a Windows gaming PC for this upcoming Christmas season.
Would it be more cost effective to purchase all the components and build a tower or purchase a prebuilt machine?
Also, I’m not looking for a high-end machine. Something in the middle should work fine since they aren’t hardcore gamers.
Buying components is almost always more cost efficient. The only reason that might not hold true is if GPUs are still extremely expensive in your area, then prebuilts could be ok. You can get really good deals on used parts if you have a rough idea of what you are looking for/at. Especially if youre looking for older generation hardware, people upgrading let stuff go for quite cheap quite often if you’re on the lookout.
Other than that, as was mentionned, building a PC with your kids would be a really fun experience so thats also a bonus!