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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Dad wants £500

170 replies

Glassback83 · 08/08/2022 16:40

Ds is 16 this month and we wanted to treat him. We decided to get him a PC and my dad said he could build one (he’s been building them for years), so we agreed. We spent £400 on some hard drives and another £250 on a monitor. Initially, Dad said he had bits lying around he could use but said to give him a couple of hundred pounds for other bits. The PC would be from us and my parents. Got a message from Dad yesterday and he’s asking for £500. He’s explained that he’d added everything up that he’s put in it and divided the cost between us, even though some of the parts were laying around in the back of a cupboard. Says he’s had to buy a couple of things, o e of which I know is less than £10. Too late to change our minds now as it’s already built. AIBU to be really pi**ed off? Feel like I’ve been conned by my own parents.

OP posts:
TheGraceFace · 08/08/2022 18:06

My H builds & usually spends around £3000. I could never understand why he couldn’t just go cheaper, but he’d say if you want it to last you gotta have the best you can afford otherwise you’re just wasting your money. So for what you’ve paid it’s reasonable, & a lot better than a cheap laptop.

Irridescantshimmmer · 08/08/2022 18:08

Ask him for the full spec (specification) or a list of all componrnts plus hardware then compare with online prices.

There is a cost of living crisis going on and you may want to remind of that.

SwanBuster · 08/08/2022 18:09

For a total of 900 quid you could have got easily

a Ryzen 7 5800 - £200 if you use Fb marketplace
a decent B550 motherboard - £70 secondhand
a 2tb nvme ssd - £150 new
a 4tb hard disk - £50
a GTX 3060ti - £370 ish now after the gpu price drop
a decent case - £60

orbitalcrisis · 08/08/2022 18:11

Sounds like my dad, he once tried to charge me more than a taxi would cost to drop me at the airport!

sst1234 · 08/08/2022 18:13

Is he building tech to land humans on Mars?

SwanBuster · 08/08/2022 18:13

TheGraceFace · 08/08/2022 18:06

My H builds & usually spends around £3000. I could never understand why he couldn’t just go cheaper, but he’d say if you want it to last you gotta have the best you can afford otherwise you’re just wasting your money. So for what you’ve paid it’s reasonable, & a lot better than a cheap laptop.

It really isn’t. Why on earth comment if you don’t know about PC hardware?!

MoltenLasagne · 08/08/2022 18:13

OP, I don't know about computer builds but we had a similar situation with my Dad a few years back where he did tiling for us for family rates. He said he'd got us a great deal on some tiles, and tbf they were cheaper than they usually were but they were still double our budget and not what we'd have chosen but by then he'd already bought them. It was a gut punch and he was expecting us to be really excited and also happy to pay.

We spoke to my Mum as a first port of call and she helped talk to my dad and even things out. He managed to take them back in the end which we didn't think was possible so it all worked out in the end. Any chance your Mum can do something similar?

IrisVersicolor · 08/08/2022 18:14

If he was going to spend this much he should have sent you a written estimate before he started. He has you over a barrel - an IT professional would have given you a quote to say yay or no to. He effectively quoted you one thing and now wants to charge over double.

My IT guy quoted well over grand for building a pc to my spec, so I compromised on customising a retail model to save money - you weren’t given that option.

ChateauxNeufDePoop · 08/08/2022 18:15

The case seems really expensive and skews it but everything else looks decent albeit what he has built could be too good.

Is it a gaming PC he specifically wanted?
Can he sell that case and use a cheaper one?

dawngreen · 08/08/2022 18:15

Its a i7 it is out of date maybe for windows 11. But my i7 runs great for gaming, and the 5 different VR worlds I use. I use my pc for work too.

SwanBuster · 08/08/2022 18:16

(It really isn’t reasonable for that particular set of components - just because your husband spends £3k, it doesn’t mean spending £1k on a bunch of out of date components is good.

you can absolutely build a good PC - easily 80% of the performance of a typical £3k system for £1k. obviously the 3k one might have some particular special bits like a massive array of storage if that’s what it’s being built for in some instances. But you’ve got to know what you’re doing. This is the law of marginal returns as you spend more.

SwanBuster · 08/08/2022 18:17

dawngreen · 08/08/2022 18:15

Its a i7 it is out of date maybe for windows 11. But my i7 runs great for gaming, and the 5 different VR worlds I use. I use my pc for work too.

I7 is just a particular bit of intel branding. There are i7s from 2009 that don’t really compare to a modern i3. Again - no point in comparing unless you understand the exact spec.

cloudygreyskies · 08/08/2022 18:19

It’s always going to be cheaper to build your own PC, but that price doesn’t sound right to me. Looks like it’s a 6th gen intel processor for a start, the 12th gen intel processors are out now, shows you how old it is. Too old to support WIndows 11 officially

The Corsair Hydro H100 CPU Cooler isn’t £203, it’s under £100. The graphics card is old. It came out in 2017.

The case price, that’s wrong, far too high, looks like it’s an old case as well.

New PCs can cost well over a grand, and if you want a gaming PC you can easily fork out over 2 grand. What bumps the price up is the graphics cards, they can go for stupid amounts.

dawngreen · 08/08/2022 18:20

We built some of our old pcs, but not now the prices for parts are higher. So some times its not worth building unless you are prepared to pay. I bought my gaming i7 from Very.

