My situation is interesting. I didn't know how to build a PC, but I wanted one even though I had a gaming laptop.

So I bought my friend's old PC (sans GPU) in 2023 for cheap when he upgraded. It was a fairly high-end prebuilt that he got right before the lockdowns in 2020. The PC then soon became dormant as the AIO water-cooling system broke down, and I just gamed on my laptop.

But then, in late 2025, the laptop's GPU crashed the entire system when pushed hard. I knew I could use that PC, so I got a 5060 (slightly better than that laptop GPU) for under MSRP, and put in a new AIO (with some help). Then I put Fedora on it and after way too much troubleshooting (mostly due to WiFi issues) it's became my primary gaming PC in 2026. Here's to lasting until Y2K38.