@Tsukiyomi91 (also the below is not just for you but you have been reasonable so ill just tag you) add an aftermarket cooler and price goes up. Not everyone needs a 360 mm AIO but in this case 360 in front = 3 RGB fans making the system look "pretty" And again we go with the fallacy of building it yourself.
Building a system means larger selection of hardware and no labor costs in building the system. Sure some people have nice relatives such as us to do that for them.
But locally going rate for a custom built system is $100-200. So if someone went to a local shop your looking at prices similar to Xotic PC. Thus why many just order Dell / HP boxes then bitch or complain when performance is awful cause they paid $1000 for the cheaper system with a 6 core and 16gb of ram but a shit 1030 GPU. God forbid a consumer not know how to change a GPU themselves I see it often enough at the local businesses charging $150 to install a GPU as just labor etc on top of part cost lol. Then deal with the shady well you need to upgrade your PSU yadda yadda crap. Point remains 99% of the people in this thread would never buy this system or a prebuilt system period in regards to a desktop. Its always going to be more expensive.
Key point
Depending on the situation the argument for and against can be framed any number of ways be it a pure value standpoint ie cheapest parts needed to get 99% of the same performance or premium high quality top shelf parts which offer nothing more than epeen or anything inbetween.
I break it down this way to the trash talking,
is the system well built? yes
better built than most custom rigs I see around here? yes
Did it perform as expected? yes
Does it support overclocking etc unlike big box systems? yes
Is it quiet? yes
does it thermal throttle? no
Are misc worthless extras included? yes
Do those extras make the system "pretty" and does pretty sell? yes
I see a lot of laptops and desktops from custom built to big box store crap. Xotic PC system is well built and it does what its suppose to. That said people in this thread are complaining and would complain no matter what system was reviewed. If i review a desktop pre-built 100% against a possible DIY solution the review would be pointless as every system would be rated as garbage in comparison based on price and any number of numerous things. Instead people may want to pay attention to the fact that some pre-built systems perform as expected they are not limited in the closed off bios where CPU performance is hamstrung on purpose ala 8700k pre-built systems not to long ago.
At the end of the day XOTIC PC and other pre-built systems tend to look good perform well and yeah they cost more money. But just for comparisons sake
I have an 8700K + Custom water loop GTX 1080 Ti / MSI Z370 Gaming Pro Carbon AC / 32 GB DDR4 3466 / 2x 3 TB HDDs / 256 GB M.2 SSD / 512 GB Sata SSD / 1 TB Sata SSD / Core P5 tempered glass case / 1000W 80 Plus gold PSU etc etc
Total cost:
$340 + 600 + $770 + 180 + 500 + 200 + 150 + 150 + 250 + 150 + 175 = $3400 OS $100 LED strips + braided cables thats $70 brings total to $3570 add in my states sales tax and etc etc etc etc price keeps climbing north of $3750
Similar spec system from XOTIC PC removing the unneeded fluff and excessive addons but the same performance $3200 = 8700K / 32GB 2666Mhz / GTX 1080Ti /512 GB M.2 /1TB Sata SSD / 6TB HDD / 240 mm AIO / 850 w PSU Gold rated / black braided PSU cables / LED strips.
Now day to day performance wise drop the memory to 16GB 3200 MHz use a 250gb SSD for the OS keep 1TB for games and 6tb HDD. Day in day out you wouldnt notice the difference from a pure performance standpoint total cost $3000. Thats $750+ cheaper than my DIY system.
If i add in custom liquid cooling ie premium water cooling rather than an AIO up the memory to 32GB of 3200 Mhz etc system comes in at $3765. same amount of memory same cpu same gpu custom water etc etc etc at a similar price with a warranty.
the nice thing about DIY is sure its cheaper and you get what you want. However go ahead and add up the time you put into it research finding the right parts reading reviews etc etc. Now go ask a relative who knows nothing if they would put in that effort to save $XXX on top of then building it installing the OS etc.
Good deals and value vary for enthusiasts systems are very much a personal adventure a mix of what we want / enjoy and prefer. A pre-built like the one reviewed basically gives that kind of system to pretty much anyone that wants one at a minor premium.
@dirtyferret
As for the warranty for smaller parts such as GPU or Memory failure its likely Xotic PC would just send out a replacement with the dead part returned however before quoting me Ill just fire off and email and ask for clarification what the policy would be in these situations. Since many big box systems the warranty will ask for it to be returned but generally they just send a replacement part with the junk part shipped back.
(1899$ if i include the 1440p screen) and my CPU and GPU are more expensive than a R5 2600 and 1060 (will being a bit inferior, CPU wise) and that would amount for more than "only" 250$ premium
