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The internet isn’t the best place for finding PC components to upgrade your computer — brick-and-mortar stores still reign supreme thanks to bundled deals

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The internet isn’t the best place for finding PC components to upgrade your computer — brick-and-mortar stores still reign supreme thanks to bundled deals

The rising costs of components have led to a crisis in the consumer PC market. Prices on standard kits of DDR5 are through the roof, NVMe SSD prices are higher than ever, and worst of all, GPUs are also affected by the AI-driven onslaught. But when shopping around for reasonable prices, there might be a better solution than Newegg, Amazon, and Best Buy if you’re lucky enough to live near (or are willing to drive to) one of Micro Center’s 30 U.S. locations.

In the current climate, choice has been severely limited when it comes to upgrading or building a new PC. You can’t just pick the best components to build a high-powered gaming rig, as many components are out of stock or at eye-watering prices. The same goes for trying to construct a budget PC build, as there just aren’t any cheap components anymore, apart from certain parts like AM4 CPUs, which are tied to limited upgrade paths. Just take a look at the price and availability of Nvidia’s RTX 5090, for example; at the time of writing, the cheapest RTX 5090 gaming GPU available online is $6,549.99, and that’s from a third-party seller on Amazon, not directly from a large first-party retailer or manufacturer. There are even reports that the RTX 5090 has been effectively discontinued in favor of making AI GPUs, which means pricing will only get worse over the coming months.

If you’re anything like me, when I’m even remotely considering spending that kind of money, I’m not willing to risk buying from a suspicious retailer or a seller that can’t refund or replace the product should there be a fault, or if it gets damaged in transit.


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