Best Boutique PC Builder

Puget Systems and Origin, if you must. I wouldn't consider CyberPower even close to the level of Puget, Origin, and Digital Storm.


The boutique builders are expensive, and I still think you'd save a ton of money by shipping and building yourself, even if the build costs $100 to ship (and I can provide packing and shipping tips if you'd like. I've shipped 100+ PCs myself). Of course, the boutique route saves time.

Also, if they're still doing this, NCIXUS assembles your parts for a flat fee and ships the completed build wherever.

You could probably build that for about $300 cheaper including legit Windows. That configuration is basically the standard $900-1000 build I would recommend. Tack on another $50-70 for shipping. I think I paid $60 last time I shipped a PC. It was Baton Rouge to Delaware, for a ~$2,000 video editing machine in a full-tower case, including $2000 worth of liability from UPS. Then an extra $10 for packing material. Computer inside case box, case box inside bigger box on a bed of packing peanuts. Rolled up bubble wrap wedged between all four corners of the box to keep the PC suspended in shipping. Topped with more peanuts.

Regarding the warranty, keep in mind that their standard warranty is 3 year, which is actually 3 years of labor but only 1 year of part replacement. The extra year added to make 4 years is likely just a labor year. Which is fine if you'll never be around to fix it yourself if something goes wrong, but also understand that Digital Storm does not cover shipping costs either direction after you've had the PC for 45 days regardless. That's just another perk of DIY building, provided someone could actually pull the part and RMA it. Far less shipping costs, and you can take advantage of the full warranty of each component individually (3-5 years+).

Nice. If you want to get more precise. The case used in the Digital Storm build looks like a windowed Corsair 230T.

Hmmm... Well now I have something to think about.

I will be visiting her in a month, so technically I could ship the parts there, and build it while I am there. Not sure that I want to spend my time there building a PC when we could be doing "other things" though

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when we could be doing "other things" though

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Playing board games?

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More racy than that, they will play the remake of Leisure Suit Larry!

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Why not ship it to yourself, build it now and just drop it off? Are you flying there?

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then pack that inside another box with a couple of inches of peanuts around it.

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Take my advice about stuffing the corners between the inner and outer box as well. I learned that technique from watching a video by Gazelle about how to ship your desktop PC to them.

A few "This Side Up" stickers may help, too. For certain builds, I stuff some bubble wrap inside the case if there's a risk of internals coming loose from impact, particularly stock pushpin intel coolers or especially heavy air coolers, tool-less drive mounts, etc. I had to learn the hard way about packing PCs. My first dozen or so sales were a nightmare.