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Nice one Sigourney. 
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Sander Rossel wrote: It's safer, easier and probably cheaper to just replace the whole thing every now and then.
Safer? I don't know of anyone getting hurt building a PC, unless they dropped it on their foot. Back in the 90's, the IBM model 70's were dangerous, as they had cast iron in the case to make them heavier.
Cheaper? That is a mixed bag. I rarely find a PC that contains everything I want, so an off-the-shelf purchase means either paying more than I want, or settling for at least one lesser component. When shopping for components, I look for what I want at the best price, and get something satisfactory on all points.
The actual assembly of parts is easy enough -- anyone who can read can do it. Figuring out what to buy? THAT is not easy! It used to be that assembly was hard while buying (choosing parts) was easy, but that has reversed.
A non-IT acquaintance asked me why all IT people don't build their own computers, and had trouble understanding that (like everything else) it's a specific skill set and not everyone has it, nor does everyone want it.
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BryanFazekas wrote: I don't know of anyone getting hurt building a PC, unless they dropped it on their foot.
Maybe you won't get hurt, but if you are careless, your PC might. I once opened my PC case to plug in another hard disk, after having turned the power switch off. When I bent over the opened PC case, my keyring slipped out of my pocket, down on the, mainboard. That's how I learned that the PS main switch does not turn off all the power to the mainboard. The power that is still maintained is enough to make significance damage, if shortcut to the proper places. My billfold definitely felt the electric shock.
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BryanFazekas wrote: Safer?
Not for me, for the PC, like trønderen said 
BryanFazekas wrote: Cheaper? That is a mixed bag.
Not if you factor in the time you've lost picking parts, assembling the thing, cursing...
Time is money, and assembling your own is definitely the more time consuming.
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The only one thing is fixed that is "Change" (परिवर्तन - परिवर्तन सृष्टि का नियम है)
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this is the way. Though I end up replacing all the components with the exception of case, monitor, disks and peripherals. And I'm not so sure about case either, in the last 6 years there have been many cases designed for better cooling and for AIOs, and mine isn't.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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My big problem with cases is the motherboard mounts vertically in most of them, leading to potential "GPU sag" when you have a big heavy card that runs hot.
I searched high and low for a nice form factor - low profile enough that it wasn't going to take up a ton of space, and where I could mount a mini-ATX mobo horizontally.
Thermaltake Level 20 VT[^]
It's awesome. All glass, so heavy as sin - open air chassis actually - the glass is air gapped over the frame. You put the fans almost against the glass, blowing toward the glass creating positive pressure out the gapped sides of the glass to prevent dust from getting in. The intake fan is on the FRONT and screened so you can actually see when it gets dusty - win!
The reviews say it's got cooling issues. NONSENSE. I run a RTX 2080ti, Ryzen 7 4750G, with a 1000watt PSU, two sticks of RAM, and two HDDs (plus my NVMe) all on air and I've never even close to redlined the thing.
I highly recommend this chassis, unless you need a full size ATX. This chassis will fit a full size video card - mine is - actually fit it better than my tower did because there's more vertical clearance above the card for the cabling.
You'll need to buy 1x140mm, and 4x120mm fans if you'll be running on air. 1x220mm is included, front mounted.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
modified 6-Jun-22 21:05pm.
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There are vertical mounts for beefy GPUs, though I usually pick lower level cards. I have poor eyesight so I play 1080p (in normal use I have to set 125% DPI with a 22" monitor) so I need less GPU to keep high quality.
My old case has 6 fans but in hindsight not the best airflow and the best fan mounts. It was quite cheap though so I won't complain too much.
GCS/GE d--(d) s-/+ a C+++ U+++ P-- L+@ E-- W+++ N+ o+ K- w+++ O? M-- V? PS+ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5? X R+++ tv-- b+(+++) DI+++ D++ G e++ h--- r+++ y+++* Weapons extension: ma- k++ F+2 X
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The current desktop started life as an Acer Aspire X1920, but even then the mouse (a Logitech Trackman Wheel) and keyboard came from it's predecessor. In the case of the KB, it started as a cheapy I bought back in the early 90's, and which lasted twenty years until Herself complained that all the keytop's were blank ... they were, but I knew where the letters were ...
The original 200W PSU? Junked.
Case? Gone.
HDD? Currently sitting in my "spare" NAS, which hasn't even been powered up for a couple of years.
Grahics? Replaced within weeks - onboard was pathetic, so a better GPU was added. And that's been replaced as well.
