[MrScruff]

home built PC market is probably larger than the entire Mac market. I don't have any figures to back this up but based on Windows' market share and my experience, 20% of PC's I've seen over the years are home built.

As (presumably) a home PC builder, 20% of the PC's you seen over the being home built doesn't imply much about the rest of the world...

The reason why there isn't much overlap is that workstations are often used in a professional setting by designers, where spending $3000 on a computer isn't considered a great deal. Home built PCs are rarer in this context.

[csmuk]

Actually I use a ThinkPad and an HP Z820.

I work in financial services sector and we serve desktop and web apps. Bar large businesses, we see a LOT of home built and OEM PCs.

I was involved in the family business OEM sector for the best part of 20 years as well from a hardware perspective. There are two types of professional: careless and obsessive. The latter build their own. The distribution I saw was about 40% OEM/home built to 60% big manufacturer.

[MrScruff]

Do you have any non-anecdotal numbers? I had a quick search and couldn't find any.

I wouldn't class a professional who builds her own PC as obsessive, I would just classify her as someone for whom the time/money divide is biased towards available time. When I used to home build in the 90s I was in the same bracket. Nowadays it would make no more sense to me than doing my own plumbing.