I am an avid bargain PC hunter. When I see a pre-built PC on sale, my first thought is usually: “Is it cheaper to buy this or build it myself?” So when I saw the Machenike Mini PC drop to $379 at Amazon (down from $399), I took it as a challenge.
I headed over to PCPartPicker to assemble a rig that could surpass the Machenike’s specs for the same price — or less. That spec sheet is a tough one to match: AMD Ryzen 7 8745HS (Passmark: ~29,000), 16GB DDR5, and a 512GB PCIe 3.0 SSD.
I thought it would be easy. I was wrong.
Note that this deal has been available for a few weeks and while its price went up by $30, it is still exceptional value for money and now, given that it is on sale at Amazon, you can easily return it should you want to.
The reality check
I didn’t just fail to match the price; I couldn’t even get close. By the time I added all the components, my “I’m-so-gonna-beat-Machenike” basket had hit almost $570. (excluding the price of the OS license)
That is nearly 50% more than the price of the prebuilt mini PC—and that was without adding the cost of a Windows license ($119.99).
Check out the breakdown of my best attempt to build a Machenike rival:
|
Component |
Details |
My DIY Cost (est) |
Machenike Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
|
CPU |
Ryzen 5 9600X |
$191.99 |
included |
|
Motherboard |
Asrock A620 |
$79.98 |
included |
|
RAM |
Crucial 16GB DDR5 |
$137.99 |
included |
|
SSD |
Patriot 300 512GB PCIe Gen3 |
$59.99 |
included |
|
Case + PSU |
Rosewill FBM-X2-400 (400W PSU) |
$65.99 |
included |
|
Cooler |
Arctic Alpine 23 |
$11.99 |
included |
|
WiFi |
EDUP 9636GS |
$19.98 |
included |
|
OS |
Windows 11 license |
$119.99 |
included |
|
Total |
|
$687.98 |
$379.00 |
Why this is an anomaly
The math here makes for some depressing reading for hardcore DIYers. The CPU and the memory cost almost as much as the pre-built itself. The price of the RAM alone accounted for about 25% of my hypothetical DIY build.
That’s due to the massive DDR shortage crisis that’s hitting the global market right now.
Remember, my prebuilt doesn’t come with a unified warranty. A DIY build would still require me to diagnose any potential problems myself, and that excludes the opportunity cost of my own assembly time.
At $379, Amazon isn’t just selling a mere computer. They are charging you for the CPU and memory, then giving you the case, heatsink, fan, SSD, OS, and motherboard for free.
Oh, and some serious peace of mind and a few hundred minutes of your life back.
No wonder then that ChatGPT described this mini PC as
While Google’s Gemini said that this is an insane price to pay
My verdict
I chose the Ryzen 5 9600X for my comparison because, at the time of writing, it was only about $20 more than the older 7600X and marginally faster than the 8745HS, at least on Passmark’s synthetic multicore benchmark.
But honestly, even swapping parts for older generations (like the 7600X) or scouring the used market wouldn’t change the outcome enough to beat $379.
If you’re a builder, this will come as an epiphany: the current component market inflation might suddenly make DIY attractive only to the affluent. For the rest of us, buying this pre-built isn’t “giving up”—it’s the only sensible move that won’t hurt your pocket.
The CPU Choice: Technically, I compared a Desktop CPU (9600X) against a Mobile CPU (8745HS). While the 9600X is faster, it was the cheapest current-gen option available to even attempt a comparison.
The “Marginally Faster” Claim: I based my performance comparison on PassMark Multi-Core benchmarks. Despite being a desktop-class chip with a 50% higher TDP, the Ryzen 5 9600X (6-core) scores only ~3% higher than the mobile Ryzen 7 8745HS (8-core). The mobile chip’s extra two cores allow it to virtually match the desktop processor’s multi-threaded output, making the “marginal” difference a fair description for productivity workloads. The 9600X is unsurprisingly way faster in single thread tests.
The GPU: The Ryzen 9600X comes with an integrated GPU, so I saved on the price of a dedicated video card.
Memory: I chose two DDR5 DIMM sticks because dual-channel is cheaper and faster.
Storage: I opted for a generic NVMe SSD as Machenike’s spec sheet didn’t specify the exact drive protocol.
Motherboard: The ASRock A620M motherboard supports the Ryzen 5 9600X CPU (requires BIOS version 3.20).
Postage: Excluded, assuming Amazon Prime availability.
