Many hobbies are cheap if you choose wisely out of your possible interests; and then go with cheap, good enough options rather than getting swept up in online echo chambers (where nothing less than top tier is acceptable).
lmao, what? Ground floor for building a usable gaming PC is $1,000. A lot more if you want to play new games with decent graphics.
And those games cost money too.
Realistically you’re spending $5,000 on a nice PC, monitors, speakers, accessories, and a collection of games. You’re going to need upgrades and additional games over time so even more money.
That’s only if you are in the subset of PC enjoyers who like state of the art equipment, expensive accessories and expensive recent games.
I consider myself a PC nerd but 5K is more than I spent in the last 10 years on the hobby. I’ve built my main rig for <1K, own a few raspberries and my home server is an old work laptop. It absolutely doesn’t have to be an expensive hobby.
I don’t buy it either. My PC + an upgrade 3 years later (with a Ryzen 5800X and a used RTX 3090!) cost me about €2,000. If you want to push it, you add the TV (€1,000) because it serves as a monitor and the whole home cinema setup because the computer is hooked to it (probably about €1,000 as well).
That’s 4k and I’m stretching it. Buy a good monitor for €300, monitoring speakers or headphones for €250 and you’re already set for a high end experience.
As for games… C’mon, y’all know we sail the high seas.
Turns out PC’s are a cheap hobby.
Many hobbies are cheap if you choose wisely out of your possible interests; and then go with cheap, good enough options rather than getting swept up in online echo chambers (where nothing less than top tier is acceptable).
Yeah but they don’t pull the dopamine like the expensive ones do
lmao, what? Ground floor for building a usable gaming PC is $1,000. A lot more if you want to play new games with decent graphics.
And those games cost money too.
Realistically you’re spending $5,000 on a nice PC, monitors, speakers, accessories, and a collection of games. You’re going to need upgrades and additional games over time so even more money.
That’s only if you are in the subset of PC enjoyers who like state of the art equipment, expensive accessories and expensive recent games.
I consider myself a PC nerd but 5K is more than I spent in the last 10 years on the hobby. I’ve built my main rig for <1K, own a few raspberries and my home server is an old work laptop. It absolutely doesn’t have to be an expensive hobby.
5k? I don’t believe it. When in get home I’ll total up my setup and compare notes
I don’t buy it either. My PC + an upgrade 3 years later (with a Ryzen 5800X and a used RTX 3090!) cost me about €2,000. If you want to push it, you add the TV (€1,000) because it serves as a monitor and the whole home cinema setup because the computer is hooked to it (probably about €1,000 as well).
That’s 4k and I’m stretching it. Buy a good monitor for €300, monitoring speakers or headphones for €250 and you’re already set for a high end experience.
As for games… C’mon, y’all know we sail the high seas.
I can see how it would get to 5K including games over a long enough period of time but realistically most hobbies accrue cost over time.
Compared to other “adult hobbies” such as cars even the highest end PC costs peanuts.
A relatively cheap PC with Factorio and you are set. You won’t spend much on food either, so win-win.