Heroicallyl0st · 08/08/2022 18:22

Of course it’s not too late to change your mind. Your dad has costed up/bought things without consulting you, so you’re not even changing your mind. Tell him you can’t pay it and if he can’t do something that costs as originally planned you’ll have to look into other options.

ChampagneCharlieIsMyName · 08/08/2022 18:22

Yeah, coz toddlers under two need a frigging pc!
get a grip op.

5YearsLeft · 08/08/2022 18:22

Yes, you’re being conned.

The Coolermaster HAF XB came out in 2012 (if it’s just the original one). There might be a few newer versions but none of them should cost more than about £160 new, and you can find some for £70 used on eBay if it’s used. £359 is madness.

The Corsair Hydro H100 CPU Cooler is the same. This shouldn’t even top £100. These are all older products. Google should show you, if you type in the product name he’s provided, so that you can see for yourself that you could have bought these exact products for half or less the prices he’s quoting, brand new, so they better be brand new, or you could have gotten VERY good up-to-date products for the prices he’s quoting, since none of these are up to date. You’re paying £1100+ for a PC that’s already out of date, it seems like. For good prices on up to date products, you should be using a site like Newegg. And you keep mentioning £400 for “hard drives.” Even they shouldn’t have cost this much. The most expensive thing should have been the graphics card, probably, and the (probably single, since you’re building your own computer) internal hard drive. I mean, look at internal hard drives here. A bloody 18TB, which your son does NOT need, is only £368. As you can see, most of them are in the £100 range. So I’m quite confused.
www.newegg.com/global/uk-en/Desktop-Internal-Hard-Drives/SubCategory/ID-14?Tid=1582594

Does your dad have form for this? Can you ask him if he’s having money troubles?

Frequency · 08/08/2022 18:24

How on earth did you manage to spend £400 on harddrives? You really only need a decent sized SSD (around £200ish for a 2TB).

I also have a HDD in mine for storing movies and music. I think it cost me around £50 for a 3TB HDD.

LDN1 · 08/08/2022 18:26

You can get a Mac Mini with the new M1 processor in for less than what that sounds to have cost. Doesn't sound right.

I'd say that really, you needed to know the extra costs beforehand... and it's a bit much as it stands.

WiddlinDiddlin · 08/08/2022 18:26

ChampagneCharlieIsMyName · 08/08/2022 18:22

Yeah, coz toddlers under two need a frigging pc!
get a grip op.

You might want to read the OP again, and fetch your own grip...

OP that is a LOT of money for a pc - I had to buy a new one for work, I write and do a variety of digital illustration, my PC is on all day every day and often doing multiple things across two monitors. I paid 1300 from Punch Technology for a more than capable machine that is not extravagant, but absolutely does the job (I did already have monitors).

IrisVersicolor · 08/08/2022 18:28

Frequency · 08/08/2022 18:24

How on earth did you manage to spend £400 on harddrives? You really only need a decent sized SSD (around £200ish for a 2TB).

I also have a HDD in mine for storing movies and music. I think it cost me around £50 for a 3TB HDD.

Yes it’s very odd. Mine was £50 for 3TB of SATA HDD and £150 for 2TB of SSD.

LDN1 · 08/08/2022 18:31

I should add, if it's for gaming, forget the Mac. But still...

IrisVersicolor · 08/08/2022 18:31

5YearsLeft · 08/08/2022 18:22

Yes, you’re being conned.

The Coolermaster HAF XB came out in 2012 (if it’s just the original one). There might be a few newer versions but none of them should cost more than about £160 new, and you can find some for £70 used on eBay if it’s used. £359 is madness.

The Corsair Hydro H100 CPU Cooler is the same. This shouldn’t even top £100. These are all older products. Google should show you, if you type in the product name he’s provided, so that you can see for yourself that you could have bought these exact products for half or less the prices he’s quoting, brand new, so they better be brand new, or you could have gotten VERY good up-to-date products for the prices he’s quoting, since none of these are up to date. You’re paying £1100+ for a PC that’s already out of date, it seems like. For good prices on up to date products, you should be using a site like Newegg. And you keep mentioning £400 for “hard drives.” Even they shouldn’t have cost this much. The most expensive thing should have been the graphics card, probably, and the (probably single, since you’re building your own computer) internal hard drive. I mean, look at internal hard drives here. A bloody 18TB, which your son does NOT need, is only £368. As you can see, most of them are in the £100 range. So I’m quite confused.
www.newegg.com/global/uk-en/Desktop-Internal-Hard-Drives/SubCategory/ID-14?Tid=1582594

Does your dad have form for this? Can you ask him if he’s having money troubles?

This is excellent info, I think OP needs to summarise this and send it to her dad.

Anniegetyourgun · 08/08/2022 18:36

Where did a toddler come into it? This is for a 16-year-old 😕

SwanBuster · 08/08/2022 18:37

IrisVersicolor · 08/08/2022 18:31

This is excellent info, I think OP needs to summarise this and send it to her dad.

Show quote history

its good - but it misses important aspects which I mentioned.

the CPU - the 6700k being totally outdated in 2022 as a quad core.

the (in effect associated) motherboard - total rip off for such an old piece of tech. It would have been better to base the system around 5xxx gen Ryzen.

the GPU - a 1080ti is still a beast, but you can now get. 3060ti which outclasses it and is more modern (raytracing support) for a similar price.