I used to have fun building desktops. I've built a 486, a PIII, P4, and AMD 64 single core desktops. When 2012 came around, the gaming scene was already changing in regards to prices. I did not have 3K to dump into a new desktop machine build then, so I bought the Acer V3-771G notebook on sale for 879 at Newegg.
That Acer was already a mid-range machine at the time I bought it, it was technically outdated after the 5-year mark. But having no money makes a person not be able to buy another machine. So I kept using that machine for a total of 9-years! Of course it couldn't play any new games at all, not with an Nvidia 640M in it!
When it came time to buy a new computer, I did check into possibly building my a new desktop build since my last in 2005. But the costs were worse this time, since we were in a tech shortage, even if I could get the video card I wanted, it would cost me 5 grand possibly for a high end gaming desktop build.
Obviously I wasn't going to go that rout. So just as I bought a notebook in 2012, I bought another this year. Difference is you ask? I didn't buy a mid-range machine this time. I bought a high end machine, the kind of machine that can easily have a 10 year lifespan.
I made sure to pick the version of my computer that had 16GB of VRAM, it cost 200 dollars more, but thats called future proofing baby.
https://forum.zorin.com/t/my-new-computer-msi-ge76-raider-i7-10870h-8-core-16-thread-32gb-ram-nvidia-3080-gpu-16gb-vram-1tb-nvme-ssd/3827?u=startreker
So ya, building computer's is fun and all, but these days during a tech shortage its impossible. The choice is clear, you can spend 2K less and get a notebook, or spend 2K more to get a desktop version. Frankly, desktops are kind of falling out of favor in the home market anyways.
Just so you know, more people own notebooks then desktops these days.