New Video Claims NZXT PC Rental Program Is "A Scam," Company Says It's Looking Into It

A new report alleges that PC hardware company NZXT's PC rental program is "shady and manipulative." The video from Gamers Nexus (via The Verge) accuses NZXT of changing prices and parts between "purchase" and "rental" versions of prebuilt PCs with the same (or similar) names.

For context, NZXT's Flex program allows customers to rent prebuilt gaming PCs starting at $59 (though a renter would need to provide a monitor, keyboard, and mouse). Gamers Nexus claims that specs and prices of prebuilt PC models change depending on whether you select "buy" or "rent." The exact prices and specs can change "day to day" according to the video.

For example, the video shows that a "Player: Three Prime" model PC contained an Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 if a customer was set to buy it, whereas the rental version contained an RTX 4080 Super. However, the performance estimates--showing expected frame rates in certain games--did not change between the two models, despite containing significantly different hardware. These specs allegedly changed multiple times while Gamers Nexus was completing its report.