Computer Parts - Best Vendor

[Chatwiththisname]

Anyone have a preference for online vendors when it comes to computer hardware.

I used to use tigerdirect.com However, I hadn't used them since 2011 when I decided to buy more memory for this poor excuse of a computer. I ordered an item that showed in stock, check the status of my order two days later and find that the order was "all backordered" I then called and canceled that order and changed it to some memory that was slightly more expensive (yet still showing the same exact specs, by a different manufacturer) in hopes of getting it in a timely manner. Instead, having ordered it on the 6th originally, canceled and reordered on the 8th (friday) I get an email at 12:32am tuesday (today) that my order was just then being shipped and I shouldn't expect to get it until the 19th. Which mind you is an entire week from now and right at 2 weeks from the initial order attempt.

So to be quite honest I've decided to send my business to another company, and what better way to choose one than to get advice from others whom have had good experiences with a specific company. My ears are open

PS. Why is Chrome memory hungry lol. /wirus?

 

[dewey2461]

I've used newegg and amazon for most of my computer parts.

Pick parts. Build your PC. Compare and share. - PCPartPicker is a fun site to look around at different options/combinations.

 

[aspire2008]

Use jet.com for your first 3 orders for the discount (can't remember how much it was but it was significant).


Then I use newegg, microcenter or Frys in that order and lastly amazon or bestbuy.


As dewey2461 said, PCParticPicker is a decent site, I subscribe to the weekly email, and you can mark w/e part you are looking for and it will show you lowest price some of the time, not always. The nice thing about the site is to see the price trend on the item, to figure out what price point you would buy at, thats the advantage of the site rather then looking for cheapest option there.


I'm still suffering buyer's remorse for not buying the 6850k at $299

Warm: Micro Center Only i7-6850K for $299 In-Store Only | [H]ard|Forum
I find slickdeals or hardocp is usually better to keep up with to see deals.

 

[Chatwiththisname]

Well I might build myself a decent system in the near future. My financial aid got approved. No idea why I never filed for it. Thanks to the Hazelwood Act tuition waiver I am getting about 5k in my pocket from it so I can build a decent system instead of fighting this hunk of junk. Will make programming significantly easier. Especially with Android Studio which is a resource hog compared to other IDE's it seems. So while the RAM was needed for this system, I may be getting myself a threadripper system.

Only time will tell.

 

[dewey2461]

I have a local Microcenter and if I need something same day, I'll use them. Make sure you read the return policy for which every place you choose. I built a nice high end i7 with an $250 ASUS MB that worked fine with two sticks of ram, but not four. Ended up costing me an extra $20 in return fee's.

There are plenty of folks here who like to build machines so if you want any advice just ask. Just be sure to lay out what your usage and price points are.

 

[aspire2008]

Black Friday is only about 8 weeks out, may want to wait till then to build.

Also, prices on 6th/7th gen intels will be dropping these next couple of months as 8th gen is about to hit the stores this fall.

 

[William12]

microcenter. Otherwise newegg.

 

[Zero0003]

Yeah I mostly head towards newegg only because I dont have a microcenter near me.

 

[devestator]

Unless you really need something right now, I'd avoid building a new system until the 8th gen chips release. Or if you are going to go with an AMD Ryzen processor of course, then the 8th gens don't matter. I personally still much prefer Intel over AMD even with Ryzen, Intel still has more efficient chips that don't produce as much heat. And the 8th gens are benchmarking showing up to 30% even 40% in some cases of performance improvements over the 7th gens (mostly in multi core processing which is to be expected when going from a quad to a hexacore). But even in single threaded performance they are showing fairly good improvements.

Anyway, as to the store. I used to use Newegg almost exclusively for computer parts, and I still do shop there occasionally but I recently had a terrible ordeal with Newegg that reminds me why Amazon makes online shopping so much easier these days. I ordered a new video card from Newegg and the package never showed up. Newegg made me file a police report, and wait 10 business days for FedEx to do an investigation before they would refund me. Stupid to make me file a police report for a package that may or may not have been stolen, and can never be proven or recovered if so since I don't have security cameras at my house. Also stupid to make me wait for FedEx's inevitable "we couldn't confirm delivery of the package"... As if either case would change the outcome of I didn't have the package and wasn't going to be held responsible for paying for it, so why make me wait? lol I started to just dispute the charge with my bank but I decided to be nice and wait for them to refund me.

I had a package go missing one other time in the past year, from Amazon. Amazon processed a refund within 15 minutes of my initial contact with them because they didn't have some of the items in the package in stock to just resend them. Amazon just has far superior customer service these days over other online companies.

