NZXT wants to rent you a gaming pc for $59 - $169/mo YIKES.

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https://www.tomshardware.com/deskto...i5-rtx-4060-gaming-pcs-for-59-dollars-a-month
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These sort of rental deals are always an appalling rip-off designed to take advantage of people who can't really afford to be taken advantage of anyway. They want to rent pc monthly (with an upgrade after 2yrs).. you still keep paying them $59 forever~ and never own the computer.

https://nzxt.com/flex/player-one
oh god it is actually worse in someways than I thought as you rented pc they send you could be used.. and whenever you cancel you have to send them the pc back.

If someone did this (for some godforsaken reason) after 12mos they'd have spent $700~ . With that amount of money they could probably buy a used 4060 rig or be pretty close to a new 4060 build (w/ some care) (very quickly made 4060 build part list $858 (without out windows licenses ..because as we know there are some various options one might go with which could changed the costs of the license vastly.) blah blah $860~ (including shipping/ tax)

PCPartPicker Part List: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Ttw6Cd

CPU: Intel Core i5-14400F 2.5 GHz 10-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock B760M-H/M.2 Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Patriot Signature Line 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-4800 CL40 Memory ($77.98 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Blue SN580 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($64.00 @ iBUYPOWER)
Video Card: Gigabyte WINDFORCE OC GeForce RTX 4060 8 GB Video Card ($299.97 @ Amazon)
Case: Zalman S4 ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg Sellers)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G12 GC 550 W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($76.40 @ Amazon)
Total: $858.32
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-08-04 14:56 EDT-0400
Click to expand...
Which only increases the idiocy of this, the renter after a year has zero equity and if they decide to stop they have spent the money and have nothing.. where if they bought the computer they could resell it after 12mos and recover a fair bit of their money....

Don't even want to think about what a lunatic you'd have to be to get the $170/mo option... Jesus... clearly just a way to take advantage of uneducated / credit challenged customers and honestly morally repugnant way to operate (maybe/imho/allegedly?? they can't sue me now right?).
 
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These kinds of deals are only there to prey on those who have no money sense....and can't handle simple addition.

I have always purchased everything I own. I won't rent or lease anything if I can help it. I also strive for no debt. When I see these things it just baffles me, totally alien concept in my life.

$170/month works out to $2040 in a year...you can build the damn machine for that and own it.
 
A lot of people just toss or give away their old PCs anyway. For them, there would be little difference between this and spending $2000 every two or three years on a new PC. Which they might do because the monitor broke, or they got a virus, or it's really slow "for some reason," or just to play the latest games, etc.

I agree, it's a terrible value for anyone with half a brain. But there are many people who just don't care or couldn't be bothered.
 
This is little different from the "rent to own" businesses which have been around for decades except you never stop paying and you don't own anything. It's a business model which preys on the financially stupid which is a very large chunk of the population. People who are likely to "use" a service like this are incapable of saving up to purchase a system because their financial sense has put them in a position where it's impossible for them to do so.
 
And it's companies like this that would get preferential treatment for getting video cards back when we were in the GPUcalypse.
 
8. Service Suspension
If Subscriber accrues any unpaid balance for more than fifteen (15) calendar days, or is in material breach of this Agreement, Operator may immediately suspend Services and take all actions necessary to effect such suspension, including, but not limited to: (i) using technological methods to reduce functionality or disable Rental Devices; and (ii) cease delivery of any current or future Added Services or Added Consumables. Subscriber shall not be entitled to any prorated refund, or delivery of regularly scheduled Services that Subscriber did not receive as a result of suspension. Operator may charge Subscriber any reasonable costs associated with effectuating, and reinstating, a service suspension, including labor time incurred by Operator.

I wonder if they have to stay connected to the internet to work or if they lock if they cant phone home...
 
Now what if Nvidia were to send you a 80 series card for a $600 a year subscription that upgrades annually to the latest 80 series card( upon return of rented card) with no price increase who would jump on it?
Pros
1. No scalpers or standing in line outside Micro Center or Best Buy for 12 hrs.
2. No counterfeit BS or warranty issues.
3. Stay on top with enthusiast card every year.
4. No waking up at 3 AM dealing with bots when online inventory is restocked.
 
