Having to save up for over 3 years and wait for prices to come down to afford myself a treat in hellworld living in a broken down trailer that needs expensive repairs feels the same as the rest. Scrounging here and there having to settle with what I can get.

I wouldn't call myself "rich" because I saved up some scratch and live below my means. I don't live paycheck to paycheck, but barely. I work a grueling rotating shift. I have trouble sleeping. I have no time for a social live because the hours when I'm not working everyone else is either working or sleeping so this type of stuff like these internet forms and playing solo games is my social life. I bit the bullet on this job but its what I have to do in order have a barely living wage. Most likely I am not going to be able to afford to retire.

I shouldn't be even having a poor-off discussion with anyone here anyways. It's as bad as politicans crying about any leftist not living in a cardboard box and only wearing burlap bags as a pious vow because they dare critique the system they are forced to live under.

My old Athalon II 965 RIP gave up after a decade of service and Micro$uck breaking windows 7 causing games to just not work anymore. Then it just wouldn't start up much. This created a demand for a new machine. I also had to learn all the advancements in tech that came since the start of the PCI-E 3, which tech worked, which didn't. Months of pouring over reviews and tech docs and vids. I build my own as prebuilt ones gouge the crap out of you. Still don't feel confident enough to do a DIY water rig. That stuff scares me. I'll stick to an AIO cpu cooler thanks.

The problems I've had RMAing the mother board and it's refurbished replacement being a 15 req on D20 chaos roll with every startup of stability due to enshittification and the requirement of manufacturers scrambling to find alternate fabrication places due to Cold War 2.0 sanctions makes me think I should have just bought a switch or PS5 or even a Steam Deck but then there's the walled gardens and limitations of those plus all my decades of personal and archival stuff on storage drives consoles and tablets just aren't built for.

I wanted to build something that would last another decade because I can't afford the latest and greatest every year.

It feels ok when it's running, and Cyberpunk 2077 shows it's NVDIA bias, but it runs good enough to get the job done and exceeds in most other places. It should be good for a number of years but as it's AM4 it's at the end of the product life and replacement is going to be harder to find. I wanted to build 2 CPUs - 1 for gaming and 1 for research like BONIC to do astronomy or biology, and a webserver, and I've been holding on to a 3950x for a few years without a home because I waited to save up buying a drive here, a bit there and now it's hard to get a hold of a board that can utilize it. Realizing the costs and headaches with my new one, maybe I should just scrap the idea all together.