Motherboard, RAM, processor? Replaced a few times since then, going to i5 / 8Gb and now i7/16Gb.
Even the mouse has had new uSwitches a couple of times. 
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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A portable is more than powerful enough for most of my development work. In my office, it's connected to external monitors, keyboard, and mouse. On the road, it's powerful enough for my needs.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I spent 1/3 of the significant sticker price on the "user facing" bits - the screen and keyboard.
Most of the rest is in the machine itself. But I bought a super nice power supply and all glass case that should never need to be replaced.
The fans are all replaceable as well, so there's no sense in me not upgrading the thing, even if it means taking the motherboard and everything on it out.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Never say never. Power supplies fail, eventually. The case you love now will eventually lack feature(s) you want.
When I rebuilt my PC in January, I kept the 8 yo case and the 4 yo GPU. I needed to control budget and both are still fine.
The case? It has 4 USB2 and 1 USB3 ports on the front. The MB has connectors for 2 USB2 ports, so I have 2 dead ports. I added a USB3 hub years ago (velcrowed to the desk) so I'm ok on front ports, but would prefer to use to be able to use the separate connectors. It's fine for now, but at some point I'll start looking at cases again.
If it were not for the ports, I'd keep the case. The only feature it lacks is liquid cooling, and I'm looking for that along with the ports I want.
The GPU? I want to upgrade, but the prices in January were ridiculous, so I'm biding my time. Unless it fails and forces me to buy, it may be a year or 3 before I replace it.
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I realize that my intent won't survive contact with reality, but it's more of an aspiration than something I'll ever really achieve.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Your plan is a good one, as it helps ensure you get what you need now and for the foreseeable future, plus helps manage costs.
Other than the HD, I always plan for components to last a minimum of 5 years. Since I got 8 out of the last CPU/MB/RAM, I'm quite pleased.
I replace my primary HD every ~2 years. This forces me to reload Windows from scratch, which removes problems produced by continual updates, and ensures my HD is solid. Nothing worse than a failed HD, regardless of how good the backup schedule is. I use the old HD for online and offline backups, and have a Sabrent external unit that let's me hot swap HD (SATA HD and SSD).
That plan will break down with the new HD, which is an M2. It's system files only, so I'll probably run it longer than previous boot disks.
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Meantime between failure for solid state is something like 15-20 years, if I recall correctly.
For HDDs it's about 10, again if I recall correctly.
Of course, I suppose that depends on how much writing you do, but the writes will fail first, meaning your data should be recoverable.
My point is, it might be worth changing your plan accordingly now that you're on solid state.
To err is human. Fortune favors the monsters.
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Thanks for the feedback! Your point is an important one.
Folks talk about SSD failure, and before this I never delved deeply into it. One study that I found repeated references to stated that HDD have a 300,000 hour mean time before critical failure, while SSD have 1,500,000 hours.
This translates to 171 years and 34 years, respectively.
I have serious doubts regarding these figures, as they are theoretical and calculated. Given my practical experience, I don't trust HDD after 7 years, and have erred on the side of caution. But it does appear that SSD last a lot longer than HDD.
Another point mentioned in a blog -- look at the manufacturer's warranty period. In the case of my Samsung M2, that's 5 years, while for SanDisk SSD it's 3 years.
Again, thanks for the feedback, you've got me thinking about this. Unless I have a failure, I have 2.5 years before I need to make a decision, and that decision may be to wait.
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I've been building/upgrading my own systems since the early 90's and I've never had a HDD fail because the drive itself completely died. I'm not saying it can't happen but that's what backups are for. For the most part, I've replaced the drives because I needed more space or more speed long before the drives themselves failed. The oldest drive I have in any of the family's systems today is from 2015. Back then, I was replacing 500GB (or less) spinning HDDs which are basically worthless now. Today, the only place I have spinning HDDs are 4TB drives in a NAS.
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matblue25 wrote: I've been building/upgrading my own systems since the early 90's and I've never had a HDD fail because the drive itself completely died.
Nor have I. But I have lost files because of bad sectors, and was thankful I had good backups.
Always validate backups. In the early 90's I worked for an office that had a great backup schedule. Nightly incremental backups, full on Friday nights, full monthly backups that were kept for a year. They had been doing this for years!
It worked fantastic until we had to restore 1 file from a backup. Turns out we couldn't read any of the backups. Daily swapping of cartridges for years was a completely pointless effort.
That office replaced the backup system 9 months after we reported the problem ....... 
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100% agree. Online, offline and offsite backups and check them regularly that I can recover files.
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