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Nobu said:
A lot of people just toss or give away their old PCs anyway. For them, there would be little difference between this and spending $2000 every two or three years on a new PC. Which they might do because the monitor broke, or they got a virus, or it's really slow "for some reason," or just to play the latest games, etc.

I agree, it's a terrible value for anyone with half a brain. But there are many people who just don't care or couldn't be bothered.
Click to expand...

I think if $2000 was insignificant, most people will still just buy it outright even if they were to throw it away after a year.

The lower tier is also a bad deal at $708, but is still better than the higher end pricing. But that is a very dumb idea if you're lower income. $708 for a lower end PC that you can't keep or re-sell.
 
It's not ”preying" on people. Some people actually want this.

I agree it's financially stupid to rent a PC, but I also think it's stupid to rent a car, a house, and pretty much anything yet there are millions of people doing it. They have their reasons.

Some people can't afford to save up, or just don't want to. They may value being able to play now more than the extra money it costs them in the long run. And some people may only want one for a few months because they're living somewhere temporary. There are plenty of reasons and just because it may be stupid for us doesn't mean it's stupid for everyone.
 
drutman said:
Now what if Nvidia were to send you a 80 series card for a $600 a year subscription that upgrades annually to the latest 80 series card( upon return of rented card) with no price increase who would jump on it?
Pros
1. No scalpers or standing in line outside Micro Center or Best Buy for 12 hrs.
2. No counterfeit BS or warranty issues.
3. Stay on top with enthusiast card every year.
4. No waking up at 3 AM dealing with bots when online inventory is restocked.
Click to expand...
For those of us who want a top tier card when it comes out, sure. I can also think of other ways such as pre ordering.

However, your points are not relevant because these are not top tier cards and there are loads of 4060s, 4070s and 4070 TI's out there.

If this later turns into getting the newest setup before everyone else, ok then I can see a point in it - even if I think it's foolish. This is not what this is.
 
They are out of their minds.

sharknice said:
It's not ”preying" on people. Some people actually want this.
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Nobody wants this. For the price they're charging a month, it should be bleeding edge tech, then it might actually make sense, but it's not ... it's mid.


Johnx64 said:
8. Service Suspension
If Subscriber accrues any unpaid balance for more than fifteen (15) calendar days, or is in material breach of this Agreement, Operator may immediately suspend Services and take all actions necessary to effect such suspension, including, but not limited to: (i) using technological methods to reduce functionality or disable Rental Devices; and (ii) cease delivery of any current or future Added Services or Added Consumables. Subscriber shall not be entitled to any prorated refund, or delivery of regularly scheduled Services that Subscriber did not receive as a result of suspension. Operator may charge Subscriber any reasonable costs associated with effectuating, and reinstating, a service suspension, including labor time incurred by Operator.

I wonder if they have to stay connected to the internet to work or if they lock if they cant phone home...
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What an absolute garbage TOS. So they basically implement a remote kill switch of sorts. Of course, you could totally just wipe and reinstall Windows and remove whatever garbage came with the PC, but that's probably against the TOS as well.
 
This is essentially the (mostly considered predatory) model of "Rent-A-Center" style household appliance or furniture rental where people who can't afford paying outright can get a TV, sofa, fridge, or washer while paying monthly/weekly (plus fees etc) yet they spent more over a year with nothing to show for it. Also whenever these places are audited , they claim OH NO WE ONLY DO THIS FOR PEOPLE WHO JUST NEED A TEMPORARY SOLUTION, but their investor relations showed they get a huge amount of their revenue from penalty fees, partnerships with repo companies, and reveal that most of their customers rent constantly because they can't afford to get out of the hole.

