Basically just the CPU fan, case, and PSU (if you're lucky). If someone can figure out how to get Doom running on just those 3 things, young people will be able to ascend.

Hello All,

Here is a pic of the final build of my open air PC build. I built the case about 5 years ago and have been running a 10900k.

I have stepped up to a 9950X3d and the Asus Crosshair ROG 2006 X870E motherboard.

I have 3 x 360mm radiators and a pair of D5 pumps in series.

Let me know if you have any questions! J

Hey! Finnish developer here, built pricesquirrel.com a price tracker across 27 European stores in 9 countries, updated every 6 hours. I just genuinely like pricing data and digging into what's actually happening in the market, so I end up sharing these breakdowns pretty regularly. Posted an earlier version in r/technology and it got pulled for rules, figured PCMR is the right home for it anyway.

Been running a fixed basket (same products, no swapping in/out) for 3 months now, so here's what actually happened to prices, not just vibes:

• GPU: +36.7% (153 models tracked). Most of it hit in one sharp jump in late summer, roughly flat since.
• RAM: +24.5% (214 kits tracked). Gets way less attention than GPU pricing but almost as brutal, and it's been a steady climb rather than one spike, no single moment where it was obviously the time to buy.
• CPU: +4.9% (31 models tracked). Comparatively mild. If your upgrade is CPU-bound rather than GPU-bound, you got off easy this cycle.

One clarification since this always comes up: these are basket averages, not "every model went up exactly X%." Some cards moved way more, some barely moved. This is what happened to the average price of the same tracked group, which is a more honest number than cherry-picking one SKU.

Also worth knowing: Germany is consistently the cheapest EU country for hardware overall (heavy retailer competition: Alternate, NBB, Mindfactory, and others fighting for the same customers keeps margins thin), and Amazon isn't always the cheapest option even now, dedicated EU retailers frequently beat it, worth checking before defaulting to Amazon out of habit.

Technical side since some of you will ask: scraper on Hetzner + SQLite, Next.js frontend, 6-hour refresh cycle. Solo-built, no funding, no team.

btw didn't include SSDs in the 3-month numbers, only started tracking those in July, no clean 3-month baseline yet, will have that soon

Open to feedback, or suggestions for stores/countries I'm missing. :)