.. on what planet was he being snide? He was honestly asking why, if bare SSDs are dropping so fast, that adding an SSD to a pre-built increases the price so much. Its a legit question. To which the answer is basically "because they can". The average consumer (people who buy pre-built machines) still has the idea that SSDs are expensive, so they can get away with it. The average consumer has no way to be aware of the fact that SSD prices have plummeted.
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So, buy an nVidia Shield TV and use your computer on the couch via SteamLink (or get aa Steam Link; im sure there are still plenty out there on the used market).
While the ShieldTV would be more expensive, its also a lot more versatile, being that it is an Android TV device and a Google Home (and a great HTPC substitute, able to stream video flawlessly across the network from any repositories you have).
You'd be out considerably less money for considerably more performance, even WITH factoring in buying a Shield TV and an extra set of (wireless) peripherals for it.
And, if for some reason you need a portable machine to do work on, unless you're doing some high-power work (which i dont see as likely given that the machine you're replacing is 10 years old) - get a Chromebook for portable use. You'd STILL be under the cost of a high end gaming laptop. And if you needed horsepower on the road, you could use Chrome Remote Desktop to simply use your home machine wherever you are on the Chromebook.
Unless you absolutely, 100%, MUST have high-end horsepower available NATIVELY (I.E. cant rely on an internet connection to simply RDP into your home machine) while AWAY FROM HOME (as in-home, streaming across the network will work 100%), a high end gaming laptop is just a bad choice.