That said, sometimes you just can't find what you want on Amazon, so you'll have to risk one of the other sites. If everything goes smoothly and you don't need customer service, then it probably wouldn't really matter where you get the parts from

 

[Chatwiththisname]

That said, sometimes you just can't find what you want on Amazon, so you'll have to risk one of the other sites. If everything goes smoothly and you don't need customer service, then it probably wouldn't really matter where you get the parts from

Half my problem is the system I'm running on currently is not panning out with my programming IDE's. More specifically Android Studio is a resource hog compared to VS or Eclipse. If this memory ever actually arrives (still haven't got it) and it sorts out the majority of my wait times then I might not be in as big a hurry. But I have preferred the AMD systems in the past because they've been cheaper to build.

After reviewing Threadripper CPU's it appears that due to the high wattage they run on that it is only water cooled. While I don't mind building a water cooled system it's more BS than I want to deal with. I'll likely get a lower end Ryzen CPU. That's assuming I build one at all. There's some good looking VR ready laptops on Amazon that I'm currently in the process of considering.

Thanks for the input about NewEgg's policy regarding missing packages. Sounds like a pain in the ass. I live half a mile from my mailbox on a private road, missing packages is certainly a possibility. Also, not something I want to have to go through.

 

[Chatwiththisname]

First and foremost, the memory finally arrived. It sorted out my issue with my IDE's. However, my financial aid arrived too. While I didn't go building a threadripper system, I opted for a laptop. I must say I feel like in respects to laptops this is a great system for the price.

 

[dewey2461]

Only thing I don't like about the specs is the size of the SSD. Shouldn't be hard to upgrade to a bigger one if you find 256 GB too small.

I found 256 to be a tad small and SSD's like to have free space for clean up.

 

[Chatwiththisname]

Only thing I don't like about the specs is the size of the SSD. Shouldn't be hard to upgrade to a bigger one if you find 256 GB too small.

I found 256 to be a tad small and SSD's like to have free space for clean up.

I added a 2tb Hybrid Drive to my order, just wasn't pictured

 

[devestator]

First and foremost, the memory finally arrived. It sorted out my issue with my IDE's. However, my financial aid arrived too. While I didn't go building a threadripper system, I opted for a laptop. I must say I feel like in respects to laptops this is a great system for the price.

Only thing I don't like about the specs is the size of the SSD. Shouldn't be hard to upgrade to a bigger one if you find 256 GB too small.

I found 256 to be a tad small and SSD's like to have free space for clean up.

I added a 2tb Hybrid Drive to my order, just wasn't pictured

If you plan to use the hybrid drive for a second drive that might not be too bad, but personally I don't like hybrid drives. I'd rather just get a 500 to 1tb SSD, plus a 2 or 3tb 7200 rpm for storage.

Also, the 256 GB sata included with that laptop is a m.2 sata drive. That is not a standard 2.5" sata drive if you were not aware. It is a pci-express based sata drive.

The m.2 port in that laptop is also capable of nvme which is something you'd very much want if you are going for optimal performance. m.2 nvme ssd drives are blazing fast. Example:

Amazon.com: Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E250BW): Computers & Accessories

3200 MB/s read, 1500 MB/s write. The standard m.2 sata that comes with it is probably going to be closer to 500 MB/s on both. And a hybrid drive will probably be more like 200 to 300 MB/s depending on if what you are accessing is cached in the SSD portion or not.

I think that laptop actually has 2 x 2.5" bays plus the m.2 port. So you might could even do an NVME + 2 regular 2.5" satas for storage. But you'd want to confirm it has the 2nd 2.5" bay and that the m.2 slot isn't in the way of one of the bays if it does.

All that said, it is a descent laptop for the price. It is one of the ones I was considering recently when I was thinking about getting a gaming laptop. I ended up not getting one because I simply wouldn't get enough use out of a gaming laptop to warrant it, but that is why I was considering lower priced units when I was looking hehe. I have tested the Occulus on a GTX 1060 laptop before and it ran smoother than the rift did on my desktop with a GTX 970. The only problem with laptops is heat build up.

 

[Chatwiththisname]

First and foremost, the memory finally arrived. It sorted out my issue with my IDE's. However, my financial aid arrived too. While I didn't go building a threadripper system, I opted for a laptop. I must say I feel like in respects to laptops this is a great system for the price.

Only thing I don't like about the specs is the size of the SSD. Shouldn't be hard to upgrade to a bigger one if you find 256 GB too small.

I found 256 to be a tad small and SSD's like to have free space for clean up.

I added a 2tb Hybrid Drive to my order, just wasn't pictured

If you plan to use the hybrid drive for a second drive that might not be too bad, but personally I don't like hybrid drives. I'd rather just get a 500 to 1tb SSD, plus a 2 or 3tb 7200 rpm for storage.