This is even before we get into the issue of how many economic elements of society are set up to profit off continued misery, exploitation within the banking and financial services adjacent industries including being unable able to acquire credit at reasonable rates,, and much more. I don't even want to get into how the supposed protections in the wake of the last Wall Street meltdown led to only consolidaton of banks, and raising rates and fees on personal loans or credit cards for instance, which used to be fixed percentage to now all being adjustable, etc. There's SO much that could be done by restricting predatory business models and also not penalizing credit unions, co-ops, and public banks and other services that are designed for something besides maximal profit , but until we get there we certainly don't need people to be "renting" PCs in this fashion.

As others have pointed out, there should be other ways to make gaming-capable PCs available and hell, there could be more ethical ways to "rent"; I can't see why NZXT would want to be associated with this, its like if they were opening a payday loan(sharking) business, slum management rental, or a check cashing + garbage tier cigarettes and booze shop with bars on the windows.
 
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Is it really any different that places that let you rent furniture?

It has been 15 years since I looked at the numbers, but at the time I met my ex-wife, she was renting furniture at her place, and she could simply have bought the darn furniture with the equivalent of 24 months of renting it.

The way I see it, it's no different at all. Someone who takes a bit of time to look around for good quality used furniture can find it at a pretty cheap price, and actually own it instead of renting.

The same holds true for computers. Someone could even come onto this forum, and buy one of the used PC's being sold at the For Sale / For Trade forum, and pay a heck of a lot less than renting the system for a year.
 
I don't see how the logistics are going to work. How is average joe that can't even save enough money to buy a pc going to safely ship a somewhat delicate machine back to rent out again? How many people are going to get it then try to be sneaky and swap working parts for their busted ones then return it? I'm sure components will be marked and serial numbered and all that but it's still going to take many man hours to deal with all that. No thanks. I'll be surprised if this is still running in any sort of large capacity for super long.
 
I have a friend who only plays souls game when it comes out. Rest of the times he uses a phone to do his internet stuff. Might work for people like that, ppl who only go back to gaming for very specific titles, like gta and elder scrolls.
 
drutman said:
Now what if Nvidia were to send you a 80 series card for a $600 a year subscription that upgrades annually to the latest 80 series card( upon return of rented card) with no price increase who would jump on it?
Pros
1. No scalpers or standing in line outside Micro Center or Best Buy for 12 hrs.
2. No counterfeit BS or warranty issues.
3. Stay on top with enthusiast card every year.
4. No waking up at 3 AM dealing with bots when online inventory is restocked.
Click to expand...
...where's the fun in that??
 
drutman said:
Now what if Nvidia were to send you a 80 series card for a $600 a year subscription that upgrades annually to the latest 80 series card( upon return of rented card) with no price increase who would jump on it?
Pros
1. No scalpers or standing in line outside Micro Center or Best Buy for 12 hrs.
2. No counterfeit BS or warranty issues.
3. Stay on top with enthusiast card every year.
4. No waking up at 3 AM dealing with bots when online inventory is restocked.
Click to expand...
Nah... a. I am well over 50 now (Jesus..how did that happen?) and I am busy and don't game nearly as much. b. I have been rocking a $500 3070FE for the last 2~yrs and probably will for another year (at least... or until the RX580 in my wife's computer eats ****). I'm not looking to spend $600 a year on graphics cards for this hobby at this point, when I must move on from my 3070 I will be decidedly shopping in the $500~ range with plans to run it for 3x years at least.
infojunkie said:
I have a friend who only plays souls game when it comes out. Rest of the times he uses a phone to do his internet stuff. Might work for people like that, ppl who only go back to gaming for very specific titles, like gta and elder scrolls.
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I am sure there are some edge cases that this might (depending on other hidden fees / charges ..etc?) this could make sense for. But overwhelmingly this is ever bit as scummy and predatory as a couch from rent-a-center or whatever.

It is too bad because at one point my view of NZXT was fairly positive but a few things: how they handled the H1 Riser fire hazard initially, until GN got into it and they had to do a 2nd fix, and now this .... has put me off the brand honestly.. of course the problems is many brands have been acting like "right c*nts" recently, so not really sure where to go from here.
 
drutman said:
Now what if Nvidia were to send you a 80 series card for a $600 a year subscription that upgrades annually to the latest 80 series card( upon return of rented card) with no price increase who would jump on it?
Pros
1. No scalpers or standing in line outside Micro Center or Best Buy for 12 hrs.
2. No counterfeit BS or warranty issues.
3. Stay on top with enthusiast card every year.
4. No waking up at 3 AM dealing with bots when online inventory is restocked.
Click to expand...

