New Pc Build. What are good online stores?

custard80

I'm going to build a new pc in the next couple of weeks. Iv'e been looking around for good online stores. Overclockers seem very competitive. Any other suggestions?

apintofstella

Aria.co.uk
CCLonline.com
CPUCitystore.co.uk
Dabs.com
eBuyer.com
Eclipsecomputers.com
Komplett.co.uk
Kotech.co.uk
MicroDirect.co.uk
Novatech.co.uk
Overclockers.co.uk
PlanetMicro.co.uk
RLSupplies.co.uk
Savastore.com
Scan.co.uk
Silicon-group.co.uk
misco.co.uk
Tekheads.co.uk
Overclock.co.uk

greyster

nice list.

I use ebuyer and komplett. ebuyer for 95% of stuff but komplett sometimes kick !!!!!! on memory and harddisks.

pks00

I tend to use eBuyer.co.uk for most things. 3 reasons - 1) Good Prices, 2) Decent Variety and Reviews by other customers, 3) Good return policy

Always worth comparing prices, u can also look at something like pricerunner to compare other prices

jdcampbell

custard80 wrote:

I'm going to build a new pc in the next couple of weeks. Iv'e been looking around for good online stores. Overclockers seem very competitive. Any other suggestions?

Why do you intend to build one yourself? Do you have a very specific spec you are looking for?

In my experience (which does not include very high end PCs) you cannot build a PC for the same price that Dell will sell you a ready built one for. I guess however it depends if your requirements are quite specialised.

(see https://www.cheapestdellprices.co.uk for current best deals on Dell).

I buy bits from eBuyer because they seem to have very good prices. Their returns process, whilst fair, is massively time consuming though.

wolfman

jdcampbell wrote:

In my experience (which does not include very high end PCs) you cannot build a PC for the same price that Dell will sell you a ready built one for.

True, the more you spend the better it works out with a custom build. The main reason these days is that a custom build will generally be of much higher quality as you should be selecting the best components available for your money. I find anything below £400 (for a base unit), get a Dell (or equivalent). If you've got a little more to spend though a custom build is worth looking into.

Overclockers are ok, bit pricey on a lot of stuff. Very specialist though which is handy for those hard to find components. I always use https://www.microdirect.co.uk.

Nomee

jdcampbell wrote:

Why do you intend to build one yourself? Do you have a very specific spec you are looking for?

In my experience (which does not include very high end PCs) you cannot build a PC for the same price that Dell will sell you a ready built one for. I guess however it depends if your requirements are quite specialised.

(see https://www.cheapestdellprices.co.uk for current best deals on Dell).

I buy bits from eBuyer because they seem to have very good prices. Their returns process, whilst fair, is massively time consuming though.

I recently made a PC with following configuration and used two shops.

https://www.ebuyer.co.uk

Mouse+keyboard [wireless] under £10
DVD-RW and CD-ROM [boht under £30]
Floppy Drive [£5]
Speakers [£30]


https://www.microdirect.co.uk
Motherboard - Socket 939 Gigabyte
Processor - AMD 3700+
RAM - 1GB [single chip]
Hard Drive [250 GB] - 2nd hand from a friend
Graphics Card - X1300 512 MB Radeon Saphire

This whole computer cost me less than £550 with shipping
I doubt if Dell can ever match the price and performance because offers on Dell seem to be compromising on either memory or diskspace. Then adding stuff to a dell PC might become troublesome as they do not give u all the extra cables and screws.

I recommend ebuyer for small components. I would go to a store and buy motherboard and processor to make it easy for exchanges if needed.

Also do remember to buy a good fan and nice casing with good power supply. Maybe you are lookin for something fancy but remember at the end you dont want your pc to disturb you. Choose motherboard and processor first. Then choose RAM and graphics card. Then choose casing and fan. Then go for extra stuff.

Another thing is buy a motherboard with PCI express because most of PCI express board are cheaper and most of new graphics cards are PCI express. Nvidia is expensive than ATI Radeon. I would suggest to buy Radeon Card. If you dont use too much PCI card stuff then buy a motherboard with less PCI slots they are cheaper and give more space for cooling.

Some of the motherboards have only two IDE slots so keep in mind how many IDE drives you can attach to the board you have chosen. Buy according to capacity.

