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Thanks to people like Sam Altman, who told Stripe Cofounder John Collison, “it’s quite terrible to have everybody, like, have a bunch of the world’s limited supply of DRAM,” people say the days of building desktops are over. While we’re not denying the ongoing RAM and SSD shortage, there are still some good deals waiting to be found. Sam’s Club, in particular, has a great one. It’s selling a CyberPowerPC Supreme Gaming Desktop with an Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor, an RTX 5080 16GB GPU, 32GB of DDR5 RAM (single stick), and a 2TB PCIe 4.0 SSD for $3,099.
$3,099 is a LOT of money, possibly even a mortgage payment, but those specs are not normal. It’s a high-end system, and CyberPowerPC estimates that a similarly equipped PC can run AAA games like Cyberpunk 2077, Starfield, and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt in 4K at over 60 FPS. Lower the resolution to 1440p, and you’ll get over 100 FPS in all these titles at the highest settings. The best part is, the RTX 5080 supports DLSS 5, which promises to increase visual fidelity.
Is it cheaper to build a PC or buy this one?
To be frank, building a PC right now isn’t a good idea. Storage like the Samsung 990 Pro SSD, which originally launched at $179, is now around $258. The average price of a 32GB DDR5-5600 kit (2 x 16GB) is approaching $600. Simply put, you’ll need to spend much more to build a PC of the same caliber as the CyberPowerPC desktop. To show this, we used PC Part Picker to configure a gaming PC with the same Intel Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor, a Gigabyte RTX 5080 16GB graphics card, 32GB DDR5 RAM, and a 2TB SSD. The total came to $4,243, roughly $1,000 more. And that’s not even counting peripherals like a keyboard and mouse, both of which come standard with the prebuilt, or its liquid cooling system.
There is one more problem: getting an RTX 5080. Before the RAMageddon began, the RTX 5080 launched with an MSRP of $999, which is expensive, but it was a high-end GPU with plenty of performance to spare. Last week, Nvidia quietly pulled both the 5080 and 5090 from its US stores, potentially to divert the RTX 5090’s GB202 silicon to its more profitable RTX Pro Blackwell series. While the company has since added the GPUs back, they are still out of stock. So, you can either get an RTX 5080 alternative or buy from Amazon at a premium. Even the cheapest RTX 5080 card from Zotac costs $2,174. That’s more than twice the original MSRP.