Sure that would be a good deal. Roughly same cost as a **70 card, but you get an **80 card. You get upgrades as long as the subscription is kept. The problem with that is they would make less money, so they would not do that. $1200 for possibly two $900-1000+ GPUs? No, they won't do that.
 
But Ngreedia will corner the gamer market if they hook you on a subscription service. My 3080 three yrs in is still like new on 1440p. I have no desire to go 4K except for TV.

AMD is losing out on GPU race and Intel has too many products out and has gotten complacent.

Intel should be laying of the complacent and aggressively hiring new innovative chip engineers. Scaling down is going to bite them in the rear.
 
GoldenTiger said:
It's a huge benefit in image clarity and detail.
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Depend on people eye, side by side 27-inch monitor very close to me, running the same game on both at the same time the difference between the 1440p monitor and the 4k one is very hard to tell, text is it obvious, but video and games... not to me.

It could be an interesting deal, if you time your refresh to be in the first month of the gpu cycle and you are the type to get the new hard to buy ones (and do not like to deal with selling used part and so on), but the price point is just way too high for the low and mid one, 2 years cost more than buying it fully clean...

and just imagine if you would have been on the 3060 and got a 4060 upgrade.... all that for nothing, not sure worth the time used to ship it back, clean the disk and resetup yourself....
 
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And I have a secured, storm proof, 24-room, uber-lux beachfront house that I can rent to you for the amazingly low, low price of $1.376M...per hour, no long term contract required, beyond the 1st 22.98 years, that is...

And it includes uber-mega-quad-OC'd, super-duper, ultra fast dial-up internet too !
:)

ps...it's in beautiful, historic, and romantic central Idaho !
 
This is no different than places where you pay $10 a day to play video games. Aka internet cafes/netbars.
They exist, and people do use them.
Although some people who already have computers go to these places just to hook up and make other potential friends.
Just like the arcades of the old days.

If you look at how much the cost is of going to these places multiple times a month, if you intended to game often, "renting" a PC is cheaper. But learning how to build one yourself (or hell, buying a prebuilt something) is the cheapest and best (but again the most up front cost).
But when you put this in perspective, there IS a market for this. It doesn't matter if it means that WE are not the market. Just like hardcore overclockers are a SMALL majority of DIY builders...
 
Falkentyne said:
This is no different than places where you pay $10 a day to play video games. Aka internet cafes/netbars.
Click to expand...
For those internet-broadband, the video game if they are not free to play are part of the price and the kids that can come up with $10 from time to time but not pay for broadband + pc and pirates or buys games (or would have someone stole and sells their computers if they leave it home), seem a more obvious business than someone with a credit card able to pay $50-1xx a months in rental but could not buy the computer at best buy-amazon on their "low interest" payment plans they offer (sometime at really interesting rate to be honest).

There would be a price point that the computer refresh every 2 years would be interesting and it could even be paying like 90% of the price of the computers over just 2 years, to not go over any trouble, have an always full warranty computer swap at any problem, get new gpu when they are hard to gets, but the current price point when you seem to pay the full price of the computer in the first 12-14 months, pay an extra 10-12 months on it... that using pre-build PC price, not DIY (the difference is not big, it is a quite low margin business)
 
They might have more business and better customers if they increase the upfront cost a bit and reduce the monthly cost. Like, say $200-400 for delivery, and then $10-20/month after.

This will keep some people looking to take advantage of them (through theft, fraud, etc) away, and provide immediate profits for the company, while also reducing the monthly burden on the customers.
 
GoldenTiger said:
It's a huge benefit in image clarity and detail. I went 4k back in 2014, and 2560 in 2008. Yes, it costs more for gpus to keep up with, but dang... :D.
Click to expand...
My eyes are getting old for 4K monitors now my 77 inch Samsung OLED is fine.
 
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