I just checked Komplett is expensive in hard disk and memory than microdirect maybe but prices are competitive. Save the delivery charges by either buying at store or try to buy all the stuff in one go especially if you are going to buy from ebuyer.


Sorry for messing up all my post but its too late and I am feeling sleepy.

Little_John

Nomee wrote:

This whole computer cost me less than £550 with shipping
I doubt if Dell can ever match the price and performance because offers on Dell seem to be compromising on either memory or diskspace. Then adding stuff to a dell PC might become troublesome as they do not give u all the extra cables and screws.

I recommend ebuyer for small components. I would go to a store and buy motherboard and processor to make it easy for exchanges if needed.

Also do remember to buy a good fan and nice casing with good power supply. Maybe you are lookin for something fancy but remember at the end you dont want your pc to disturb you. Choose motherboard and processor first. Then choose RAM and graphics card. Then choose casing and fan. Then go for extra stuff.

Another thing is buy a motherboard with PCI express because most of PCI express board are cheaper and most of new graphics cards are PCI express. Nvidia is expensive than ATI Radeon. I would suggest to buy Radeon Card. If you dont use too much PCI card stuff then buy a motherboard with less PCI slots they are cheaper and give more space for cooling.

Some of the motherboards have only two IDE slots so keep in mind how many IDE drives you can attach to the board you have chosen. Buy according to capacity.

Your right you will not get an AMD based machine from Dell, They only sell Intel machines as for cables and screws the later Dell machines are pretty much screwless, they also provide the correct number of screws for fitting of any drives you may add. Cables are also included and inplace using their securing method so the end of the cable is in the area it would be needed. they even come with a floppy cable if you dont order a floppy drive.

Motherboards have really only ever had 2 IDE slots, the boards that had built in raid controlers would usually have an extra 2 maybe 4 ports. you shouldt even be considering the number if IDE ports now unless your building a pc where you need 5 or more optical drives and hard disks you buy should be SATA or SATA2 amd most boards come with 4 ports whihc funilly enough still only allows 4 drives to be used. The raid boards do come with more.

Video cards, if you but the latest ATI card it will be a similar price to the latest Nvidia card this pricing go through the complete range the equvilent card is an equivilent price, everyone has thier preference over which card to buy, read everyones coments and make your own desision.

The higher priced dells are reasonably good home user and office PC's. If you are looking for a gaming machine spend the money on a decent graphics card, the more you spend in the first place the longer you will be able to play the latest games with it. A custom PC is the only way to go if that is what your looking for, you can select your CPU intel or AMD memory you can buy the budget ram or go for the higher speed branded memory in a matched pair, western digital raptor hard drives rather than the slower SATA drives or poor reliabilty drives like IBM (even I have 2 IBM drives) or the noisy Maxtor drives. If your building a cusom build you have so many options you should be looking at buying something better than anything you can buy in the shops. you will be unlikley to get a cheap pc but you will save a fortune on the prices that are charged at ailienware and other high spec custom pc builders.

custard80

Thanks for your replies. Plenty of shops to look around there. I did look at dell but there seem to be to many compromises on what i'm looking for. If you want a decent graphics card that just sends the price rocketting. I've worked out i can get a much better pc for my money if i build it.
I have built before but not for about 4 years so sata will be new to me.
Looking at an Amd 3700, 2gb ram , 250 gb hd, and a X1800xt g/c at the moment. Along with a case and m/b it seems to be coming in at about £700. Ive got a dvd writer and a dvd ram.
Still not sure on the case, i want something that dosent make a racket but i dont want to spend a fortune on something that sits on the floor! Also will 400w be enough power?
Cheers.

nickmack

custard80 wrote:

Thanks for your replies. Plenty of shops to look around there. I did look at dell but there seem to be to many compromises on what i'm looking for. If you want a decent graphics card that just sends the price rocketting. I've worked out i can get a much better pc for my money if i build it.

You've hit the nail on the head with Dell. They're often competitive with deals but if you want to add extras they fleece you.

Still not sure on the case, i want something that dosent make a racket but i dont want to spend a fortune on something that sits on the floor! Also will 400w be enough power?

I would say that 400W should be the minimum you should be looking at. Better still get 500/550W. Make sure it's a decent PSU with a solid 12v rail providing at least +12V@26A.