I always thought that "you save lotsa money by building your desktop PC from parts yourself!" was some US thing, because frankly I never felt that being the case here.

I mean, if some store is selling DIMMs and CPUs much cheaper than the next shop... then most probably their video cards and mother boards and heck any component are cheaper too. Their profit margins are simply smaller overall. At least here I don't feel you save any money from buying every little component from a different store (if that is what is supposed to save you money, by buying components from different stores).

Or if it is the actual work of assembling it all that is supposed to save you money... pfffft, at least back when I was buying desktop PCs, it didn't increase the price much (or at all) that I let the little PC store to assemble it all for me. Maybe they charged something like 20€ for putting the parts together, or did it for free due to the fact that I am buying all the components from them.

Well, I thought I have pretty good experience tinkering with PCs... yet I was able to kill my old desktop PC by trying to force extra RAM to DIMM slots the wrong way. :) God damn it I felt stupid afterwards, as if it didn't even occur to me the DIMM was not going into the place because it was going the wrong way. Hey, I just thought the DIMM slot is awfully tight in that motherboard...

Do people still put thermal paste themselves between the CPU and heatsink, or is that ancient history? I remember all those serious discussions what is the "correct" way to put thermal paste, should you just put a drop in the middle and corners and then move the heatsink on it for awhile, or spread it first with some kind of spatula, etc.?

You could start with explaining what the heck "overclocking" is.
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/452961105522872320/eFX_I4Nt.jpeg

Did you not just see me say I don't even understand what specs mean when listed?
I don't even know what "overclocking" is.
Heck, I had to get someone on here to help me just to access a Steam file.
Do you REALLY think that somebody like me, who has 0 experience working with computers outside of playing games and using Word, should be let anywhere near the internal components of it?!

I may be crazy, but I'm not $500 worth of crazy.

And they say psychology is a "soft" science. You're alright, kid.

I'm no script-ninja hell I don't even mess with the WiFi router my brother-in-law takes care of it. All I'm saying is watch a few videos to see if it is something that you'd be comfortable trying. There is a great deal of satisfaction of telling your friends that "I built my own computer, it was no big deal" and seeing the looks on their faces. :) The only problem then is that when they have a problem with their pc you know who they're going to call. :p

Just imagine their faces.

LOL Give yourself a little bit of credit.

It used to make a fairly big difference over here, like in the early 2000s and for some time after, but I don't think that's the case so much these days. From helping my nephew build his first machine a few years back, it saved maybe $150 or so on a $1,500 build. He went with a Newegg DIY so there may have been a few more bucks out there if one were to buy from multiple sources. The downside was on the timing of it, since he got the gpu from some other place and it took an extra week to arrive.

I think if you enjoy doing it yourself then you may as well save a bit with DIY. But if that's not your thing then I don't feel that having it built is going to add a huge amount of cost in most cases, unless you're looking at a nosebleed-level machine. I say all that having made only casual glances at it recently. Others may have different experience.

Ok, but where did the savings mostly come from? From buying components from lots of different stores (because someone sells a CPU 10% cheaper, while another store sells a motherboard cheaper, while a third one sells a video card cheaper...)? Here the differences wouldn't normally be that big anyway between (small) PC stores as they all would have quite low margins to begin with, and if some place was cheaper, then it was probably that for all components, ie. it made sense to buy everything from them (as long as they had what you wanted).

Or was it mainly the work, ie. the store you buy components from would charge you extra $150 for assembling your PC? I felt here they were ready to do assembling "for free" as long as you bought all the components from them.

Also I felt that is a good guarantee the PC works and there is no some issue between components. If the unthinkable happened and e.g. the RAM didn't work with the motherboard correctly, or the graphics card has issues with that very motherboard... which store will take the blame if the components are from various places?

Ok, so he did buy the components from one place, Newegg? Didn't Newegg offer an option that they assemble the PC for you, and if they did, what would that have cost? $150?