I may have missed the boat on hardware prices, but I will have to go for a new PC some time anyway.
I don't do too much tweaking on my system so I can just use standard installs. I don't even have a use for VMs. There's stuff I want to play with, but I lack the time.
I'm not sure if you're aware of the whole AI/Data-Center bubble that's happening. THey're building them everywhere, and it's so bad that the companies that manufacture chips for RAM aren't even really worried about supplying retail demand anymore.
But what's even worse is that companies like Open-AI have future-orders places where money hasn't even been exchanged, but rather it's a "promise to pay" for future massive orders.
Lots of screwy things happening right now with the tech companies, the US govt, and the fabs that manufacture this stuff.
This happened during Covid too, and particularly with the GPU's for mining crypto-currency etc.
In my case, I rely on VM's to test out distros/operating systems for recording my videos, but also I maintain a VM that hosts all my servers and containers.
It does seem to be a boom time for the hardware makers and I wonder if it can last. I may just have to bite the bullet and buy what I can afford.