Seeking help with buying a RELIABLE pre-built gaming PC

Dampwaffles

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The requirements that I'd like to have:



- Budget $1,500~.



About $2,000 is my absolute limit. I am willing to pay more for quality though.



- Pre-built and preferably available on Amazon Prime so that I can get it in 2 days.



If I have to order it directly from a company and wait a couple of weeks, that's okay too. But Amazon is still greatly preferred due to their unbeatable delivery process and easy returns.



- RELIABLE.



I can't emphasize that enough. This factor is BY FAR the most important factor for me, even more important than performance. I've dealt with unreliable pieces of crap from iBuyPower and CyberPower with my last 2 gaming PCs, and I don't want to have to go through that ever again.



I'm the type of person that leaves my PC on 24/7 365. I almost never turn it off, not even when I leave the house. I don't want any faulty parts, crashes, or fans that randomly start to make annoying sounds after a couple of years. I want all of the components to be quality and super long lasting. Basically, I want the Toyota of gaming PCs that will just last and last for 5+ years without issue.



- Whisper quiet.



Self-explanatory. I was going to shell out the extra cash for an Alienware PC since several articles that I read in Google's search results claimed that they're one of the more reliable PC manufacturers, but almost everyone said that they're loud. And so that prevented me from pulling the trigger.



- Windows 10/11 Home.



- At least 500 GB SSD hard drive.



I prefer to just rely on a stand alone 1 TB SSD since I've never really used a ton of storage on my PCs. And I like the faster boot times of an SSD and the added reliability since there's no spinning disk to worry about with a hard disk drive.



- At least 16 gigs of RAM.



I prefer 32 gigs for super smooth multi-tasking, but 16 is still fine.



- I hate hate hate RGB lighting.



I just find it to be super annoying. At the very least I want to be able to turn it off completely since I prefer my rig to be very basic visually and non-distracting. And I'd prefer if I could turn it off either with a physical switch attached to the PC itself, or via some sort of easy-to-use program on the PC. My last PC used a remote to adjust the RGB lights, and that became an issue because the remote stopped working, and so I had to buy a new one.



- Moderate gaming performance.



I don't really need a super beastly gaming rig since I mostly play League of Legends, World of Warships, Apex, Valorant, and Overwatch. But it would be nice if I could play the latest games on high settings. A mid-range graphics card and processor would be perfectly fine.



- At least 2 USB ports on the top or front of case.



Makes it easier for my mouse and keyboard to reach my somewhat far sitting location.



Other factors to consider:



- I already have an LG 27GL83A-B monitor with G-Sync.



- I prefer to lay my PC down on it's side (none of the fans are blocked) since I use a small computer desk. Will this affect reliability and quietness? Or do they design PCs to work the same regardless of their orientation? I can still put it on the floor upright next to my computer desk if I have to, but that's slightly annoying.



- Would it be okay to go with a gaming laptop instead? It would make it easier to ship if I ever needed to send it in for repairs (please God no). But I read that they're less reliable and noisier due to the reduced cooling. Is that true? Or are good gaming laptops just as reliable and quiet as desktop PCs now?



- I live in America. The Washington, D.C., area to be exact.



I'm super sorry if any of my questions came off as dumb or annoying. I really don't know anything about PCs. I just want to plug my rig in and not have any issues from it.



Thanks in advance for any helpful responses!
 
Welcome to the forum although this is a UK based forum so you may be better with a US based forum to give you better recommendations.

What failed on the Ibuypower/Cyberpower machines? It sounds like you've been incredibly unlucky as most companies are using similar components and I find desktops to be mostly very reliable these days. As long as the PC is built correctly there's nothing a manufacturer can do to prevent a component failing unexpectedly. I'd recommend having a look at the Lenovo gaming desktops as I find their office machines very reliable and in the UK, they offer quite affordable on site warranties so if a part does fail you can get it easily repaired.

I know you may not like me saying this but hear me out first, reading your post just screams to me to build your own PC. For years even though I work in IT and could build my own PCs I bought prebuilts and changed them as I needed, I valued their next business day on site warranties which meant I could quickly get parts repaired. I'd previously had a lot of hassle with a PC I built shipping parts back and for for weeks until I finally got sorted. A couple of years ago it was time for a new PC and had similar requirements to you but I couldn't find anything close to what I wanted, the prebuilts didn't have good parts (especially with cooling), prices weren't good, storage options were poor and many of the cases were garish.

I decided to build my own PC and it was a bit of work but it was very much worth the hassle. I could choose the high quality internal components I wanted, a classy understated case, no RGB and very quiet cooling. It was so quiet when I powered it on for the first time I thought I'd done something wrong as I couldn't hear the fans at all and then I was worried again when it stayed quiet under load but it's worked perfectly from the moment I built it. It's all standard parts so if there any problems I can easily repair it and I can upgrade it over time as needed as well. You can buy barebones bundles for your CPU, ram, motherboard and cooler to get you started and these days building PCs is quite straightforward. Costs wise I have a far better machine than the same amount of money would have bought me and it does exactly what I want, lots of USB ports front back, optical drive bay etc.

I fully appreciate it may not be for your but I'm just putting that option out there because unless you go with more expensive custom build company that's likely out of budget.

For positioning as long as the fans are clear positioning it on the side should be fine.

If you don't need mobility and are prioritising reliability and noise I wouldn't consider a gaming laptop as the current trend is for gaming laptops to be thing and therefore have completely inadequate cooling. That means they run incredibly hot with a huge amount of fan noise which is irritating and I don't think it's good long term for the components most of which cannot be easily replaced either when they fail. I bought an Alienware m15R1 to give me the option of some performance when away from home but the noise and heat just drives me insane at times. My desktop is fairly beefy with a 12 core AMD processor and RTX 3080 (much higher power than the misleadingly named mobile 3080) and it's very quiet, the much weaker laptop with a hex core Intel and RTX 2060 is so loud it drowns out its own speakers. And I can't have it on my laptop without something for it to sit on because it gets so hot.
 
I'd check out the Gamers Nexus and Linus Tech Tips reviews of prebuilt machines as they are both US based and go in depth about the quality and performance of the systems bought.



 
The only way I can see this being possible is if you can find a company that will build the PC based on your choices of part - all of them including fans. So prebuilt for you but not preselected parts as your never going to get the level of quality you require on pre-selected prebuilt as price is always a factor over the kind of reliability on Fans etc you are seeking. This is a UK based board so I have no idea on who does this in the states but I feel its the only way to achieve it. Which of course now requires 2 things, who can do this and what parts fit the bill.
 

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