Also, the 256 GB sata included with that laptop is a m.2 sata drive. That is not a standard 2.5" sata drive if you were not aware. It is a pci-express based sata drive.

The m.2 port in that laptop is also capable of nvme which is something you'd very much want if you are going for optimal performance. m.2 nvme ssd drives are blazing fast. Example:

Amazon.com: Samsung 960 EVO Series - 250GB PCIe NVMe - M.2 Internal SSD (MZ-V6E250BW): Computers & Accessories

3200 MB/s read, 1500 MB/s write. The standard m.2 sata that comes with it is probably going to be closer to 500 MB/s on both. And a hybrid drive will probably be more like 200 to 300 MB/s depending on if what you are accessing is cached in the SSD portion or not.

I think that laptop actually has 2 x 2.5" bays plus the m.2 port. So you might could even do an NVME + 2 regular 2.5" satas for storage. But you'd want to confirm it has the 2nd 2.5" bay and that the m.2 slot isn't in the way of one of the bays if it does.

All that said, it is a descent laptop for the price. It is one of the ones I was considering recently when I was thinking about getting a gaming laptop. I ended up not getting one because I simply wouldn't get enough use out of a gaming laptop to warrant it, but that is why I was considering lower priced units when I was looking hehe. I have tested the Occulus on a GTX 1060 laptop before and it ran smoother than the rift did on my desktop with a GTX 970. The only problem with laptops is heat build up.

The heat build-up is already expected. I have a retired Alienware 17 that was a heat whore. Thus, I already have most of the necessities for keeping this one cool.

I am aware of m.2 and I'm waiting until it's arrival for another drive purchase. Though I'm unlikely to need it. While I am trying to get as much power as I can out of it, I've never personally used either an SSD or a Hybrid drive. So it's unlikely I'll be disappointed.

Naturally I'll immediately dig into what can be expanded after the system arrives as opposed to paying the hefty premium of purchasing it already installed by the manufacturer.

I look forward to providing a review for you Dev. perhaps it's worth the price and you just don't know it yet. So far, price wise on laptops it is the best deal I've found, and the compromises on cost weren't in the form of the video card, which is one of the more annoying components to replace. The processor seems to be in line with my expectations as well, another nuisance part to upgrade. Leaving me with expansion of the memory and the storage as my only real concerns as the small screen should -hopefully- prove to be irrelevant with the use of the Oculus and BigScreen VR - which is free software. If not, there is always my TV.

As for the 970 vs 1060 I've included a screenshot. The 1060 showed as having better performance, I'm just hoping it's accurate. I'm only showing Laptop video cards.

After getting new tires for my truck, paying the last 1k I owed on my land, purchasing the VR and Laptop my funds are low this time around, but I expect to get this again at the beginning of the year and I just got a tenant for my rent house that moves in the 1st. So it's unlikely I'll be waiting very long before I get a desktop companion for this laptop and/or upgrade the laptop.

 

[aspire2008]

Benchmark leaks for the 8700k look promising. Looks like its going to be better than the older 6 core cpu's. Unfortunately, the price of the 8700k is about about $60 more than the 7700k, but price per core is still better, since you get 6 cores now instead of 4.

Prices of Intel’s Coffee Lake-S CPUs Published: $400 for Core i7-8700K?

 

[EQDAB]

Research, Select & Estimate = PCPartPicker .. FTW

Will always love Microcenter. But .. PCPartPicker is the sshitt! Now Newegg is getting most of my business in recent years. They almost always have the goods, if not the cheapest, usually a fair price - and stocked. I do miss walking around Microcenter though. Touch that, examine it closely, discover the new item! But had money to spend those days.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Between Newegg and Amazon I get everything I need. Both websites have changed dramatically in services and stocked inventory over the years, but at the heart of things, they deliver everything you'd need for a complete build.

 

[aspire2008]

Will always love Microcenter. But .. PCPartPicker is the sshitt! Now Newegg is getting most of my business in recent years. They almost always have the goods, if not the cheapest, usually a fair price - and stocked. I do miss walking around Microcenter though. Touch that, examine it closely, discover the new item! But had money to spend those days.

Problem with Microcenter/Fry's is you need to factor in tax and gas, as well as time. Unless you live really close to a Microcenter, but then tax is still a issue. I find that the Microcenter prices after taxes are like $0 to$5 less than neweggs prices most of the time on cpu's, and almost all other items as well.


The combo cpu/mobo deals are pretty good though, but the problem with that is the choice of mobos are crappy 70% of the time.

 

[imgregrice]

I'll just throw another plugin for newegg