Cheapest but best place to buy custom computers?

vyle

I think it's time to upgrade my PC, and I'm going to replace everything. I last bought one about four years ago and the company I ordered from did make some mistakes (forgetting to wire in the USBs for one thing).

This time, I want to order from the best place I can (NOT DELL) at the best price I can. Does anybody have any suggestions?

I want to order a PC of my own specification. I know it'd be cheaper to build it all myself, but I'd rather pay a little extra to get a working PC, then spend a lot and accidentally break an important component.

gonzo127

one that i have heard good things about is cyberpower systems have not used them myself but their systems have quite good customisation

james123

a friend has used ginger6.co.uk before, he speaks highly of them, he did have a fault on his psu after 14months but they still replaced.

mrscruffy

Why don't you just take your existing PC into a local repair shop and ask them to install an new processor and motherboard, reusing your old components where possible?

You might even be able to purchase from the internet (or even 2nd components from fleaBay) and get them to build it for you.

bob_man_uk

you could try your local IT shop, they can usually walk you through building a pc from scratch based on what you want, make suggestions etc based on their knowledge and what you might want to do further down the line.... other than that, an online shop that comes highly recommended to me is http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/ ive known people to get both laptops and desktops built to spec, never a problem, never any delays and reasonably priced vs the likes of the big pc manufacturers.

I would prefer the shop route personally, you get the personal touch, if you have any questions you can get them answered there and then, saving a lot of head scratching

vyle

Thanks peeps.

The reason I'm not going to bother using my existing components is because my mobo is too old to handle any new components, my graphics card is rubbish, my case doesn't have enough slots for the number of USBs I want, my DVD writer is slow.....

so I'd need new everything except RAM, but I'veonly got 3 and I want 12.

but by cheapest and best, I meant, I don't want THE cheapest, but what is the best seller for the best price. I.e. might be a rubbish place who charges £500, a rubbish place who charges £2000 for the same, then a brilliant one who charges £1000.

fozmcfc

If all your components are that old, chances are so is the ram.

You'll need to know what ram you have to see if the motherboard supports it. You can't just shove any ram into any motherboard. Ram is dirt cheap nowadays anyway, so shouldn't influence any decision.

vyle

fozmcfc wrote: »

If all your components are that old, chances are so is the ram.

You'll need to know what ram you have to see if the motherboard supports it. You can't just shove any ram into any motherboard. Ram is dirt cheap nowadays anyway, so shouldn't influence any decision.

Noooo you misunderstand XD. I meant (in response to others saying to try and use my existing components) that I could, in theory, use the RAM, but seeing as I've got 3GB and want 12, there's no point. I'll just go with completely new components.

My current PC is an amalgamation of bits from other computers and while it's been great, I'm just gonna move on and spend out for completely new gear that's going to last me. I don't want to mess around with trying to salvage old parts from this because then I'm going to get lesser performance doing that and could run into lots of compatibility issues.

Snooze

gonzo127 wrote: »

one that i have heard good things about is cyberpower systems have not used them myself but their systems have quite good customisation

:exclamati:exclamati:exclamati

Is that from people who have actually bought stuff from there, or was it simply from reading the 189 pages of customer testimonials?

I very really nearly bought a new gaming system from them but I decided to do some research beforehand. At first glance, the testimonials all look very good and reassuring, but on closer inspection you will see that it doesn't matter which page of the 189 you look at, every single review is either 4 or 5 stars. Considering the oldest testimonial is over 4 years old, I find it extremely hard to believe that there have been NO unhappy customers in that time. :cool:

In fact evidence of this can be found in their forums where there is no end of customers with problems with their machines purchased from them. I also don't like the arrogant tone of company owner 'Luke' (aka Cyber_Tech) when he replies to customers with problems. If I'd spent £500/1000/2000 on goods from them I'd expect a damned sight better "support" than the "can you remove this/can you try doing that?" responses that other customers have got.

If that were not enough, their custom builds are not the best prices either. I managed to knock off £72 straight away by looking at a competitor, and that was only a £500-600 build (basically included W7 64-bit OS where cyberpower's build came without any OS). And then there's the shock you get when you're just about to key in your card details and discover that they want an extra £25 for shipping :eek:. A lot of competitor's include that in the price.

Another place you should be cautious of is overclockers. No personal experience with them either, but whilst they have a very good forum for support and questions, they have some shocking customer reviews on reviewcentre and dooyoo.co.uk, as does cyberpowersystems.

PCSpecialist in Holmfirth has good reviews overall, but when I compared their prices with other places they were a tad high for my liking, but comparable to CPS and a bit cheaper than OCUK.

:cool:

fozmcfc

I got a custom built system from Chillblast, couldn't find any real bad reviews/problems with the company when I did a search before buying from them.

Mesh on the other hand, I'd rather have a £200 pc, then a £2000 pc from them rogues.

closed

how do you plan using 12GB of Ram?