While you’d all be aware that celebrities, despite their wealth, are given expensive shit for free all the time, today we’re going to take a look at one gift in particular. Partly because it’s a gaming PC, but also because we kinda have the receipt for it as well.
Esports guy Jake Lucky tweeted this out earlier today, and it certainly provoked a reaction:
Recently Twitch streamer Xposed gifted Drake a brand new PC from @Brparadox 👀
After taxes and fees it’s nearly an $8,000 build pic.twitter.com/H8fbJOk4ex
— Jake Lucky (@JakeSucky) July 13, 2022
Responses in the replies generally ranged from “it looks like shit” to “that’s massively overpriced” to “lmao all that just to gamble” (more on that soon). That first sentiment might be a bit much. I think this looks great! It’s a gaming PC, what do you expect, and the white lighting in these photos is an infinitely classier look than the electronic clown car aesthetic you often see on these kind of systems. I’m particularly fond of the lighting around the fans, it’s a very “starship corridor” look.
As for the price, well, there are some caveats here. The PC — which was put together by Paradox Customs — was actually bought for Drake as a gift by streamer Xposed (Paradox tells Kotaku they “hashed out” the component selection together), and in the time between the order first being placed and the PC actually arriving the market for a lot of expensive PC parts crashed for some reason. Throw in some Canadian taxes Xposed had to pay and Paradox say the actual cost in July 2022 is somewhere closer to $US6500 ($AU9,632). Which, you know, is still ridiculously expensive for a PC, but it’s also not $US8000 ($AU11,855).
How do we know that? Paradox tweeted this earlier today, which handily also gives us a chance to take a look at the kind of specs you can expect to see in a PC that cost more than my last three desktops combined.
Drake’s PC being $8,000 isn’t entirely true, nor should it be hated on. The prices on a lot of parts have gone down since Xposed first paid too. This is the current breakdown of the specs: pic.twitter.com/YdFlO0uimO
— Paradox Customs (@Brparadox) July 13, 2022
As for who paid for the system and why, Xposed actually picked out this exact system for himself, then says he ordered a second for Drake because he had helped the rapper out with an earlier PC, but at the time had to skimp and get him a “prebuilt from Best Buy because it was short notice”:
It isn’t about the money or Drake already having money, see a lot of hate. I was in the market for a PC so I decided to get Drake a custom PC too with it because when I got asked to setup his stream the first time I got him a prebuilt from Best Buy because It was short notice. https://t.co/XyDzrUlIQO
— Xposed (@Xposed) July 13, 2022
In December 2021, Xposed signed a partnership deal with Stake, an online gambling site which Drake just happens to be continually streaming and promoting at the same time, and who shared this new PCs arrival on their socials.
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