 So we all know what the PC Master Race subreddit would have to say about getting set up with a new gaming rig. Build it yourself, man! Do it up custom! Or failing that, at least buy from a reputable system builder online. What pretty much no one would recommend is to go to the local Best Buy, ask for a gaming PC, and buy whatever it is that they bring you. But that's what we did. Let's see how that worked out for us, shall we? The ASRock G10 Gaming Router features Gaming Boost technology, M2M technology, NAS functionality, and their H2R 2-in-1 DLNA travel router dongle. Head over to the link in the video description to find out what the heck I was just talking about. So let's start with the shopping experience. I actually sent my wife in my stead in an effort to see just how frustrating it would be for a more normal person to find a gaming PC at the local big box store. So at the first store, the initial salesperson explained that the difference between the $900 gaming PC and the $1500 one was aesthetics, and that gaming computers just cost more. The actual difference was that the gaming one had a video card. Fortunately, my wife realized that and found someone else to talk to. The second rep was much better, but didn't have anything in stock to sell. Though in her defense, the store is moving in like four days. So fine, on to store number two. Or are we? In spite of having one of the reps from the first store call ahead to reserve a unit of the PC my wife was trying to buy, the second store sold it while she was en route and called her when she'd already been driving for 10 minutes to come and get it. Pfft, time to head somewhere else then. Third time's a charm, right? After waiting around to talk to a stocking girl and then getting bounced to the Geek Squad line and then back again, she was finally offered the ASUS M32 CD desktop PC for $900 Canadian dollars or about $625 US with the current exchange rate. So let's have a look at how she made out then, shall we? The M32 CD in the recommended gaming configuration features an Intel Core i5-6400 Skylake quad core, 8 gigs of DDR4 RAM running in single channel, actually preferred in this case to allow for cheaper upgrades, a 1 terabyte hard drive, a system specific H110 motherboard with a single full-size PCIe 16x expansion slot, a mini PCIe slot with an AC wireless card, two DIMM slots, and USB 3.1 10 gigabit on the back, and finally, an R9 370 2 gig video card, notably one that features an ASUS Direct-CU style cooler and a very robust security bar to keep it in place during shipping. The case is nothing special with a rear-mounted 90 millimeter fan, a spot for another one in the front, though I can't tell where that one would get fresh air from, and a perforated side panel for airflow, and the power supply actually is a huge step up from what I expected, a 500 watt continuous unit from Delta with a 120 millimeter fan and extra plugs for everything from additional drives, the motherboard can support up to four, to even a more powerful graphics card, as long as you account for keeping it cool. Actually, overall, this package is a lot better than I expected, but still, I mean, I figured, come on, this can't be so hard. I'll head over to good ol' NCIX.com and beat the stuffing out of it with off-the-shelf components, and it's gone, no, and it turns out that was not as easy as I thought. Even with NCIX's rock-bottom $50 PC assembly fee, and even ignoring the obvious subsidies that Microsoft gives to PC makers for including their operating system, assuming that I wanted, you know, a somewhat equivalent AC wireless solution, a DVD writer, etc., I still ended up getting pretty much the same thing for my money without Windows, so when you factor Windows into it, it was a full $125 more expensive to have it built there. I mean, sure, I get some more PCI Express slots, but then I'm actually giving up a proper PCIe-based Wi-Fi solution for a USB one, and settling for a lesser power supply, the one bundled with the CM Elite 350. Okay, then, time for a new tactic, because we're PCMR, right? We can build the computer ourselves, saving $50 right there, and we don't necessarily need the cheap mouse that came with this thing, so I gave myself some more flexibility on the second config, opting for an AMD FX6300 processor, 8GB of DDR3, an MSI 970A motherboard, no included mouse, DVD driver, Wi-Fi. Then I spent what I gained on a better graphics card, an R9 380, which the college-educated among you may have already realized isn't an outright better computer, just a different one, one that might be better for gaming in some games, but certainly isn't better for all tasks or even all games, which I guess leads us to the conclusion, one that I did not see coming. I mean, honestly, I was sure that after publishing this video, we'd never be working with Best Buy on a top five laptops for students thing, like we did back in the fall again. I was certain they were going to get wrecked, as the kids say, but that's not how it went down today at all. Many of the traditional problems that have existed since the last time I bought a desktop computer at Future Shop, like 15 years ago, the inability to find someone to help you, the high pressure sales pitch for extended warranty once you finally do find someone to help you, the limited stock and selection, the hit or miss knowledge of the in-store staff, are all alive and well, but the computer we ended up with is actually a really great value gaming box. Our equivalent build offered better PCIe expansion, but its power supply was not as good and it didn't have USB 3.10 gigabit, not to mention the huge price disparity, and our DIY build where I built it myself and gave up some features, still only saved me 15 bucks. Sure, it can deliver better gaming performance in GPU bound scenarios, but without crippling CPU performance even further by stepping down to an APU or something like that, the difference was not nearly what I had expected. So there you have it, calling me surprised. Whether we have Best Buy to thank for acknowledging the demand for decent gaming PCs that contain decent graphics cards, or ASUS and the other system builders to thank for dumping these boxes on Best Buy's shelf, buying a gaming rig at Best Buy is not as bad an option as you might think, and a savvy used hardware shopper could probably manage to flip that included graphics card, plop in something better, and end up with an astonishingly good rig for around a thousand dollars, though while you're at it, I'd also recommend throwing in an SSD. Speaking of throwing something in, if you're thinking to yourself, gee, I could sure use a USB gaming headset with a nice high quality mic, good sound, and RGB lighting, maybe check out the Logitech G633 Artemis Spectrum. It features 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound, 40mm Pro G audio drivers, and it's compatible with the PC as well as the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. As I mentioned before, it features adjustable RGB lighting and custom tags with a cardioid boom mic, and it's available now on Amazon. All you gotta do is pick them up at the link in the video description. So thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked, you know what to do, but if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or even consider supporting us directly by using our affiliate code to shop at Amazon by buying a cool shirt like this one, or with a direct monthly contribution. Now that you're done doing all that stuff, you're probably wondering what to watch next, so click up that little button in the top right corner to check out the 7 Gamers 1 CPU video, where I build, well, technically there were two CPUs, but I basically build one rig that runs seven gaming instances at once.