Let’s see if I have this about right. You ordered a bunch of parts and a case. You got some tools and took some time installing everything and plugging it together. Then you installed Windows, installed all the drivers, and checked that everything is working as expected.
Then you installed AV, etc., until it was at a base level you liked. You got it on the network, downloaded and installed the updates.
Then you rebooted and played with the timings until you got your desired overclock, went into Windows and made sure everything was still stable.
Do I have that somewhat right?
After I got my iMac out of the box, I plugged in the power cable, plugged the keyboard into the iMac, plugged the mouse into the keyboard. I turned it on, put in my username and password. My wireless doesn’t broadcast SSID or do DHCP, so I went to the network preferences, typed in the SSID and a password, gave it an IP and I was online (notice nothing about selecting encryption standard or MTU, that was automatic). It would have been “Pick a network and type a password” if I broadcast SSID and used DHCP.
It was less than five minutes between it being out of the box and me happily using my computer.
Now do you see the difference?
I have also flawlessly done an in-place upgrade of the OS twice since then. You never do that with Windows.
The difference is freedom. Do it my way. Whatever quality components I want. Screaming fast. Kicks major Apple butt. Doesn’t look gay. Worth the effort. See the difference? Plus, I don’t sit around all night advertising for Apple on FR’s dime, which is all certain people use their overpriced Corsair slow ass ram for. And for the record, those people that feel the need to allude to being professionals, on the internet, usually aren’t.