Opinion: Digital Storm could make buying a pre-built gaming PC... affordable?

Digital Storm's website offers a full components breakdown. (Photo Credit: Digital Storm)

Yeah, I'd be blinking out of disbelief too, if I didn't write the headline myself.

Digital Storm is marketing a new line of pre-built computers that, price-wise, appear very competitive with building the system yourself.

For many PC gamers, building a PC is a sort of perennial or bi-perennial tradition. You spend a while doing research as your old machine hangs on for dear life. You squee over the clock speeds on your prospective video card replacement. You read reviews of components for weeks.

Then, you put it all together, and the magic begins all over again.

Digital Storm's Vanquish line probably won't convince the above people (myself included) to stop building their own PCs and to start buying PCs from them.

What it could, and very well may do, is to convince prospective PC gamers who want performance machines to fork over the money for them via Digital Storm's website. The fact is that Digital Storm is entering an arena still primarily dominated by retail outlets like Best Buy and brand-name build websites that make no excuses for the price of their machines, like Alienware.

The challenge could be getting their name out there to their target audience. The old hands at PC gaming will continue to build their own, but how do you reach the person who buys the $1,499 Best Buy pre-built with the same (or worse) specs than your $799 build?

Hmmm... (Photo Credit: Best Buy)

Personally, I could see this company becoming the sort of go-to recommendation for those who build their own PCs but who can't (or don't want to) assist in building someone else's.

If the difference in price is, as Kotaku reports, really in the range of $40-60, you start to wonder how much money your time in selecting, purchasing, and then assembling those components for someone else is really worth.

While they may not be the components I would ideally select for my own build, it doesn't surprise me that the lower-end Vanquish systems tend to use AMD components since these are normally available at a lower cost. They aren't bad components by any means, just not what I would have used.

Also, there are people who really just don't want to build their own PCs. There's nothing wrong with that, and the Vanquish offers those people an alternative to other, more costly methods.

I, for one, will be keeping my eyes peeled for reviews of Digital Storm's builds.